Years of Solitude." 1994. March 21, 2007
Maria R. Estorino focuses on what other scholars say about the book. All three authors believe that the book focuses in the repetition of history. History is represented in two different ways: the way the characters experience it and the method in which it develops. The characters in One Hundred Years of Solitude are stuck between the present and past. In an article by Fanny Carrion de Fierro believes that One Hundred Years of solitude time is divided into two periods which repeat. Every one in the story is focusing on discovering their past. Aurelianoi Buendia search through Melquiades room to find traces of the past but had no luck. The second cycle is a search for a Utopia. Te bringing of civilization, movie theaters, electricity, and running water marks the Utopia. The arrival of the banana company destroys Macondo. It is related to something that happened in reality. One scholar named Lois Parkinson Zamora focuses on the apocalyptic setting in the novel. She focused on the similarity between the biblical apocalypse and the destruction of Macondo. The characters are bound to the past but long for the future which causes them to forget their history. Another issue is how to create our own history with our own words. The Biennia’s past is based on what the narrator says and the work of Melquiades. The destination of Macondo is already determined and Aureliano and Melquiades are aware of this unlike the other characters. The different between the Bible and the ending of the story is that there is no birth after the destruction of Macondo.
2. Lois Simpson "Death in One Hundred Years of Solitude” March 21, 2007
Lois Simpson focuses on death in One Hundred Years of Solitude. Once death has arrived there is no stopping it. When Ursula and Jose Arcadio find Macondo they are running away from death to build a new world. When they moved to Macondo there was no cemetery but eventually death followed. Death comes in forms of solitude. The first son to Ursula, Aureliano, is the “epitome of solitude and death”. In actuality life begets death. The majority of Aureliano’s sons are assassinated at a young age. Jose Arcadio Buendia is in solitude and is hung up to an oak tree. Once death occurs he is more separated from humanity than when he was alive because when he was alive Ursula would come to talk to him at times about the family. The Buendia men are driven by inner madness to a life of solitude. Aurelliano want to be left alone when he is being praised. To Aureliano solitude is like death. He is so lost in solitude that he just wants to end it all. Violent death comes to the Arcadios rather than the Aurelianos. Every Aureliano and Arcadio has the fate of solitude.
3. Robin Florello One Hundred Years of Solitude “A family’s struggle through a tumultuous century” March 21, 2007
From the views of Robin Florello, he focuses on the sexual relationships in One Hundred Years of Solitude. In his perspective Marquez deals with the issues of the live of the Buendia family in an honest and realistic way besides the fact of their sexual lives. The book is very similar to soap-opera. One example he uses is the relationship between Ursula and Jose Arcadio Buendia. Ursula and Jose Arcadio Buendia are actually distant cousins. Ursula is afraid of incest so she wears a chastity belt so that her offspring’s will not come out having a pig tail as her cousin did. The next member of the Buendia family to carry on the tradition is Aureliano Buendia. Aureliano falls in live with a seven old girl named Remedios who is the friend of Armaranta. They don’t get married until she is nine and she has reached puberty. Aureliano doesn’t have desire for women of his own age but a little girl. This situation in today’s society is considered rape. The next Buendia is Jose Arcadio who happens to come back from his stay with the gypsies and falls in love with Rebecca who was raised by his parents. Rebecca was dating Petra Costes and were soon to be married. She sleeps with Jose Arcadio before she marries him. The quote that he uses to portray how Rebecca feels when she first sees Jose Arcadio is “Only Rebecca succumbed to the first the impact, the day she saw him pass by her room she though Petra Costes was a sugary dandy next to that protomale whose volcanic breathing could be heard all over the house…….” <> Armaranta struggles to find a relationship. She also is in love with Petra Costes and will do anything to stop him and Rebecca from marrying. When Rebecca leaves him, he falls in love with Armaranta. Armaranta can’t get over the bitterness that she has towards Rebecca and refuses to let any one love her. Armaranta also has a strange sexual relationship with her nephew Aureliano Jose Segundo. Aureliano leaves the army because he loves Armaranta and wants to marry her. At first they sleep together but she soon bars her door so that he may not enter at night. The next man that fell in love with her was General Gerinaldo Marquez who treated like the women she is. She eventually turns him down and can’t destroy whatever is blocking her from loving.
