“One Hundred Years of Solitude”

“One Hundred Years of Solitude”

Magic realism is a writing style in which mythical elements are put into a realistic story but it does not break the narrative flow; rather it helps a reader get a deeper understanding of the reality. Often time’s Latin-American writers utilize this writing technique. It has been speculated by many critics that magic realism appears most often in the literature of countries with long histories of both mythological stories and social turmoil, such as those in Central and South America. Like many Latin-American writers, Gabriel Garcia Marquez used this approach of magic realism, in his book “One Hundred Years of Solitude”, in which he reveals the history of Macondo through the seven generations of the Buendia Family. One of the themes in this story is the vicious cycle that the Buendia Family finds itself in generation after generation. Although they are all similar, as they all share the same unique experience being trapped in a cycle, there are many different cycles: the repetition of history, incest, and solitude.

And so the story begins that Macondo, was founded by Jose Arcadio Buendia and Ursula Iguaran, who left their hometown due to the mournful ghost of Prudencio Aguilar. Prudencio Aguilar was a townsman that made fun of Jose Arcadio Buendia because of rumors that after a year of marriage he had not fulfilled the duty of a husband. Jose Arcadio Buendia having decided that was last humiliation he would contend to felt forced to kill Prudencio. The outcome of this was Prudencio’s spirit lingering in the lives of Jose Arcadio Buendia and Ursula Iguaran, thus, they decided to leave. After crossing the mountains and traveling for almost two years, Jose Arcadio Buendia and his men decide to se...

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...aracters, nonetheless, that is his goal because the Buendia family is locked into a cycle of repetitions. This theme can be applied to a broader target, Latin America, in which history has repeated itself many times. The unique reality of Latin America is that it has been caught between modernity and pre-industrialism, torn by civil war, and ravaged by imperialism.

Works Cited

Magic Realism." Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Linda Pavlovski and Scott Darga. Vol. 110. Detroit: Gale Group, 2001. 80-327. Literature Criticism Online. Gale. Access paid by The UCLA Library. 4 March 2011

Gabriel García Márquez (1928-)." Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Roger Matuz, Cathy Falk, and Sean R. Pollock. Vol. 68. Detroit: Gale Research, 1992. 137-168. Literature Criticism Online. Gale.