The Magic of One Hundred Years of Solitude
The mystical town of Mocondo brings new hope, fantasy and a never ending ride for the people who live there. Jose Arcadio Buendia, the main character in Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), yearns for a life of magic and new discovery, so in his seeking he uncovers the town of Mocondo. "...A village of twenty adobe houses, built on the bank of a river of clear water that ran along a bed of polished stones, which were white and enormous, like prehistoric eggs" (1). He watches the rise and fall of his town over the period of almost one hundred years before he passes on. The town sees everything from gypsies and their startling discoveries to war and its aftermath. All of the many characters are anything but normal, ranging from having seventeen children to being born with pig-like tails. Marquez makes the reader's imagination run wild with all of the strange things that happen, with his style of writing...magical realism.
As a child, it is very easy to have an imagination and it does not seem a difficult task to envision flying carpets and men with two heads; but as a person grows older this imagination seems to pack its bags and head out the door. Although with Marquez's book, the imagination comes running back begging for more. It is hard to separate real from fantasy in his book as he melts things together so well. An excellent example takes place on page twenty-two:
...he had been born...with cartilaginous tail in the shape
of a corkscrew and with a small tuft of hair on the tip. A
pig's tail that was never allowed to be seen by any woman
and that cost him his life when a butcher friend did him the
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... happen. It did, although, not quite as quickly...the cow bore triplets two months later. This started becoming a trend for whatever kind of animal they bought, or already had. Their barn became overflowing, and it was extremely difficult to keep tabs on. This was good for them though, as they became rich from selling their livestock, without trouble.
Somehow, throughout the four hundred forty-eight pages in this book, the author keeps feeding the imagination without padding any aspects. He writes so well, that once a person starts to get caught up in the story, there is no coming back. Even if a person thinks that they are beyond help with repairing the creative side of the brain, there is hope with One Hundred Years of Solitude.
Bibliography
Marquez, Gabriel G. One Hundred Years of Solitude. Argentina: Editorial Sudamericanos, 1967.
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In A Lesson Before Dying, readers are able to see how difficult it is to live as a black man in Bayonne, Louisiana. Readers see that Grant experiences racism in many different ways. From the simple task of buying a radio to just talking to a white man, the racial bias of Bayonne is clearly present. In the novel, A Lesson Before Dying, Gaines uses the theme of change in the life of Grant to prove to readers that an individual within a system can control his own fate.
The Narrator of One Hundred Years of Solitude & nbsp;& nbsp; & nbsp; Who is this narrator of One Hundred Years of Solitude? He or she knows the whole history of the Buendias better than any of them know. But the narrator is not quite omniscient. The snare of the snare. For example, the opening sentence (quoted earlier) and Pilar's.
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Cien Anos de Soledad Style in Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude is closely linked to myth. Marquez chooses magic realism over the literal, thereby placing the novel's emphasis on the surreal. To complement this style, time in One Hundred Years of Solitude is also mythical, simultaneously incorporating circular and linear structure (McMurray 76).
"…Races condemned to 100 years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth." These powerful last words of the novel One Hundred Years of Solitude ring true. The book demonstrates through many examples that human beings cannot exist in isolation. People must be interdependent in order for the race to survive.
Throughout One Hundred Years of Solitude, the idea of a predetermined fate is accepted as natural. After all time reoccurs and sometimes seeing into the future can be as simple as remembering something in the past. In chapter 8 however a prediction of the future has an effect on it. This novel presents power throughout and this is more thoroughly exemplified in the final pages when the destruction of Maconda is brought about by Aureliano's (II)
...on, which General Petronio San Roman was a hero of. The dialogue throughout the book stays believable, even though the reports were unordinary the characters responded as if they were ordinary. Such as the narrator saying that he believed that Pedro was awake for months. It is this reality-based core with real people and places, a recognizable setting and believable conversation that enables Marquez to twist in the magical details giving this novel the genre of magical realism.