Reflective Journal 3

"Colonel Aureliano was a shadow. Since the lat time that he had gone out into the street to propose a war without any future to Colonel Gerinaldo Marquez, he left the workshop only to urinate under the chestnut tree. He did not receive any visits except that of the barber every three weeks. He fed on anything that Ursula brought him once a day, and even though he kept on making little gold fishes with the ame passion as before, he stopped selling them when he found out that people were buying them not as pieces of jewelry but as historic relics. He made a bonfire in the courtyard of the dolls of Remedios which had decorated their bedroom since their wedding. The watchful Ursula realized what her son was doing but she could not stop him." pg. 277

The passage that I chose talks about how depressed Colonel Aureliano Buendia is. Since the major theme of the book is solitude, personally i believe that Colonel Aureliano Buendia solitude is deeper than the rest of the family. I believe this because he would only talk to Jose Arcadio. He died standing on the side of the chestnut tree after urinating. He hated the new industrialized Macondo. He wanted to protect the town that his mother and father found and created. No one seemed to understand him at all. No one really cared about his motives and feelings except Ursula his mother. I also believed that he was a very lucky man considering the fact that he had premonitions and that he had escaped his death on many occasions. Personally I believe that solitude is a waste of time. There will be ups and downs in everyones life but no one should ever dwell on the bad things then they might know what it means to be happy.