Aureliano Babilonia's Capacity For Love

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Regardless of these numerous similarities, these two characters depart on one significant aspect, mirroring the theme in One Hundred Years of Solitude of repetition with a difference. Near the end of the revolution, Úrsula realizes that Colonel Aureliano Buendía is incapable of love. This contrasts Aureliano Babilonia’s strong capacity for love. Despite his habits of solitude and lack of human interaction as an infant, Aureliano Babilonia’s love develops into something magnificent. García Márquez first mentions Aureliano Babilonia’s love for another after José Arcadio’s death; the two had developed a friendship, and it was only after José Arcadio’s death that “he understood how much he had begun to love him” (375). This demonstrates Aureliano …show more content…

In the novel, “Babilonia” likely acts as a reference to the Tower of Babel found in the Old Testament of the Bible. In this story, a tower is erected in an attempt to reach the heavens, but God destroys the tower and scatters the people across the world, separating them further with the barrier of different languages. This connection to language is particularly relevant for Aureliano Babilonia as, at the close of the novel, he deciphers Melquíades’ parchments and reads the events of the Buendía generations, eventually skipping to the exact moment in time in which he reads the parchments and Macondo is destroyed by a mighty wind. Hence, Aureliano Babilonia acts as a translator of the prophecies. In addition, the story of the Tower of Babel has elements of both destruction and creation, as the tower is destroyed, but new communities and traditions are created. The same can be suggested for Aureliano Buendía and Macondo. Though the town of Macondo and the Buendía family are finally destroyed, there is still the promise of other civilizations out there, speaking in different tongues, with their own traditions and repetitions. Accordingly, García Márquez implies the power of reading and languages, and their contrasting destructive and creative powers or

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