Sunday, March 18, 2007

Cien Años de Soledad: Entry 3

As the story develops, time continues to pass by quickly and marriages, births and deaths continue to occur frequently.

I definitely like Ursula’s character in the novel because I feel she has strength which many others do not possess. For example, she has been blind since the birth of her son and she has not let this interfere with her life, enabling it to go unnoticed by using scents, shadows and her memory to guide her. Also, throughout all this time, she appears to be more together than most of the family members as she is still able to keep the house in order and take care of others while appearing rather mentally composed.

Solitude seems to constantly come up often as the family members suffer from this in their own way. Amaranta closes herself off from others as she foresees her own death and leads a solitary life while Colonel Aureliano Buendia realizes his solitude will watching the circus passing by the house. Not only do the characters suffer individually, but also as a collective group; for example, it says “solo despues de la muerte de Amaranta, cuando la familia volvio a encerrarse por un tiempo en la luto….” On the positive, Aureliano Segundo was able to cure his solitude by caring for his daughter and having a role in her life.

Not only is there a continued destruction of the family, but of the town, which demise is inevitable.

4 comments:

Gonzalo Calvo said...

it was strage found your spanish literature blog... and wrote by a "gringo"

good work... and you read the books in spanish?

(sorry for my bad english)

jnaslund said...

I agree with you Stacey, that Ursula is the only respectable character in this novel. She works hard and shows that she is a very strong person. All the other characters, whether male or female, are not as remarkable as Ursula. For instance, virtually all the male charaters are either crazy lunatics (Jose Arcadio Buendia, Pietro Crespi) or violent barbarians (Colonel Aureliano Buendia, Jose Arcadio, Arcadio, Gerineldo Marquez), and nearly all the other female characters are severly distressed (Amaranta, Rebeca) or whores in 'la tienda de Catarino' (Sofia, Pilar Ternera).

Stef Hong said...

Hey Stacey,
I was surprised that you liked Ursula the most. I personally didn't like her TOO much.. she was a little too power hungry / dictator-y to me, but the character I liked the most was probably Remedios because she seemed like a genuinely sweet girl, and I was sad when she died. Nonetheless, I agree with what you said about the recurring instances of solitude, which are especially evident in Jose Arcadio Buendia's insanity. He seems to be physically (tied outside his own house, away from his family) and emotionally alone (only seems to have a connection with the dead Prudencio Aguilar).

Unknown said...

Estoy de acuerdo contigo en que a medida que pasan las paginas y el tiempo muchas acontecimientos pasan en el libro. Garcia Marquez se caracteriza por ser un escritos que mantiene ocupado al lector. Al mismo tiempo estoy de acuerdo en que todos los personajes experimentan una soledad en su propia forma.