One Hundred Years Of Solitude: Solitude And Solitary

Based on what I read from One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, I noticed that he uses the expression of solitude in almost every chapter. Even though some chapters show more solitary feelings than others it comes to the conclusion that this story might be related to what actually goes on in his personal life and in his country. Since Gabriel Marques was a committed Leftist, he always wanted justice and equal rights for the Latin Americans and Hispanic people. During his time, a lot of the Latin people faced difficulties with their countries, most Latin countries had a strict government or some communist people in power and in those times, there were some dictators governing the countries without the opinion or concerns of their people and he always believed that the government separated the people with their country, making people confuse and lost and others were misunderstood and especially if there was no social changes or political changes. Some people face solitude in their childhood or when growing up and if you live in a country where the government does not listen to their people or if you live with a difficult family it is more likely that you will feel alone depending on how you express it and cope with the feeling. According to Wikipedia and Good Reads it stated that Gabriel Garcia Marquez Nobel Prize acceptance speech he said: 'The interpretation of our reality through patterns not our own, serves only to make us ever more unknown, ever less free, ever more solitary.” which leads to the first question, 'What is García Márquez trying to say about the nature of man?” My answer is that I believe that Garcia G. Marquez was trying to tell the world that “Solitude” is moment of feeling alone and us humans we will always have a time in our life where we might go through something painful and feel alone and in most cases he believes that it is a feeling we all go through and for some people it might affect others deeply. While reading One Hundred Years of Solitude, I believe that Gabriel Garcia Marquez was expressing his feelings and thoughts through his characters in the book based on the town Macondo, where the magic of realism reaches the characters and with the political changes in the town and with the wars it brings a time of solitude that affects the characters in their own time.

Furthermore, I believe Gabriel Marquez used the town of Macondo to relate the solitude and the political complications that were going on in his home town of Aracataca. From my point of view, I believe that almost every character in the book faces a time of solitude but not like the main characters like Colonel Aureliano Buendia and Ursula Iguaran and even the twins on chapter ten. The second question is “Discuss why the members of the Buendía family are so alone.” And in my case, Colonel Aureliano has always been an independent person. But when his town was in danger, he stepped in like a leader. After the war, he was captured by the firing squad and became a prisoner. In his cell, he only had his poetry which helped write down the way he was feeling, and in his poetry, it expressed his emotions and feelings towards what was going on in his personal life. The support of his family waiting to find a way to free him was probably the only thing he had and after his brother saved him Aureliano was faced with reality and the injustice that occurred while he was trying to save his best friend Colonel Gerineldo Marquez on page 130. Most of the people did not understand him and when he joined the revolution in chapter seven through eight, Aureliano got trapped down in a road of confusion for what was he really fighting for, knowing that he did not live a life with full of love and peace which it was stated that Aureliano said, “Lost in the solitude of his immense power he began to lose direction”.

In addition, Ursula Iguaran has been one of the strongest family members, not only has she lived up to see her great-grandchildren, but she also tries to keep the family together. I believe that Ursula and Aureliano are more alike in the sense that people do not understand them, they are wise individuals who processed every decision that can affect the town and with their strong intuition and the magic of realism they are mostly alone. Ursula has seen the downfall and the loss of her family and with the pain, she keeps to herself she manages to wake up and continue with her life to make sure that her family protects the town of Macondo.

The newest members of the solitude team would be the twins in chapter ten. Jose Arcadio Segundo and Aureliano Segundo, even though they were identical twins when they were little they grew apart as they got older. And in the first couple of years when they started to go to school they would change clothes and bracelets to confuse the teachers and everyone else and on page 182, Ursula noticed their confusion game and she stated, “From then on he was never sure who was who. Even when they grew up and life made them different, Ursula still wondered if they themselves might not have made a mistake in some moment of their intricate game of confusion and had become changed forever.” As they both got older Aureliano Segundo was always reading Melquiades books until one-night Aureliano saw Melquiades come to the room and told him about the manuscripts and it was stated that he told him, “No one must know their meaning until he has reached one hundred years of age.” (Garcia Marquez, 184). After a couple of years, the twins got more separated than ever and each of them was faced with difficulties, but they only had one thing in common and it was that they shared the same mistress and her name was Petra Cotes. Aureliano Segundo decided to go a different route than his brother and he ended up investing in land and breeding animals but Aureliano was faced with success by the use of black magic, while Jose Arcadio was attending his communion and learning information with Father Antonio Isabel on page 187. Each of them was different and in one case their names did not match their personality and only Ursula tried to warn them and helped but it seemed that it was a little too late because Aureliano Segundo was driven by the fame, money, and ego.

In conclusion, I believe that Gabriel Garcia Marquez had a passion for what the human nature brought and even though everyone has a different life, we can all come together and say that we share one common thing and that is the feeling of solitude.

Works Cited

• Garcia Marquez, Gabriel, and Gregory Rabassa. One Hundred Years of Solitude. Harper & Row, Publishers, New York, 1970.
• “A Quote by Gabriel García Márquez.” Goodreads, Goodreads, www.goodreads.com/quotes/57804-the-interpretation-of-our-reality-through-patterns-not-our-own.