Randall Webster

Latin America

Book Essay

One Hundred Years of Solitude

Before reaching the end of the line, however, he had already understood that he would never

leave that room, for it was foreseen that the city of mirrors (or mirages) would be wiped out by the

wind and exiled from the memory of men at the precise moment when Aureliano Babilonia would

finish deciphering the parchments, and that everything written on them was unrepeatable since time

immemorial and forever more, because races condemned to one hundred years of solitude did not have

a second opportunity on earth. Destruction by it's own past is, by far, the most fitting end to the

patriarch of Jose Arcadio Buendia. The once isolated town of Macondo someone manages to progress

while, at the same time, stagnate. The technology, people, and ideas change but, due to their inability to

properly see their past, it is as if they are walking on a treadmill tricked into believing notions of

progress. While the outside world seems to steadily change the harsh repetition of history within the

family proves to be inescapable even in the solitude of egotism.

The nature of how the passing of time is weaved into the story shows both the authors intent of

providing a multitude of narratives for Latin America and his bias towards viewing the history of Latin

America as a tale of inescapable progress that passes by those who do no adapt. The family, for a

majority of the the story, could be seen as a representation of the social and political hierarchies that

Latin American society was born into. The early settlement is imperfect and almost romanticized but

the change brought by modernization. The same trend proves to be the undoing of the Bundias as their

success as a family is very much tied to the structure of their past world. In a sense, they cease to be

rewarded for their immoral behavior.

The family's loss of favor does not imply that the world becomes a better place over the course
of the novel however. Just that the methods of gaining wealth, prestige, and power have changed

around them. This is seen in the banana plantation which soon holds more power over Macondo than

the patriarch did at its peak. The old is replaced with the new, magic carpets with trains, a system of

kinship with capitalism, Ursula with Fernanda, a Conservative occupation with that of a Bannana

Plantation. Again, time manages to both march forwards and not move at all as the ills of Macondo's

residence are rehashed with new wrappings.

Many times throughout the novel the citizens of Macondo forget. This loss of history, though

sometimes temporary, has drastically differing effects based on the circumstances. In the beginning of

the novel their history is everything, without it they cannot function. This represents the past Macondo

in which tradition and magic were the rules of the game as it where. Later on the loss of history is again

shown as the memory of the striker massacrer is lost. History, then, takes on the same meaning as it had

before. Now, however, it is not in the interests of the world to give the people of Macondo a voice or

identity. For now those things stand in the way of progress.

The end, as first mentioned, sums up the novel best. We are left in is a Macondo which, almost

out of necessity, has know knowledge of its past, Aureliano who s doing his best to hold onto what's

left to know, and Ursala who is. at this point, representing the vitality of Macondo. The reader left

wondering if the history Aureliano knows is accurate, let alone true. It is at this point where the real

discussion of history ferments. What role does history play in our lives? So far we have seen it be used

give identity, to pacify a population, and now to try and grasp at understanding the present. For those

purposes, does it matter what is true? History, for novel at least, is about a narrative. There is no one

narrative in this novel, and neither is their a correct one. If knowledge of the past is influencing

Aureliano then, when attempting to understand his character, it matters more what he thinks happened

the day his town went to strike than what actually occurred.