Studies of psychology have shown that individuals’ personalities are shaped by both “nature” and “nurture”. Their genetics, or “nature”, determine their mental states by deciding their psychological make-up, the “supplies” that they’re born with. How they were raised and their surroundings, or “nurture”, cause the individuals to act in certain ways using their “supplies”. This is shown in One Hundred Years of Solitude, a book written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The book is about the Buendia family that lives in the town of Macondo. The family is full of unique members with varied motives and quirks. However, it’s evident that their hometown, Macondo, and its surroundings played roles in affecting all of the characters’ mentalities. Throughout the novel, it’s shown that the cultural, physical, and geological surroundings of Macondo shaped the Buendias into solitary, immoral people who couldn’t cope with their emotions.
The cultural surroundings of Macondo, specifically the Buendia household, caused the Buendias to become solitary people. In One Hundred Years of Solitude, the Buendias tended to reside together in one house. Since members of every generation lived in the house, the family’s culture was passed down through the generations, taught by the older residents of the house to the younger people. The family’s way of life was one of solitude. Jose Arcadio Buendia, the patriarch, frequently worked in his laboratory when his children were young. Ignoring his children, he focused completely on his experiments. Eventually, his son, Aureliano Buendia, picked up this behavior and started working alongside his father in the lab. However, “[Aureliano] seemed to be…in some other time while his father [worked] in the workshop, which [th...
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...l pain because of her phobia, similar to how the citizens of Macondo were incapable of breaking away from the town because of geological obstacles. Thus, the geological surroundings of Macondo affected the Buendias by making them incapable of getting past their emotional turmoil.
Showing that Macondo heavily influenced the Buendia family’s outlook on life, Gabriel Garcia Marquez demonstrates that where one lives heavily influences what one’s psychological condition will be like. That being said, the Buendias had clear mental and emotional issues, and living in Macondo encouraged some of these problems to grow into significant problems. This shows that sinful behaviors can be promoted by horrible living situations. Thus, wouldn’t improving the quality of our environments decrease crime and solve other social troubles? Perhaps we should look into fixing up our homes.
Fahrenheit 451 & nbsp; Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury is a novel about the descent into super-individualism through mass governmental brainwashing. The book begins while the main character, Guy Montag, is burning a house to conceal contraband literature. It portraits the pleasure he derives from this act of mindless destruction. After this work though, an eccentric neighbor girl who does not fit the status quo confronts him. She begins to ask him questions that force him to think about things he has taken for granted before.
Monsters under the bed, drowning, and property damage are topics many people have nightmares about; nightmares about a dystopian future, on the other hand, are less common. Despite this, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and George Orwell’s 1984 display a nightmarish vision about a dystopian society in the near future. Fahrenheit 451 tells of Guy Montag’s experience in a society where books have become illegal and the population has become addicted to television. Meanwhile, 1984 deals with Winston Smith’s affairs in Oceania, a state controlled by the totalitarian regime known as the Party. This regime is supposedly headed by a man named Big Brother. By examining the dehumanized settings, as well as the themes of individuality and manipulation, it becomes clear that novels successfully warn of a nightmarish future.
The Old Gringo is a fiction novel written by one of Latin America's most renowned and eloquent authors, Carlos Fuentes. Filled with war, adventure, love and more, this novel takes you back to the Mexican revolution fought in 1912. This contemporary fiction is based on many themes found and experienced by the main characters in this novel. The relationship between Mexico and the United States, the drive to find one's true self and the different ways two men need a woman are only a few themes contained in this story. The question: Is he Ambrose Bierce or just an old gringo, is one that I had to answer while reading this book. We all have different opinions, but it is a question that all ask themselves while reading The Old Gringo.
Yunior’s fathers only concern was obtaining the “American Dream” job security, financial stability, and owning his own home. Yunior’s childhood memory of his father are vague; they have no bond or connection, to Yunior he’s just a stranger. “ He’d come to our home house in Santo Domingo in a busted up taxi and the gifts he had brought us were small things-toys guns and tops-that we were too old for, that we broke right away.” (Diaz, 129). For a young man growing up without a father figure has a profound effect on them that lasts way into manhood. “Boys need a father figure to learn how to be a man, without having this influence in their lives, boys are at risk of growing into men who have problems with behaviors, emotional stability, and relationships with both significant others and their own children.”
The short story ‘‘Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas’’ by Ursula Le Guin describes a utopian society based on the suffering and mistreatment of an unfortunate child. Omelas reflects contemporary North American society, in its claim to being an idyllic society built on the foundation of pain, which is discussed, firstly by an analysis of Omelas and the child, then a contrast analysis of contemporary North American society and the third world sweatshop workers and finally by the perspective of both society regarding the irony of situation which shows that there is no such thing called utopia.
Wood, Michael. "Review of One Hundred Years of Solitude." In Critical Essays on Gabriel Garcia Marquez. McMurray, George R., ed. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1987.
The founder of Macondo, Jose Arcadio Buendia, is the first great solitary. He becomes so obsessed with his own search for truth that he neglects his family and ultimately loses all touch with outer reality. His wife, Ursula, is perhaps the greatest of the antisolitary figures, the person who more than anyone else holds the family and the house together. She takes in a foster child and later insists on rearing the bastard children of her sons and grandsons. Her whole life is devoted to strengthening social bonds.
The story of “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” was initially written in 1955 and characterized in a style called “magical realism.” This style is also related with its author, Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Magical realism integrates real everyday details with features of fantasy. It is done in such a way that it can disguise the difference between reality and fiction. This style, often associated with South American authors, differs from typical fairy tales and folk legends because stories of magic realism lead to no clear morals. Magical realism does not “invent new order of things but simply [reorder] reality,” (Wechsler 293). These stories provide meticulous examples of a world with magical prospects but often leave the reader probing for its meaning. “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” is certainly that story. Even though the plot is mainly about a winged man who has fallen from the Heavens, the highlighting subject to this story is the people’s negative nature which conflicts their lack of ability to be grateful for a miracle.
Solitude. Examples are found of this idea throughout the one-hundred-year life of Macondo and the Buendia family. It is both an emotional and physical solitude. It is shown geographically, romantically, and individually. It always seems to be the intent of the characters to remain alone, but they have no control over it. To be alone, and forgotten, is their destiny.
The novel, Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other (2011) written by Sherry Turkle, presents many controversial views, and demonstrating numerous examples of how technology is replacing complex pieces and relationships in our life. The book is slightly divided into two parts with the first focused on social robots and their relationships with people. The second half is much different, focusing on the online world and it’s presence in society. Overall, Turkle makes many personally agreeable and disagreeable points in the book that bring it together as a whole.
In “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez a perfect example of confinement is the Angel. Confinement can be when someone is either emotional or physically trapped in some sort of way. The Angel was said to be “a very old man, lying face in the mud” when he introduced in the story. The people who found him (Pelayo and Elisenda) said his wings were as if they “a huge buzzard wings, dirty and half-plucked that were forever entangled in the mud” (Marquez). Which made it easy for them to drag the Angel and confine him in a chicken coop. Once captured they noticed that his “feathers had been mistreated by terrestrial winds” (Marquez). Since the Angel’s wings were severely damaged it was nearly impossible for him to escape, because he was not able to fly away. All of the Angel’s physical qualities gave Pelayo and Elisenda an advantage to hold him captive for as long as he was vulnerable.
In our book, In Search of Respect, Bourgois describes the lives of many people living in El Barrio, as well as the constant debate as to whether structure or agency is keeping them in these harsh conditions. Structure can be defined as the “set up” of a particular community. For example, a community may have all of their businesses on one side of town and the parks on the other. This is the structure of the community; the way it is organized. Agency can be defined as a person’s own mindset on things, or even one’s own will to do something. For example, an athlete and an overweight person have different types of agency. The athlete feels that he can overcome boundaries, while the overweight person may blame society for his weight problem.
Utopia as a text is a clear reflection and representation of More’s passion for ideas and art. Through the character of Raphael, More projects and presents his ideas, concepts and beliefs of politics and society. More’s Utopia aims to create a statement on the operations and effectiveness of the society of England. This text is a general reflection of More’s idea of a perfectly balanced and harmonious society. His ideas and concepts of society somewhat contrast to the rest of 16th century England and indicate a mind that was far ahead of its time. A number of issues and themes are raised throughout the text to which More provides varying views and opinions. These are transmitted and projected through the perspectives of the fictional Raphael, More and Giles.
In Isabel Allende’s short story The Judge’s Wife, she conveys the theme of being raised in an unhealthy environment has a similar negative affect on your adulthood. In The Judge’s Wife, the main character Nicolás Vidal lives a voluntarily isolated life that results in him leading a lonely existence. His mother tried her hardest to make up for their unfortunate situations. She gave him a strong name to give him purpose, however, Allende writes, “Even that princely appellation had not been enough to exorcise the fatal omens”. The name does give Nicolás Vidal some sense of caring though, proof that at least one woman Nicolás Vidal remembers his childhood as one with “not a single happy memory”(187).Melancholy beginnings transitioned Nicolás
There are times when surreal is so naturally expressed that it becomes real. In One Hundred Years of Solitude, Garcia Marquez perfectly combines extraordinary events with everyday life. The magic realism in Marquez’s novel transforms the extraordinary into reality by the use of religion, myth and belief systems. Although these themes make the novel magical, the story is a representation of the reality of Latin America before industrialism with a Civil War going on and the reactions of the people to modernization. The novel also clearly expresses how magic and religion overcome the realities of life – magic becomes more real than reality itself.