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Collette McCurdy

Rachel Angeles

Humanities III Honors

11 June 2020

The Family That Lived Long, But Did Not Prosper

The phrase “history repeats itself” has been echoed by individuals across the globe for

centuries as a way to illustrate the predictability of human beings, the uncanny recurrence of

historical events, and as a warning to those who refuse to learn from their previous mistakes. In

the Buendía Family, however, the saying holds an even greater weight. ​One Hundred Years Of

Solitude​, written by Gabriel García ​Márquez,​ follows the seven generations of the Buendía

family as they struggle through war, loss, illicit romance, death, disastrous storms, and a

generational timeline that eerily traps each family member into adopting the flawed personalities

of their ancestors. By fabricating a story filled with individualistic characters, rich, metaphorical

themes, and magical realism, Gabriel García ​Márquez crafts an enchanting, thought-provoking,

and elegantly written tale that flawlessly captures the concept of elitism that is so blatantly

apparent in both Latin America’s political history and the world today.

While the seemingly infinite cast of characters presented in this novel may at first come

across as intimidating, one will discover upon reading that the tale consists of a mere few family

members that are repeatedly reincarnated into their offspring. The recurrent usage of the names

“José Arcadio,” “Remedios,” and “Aureliano” is no mistake​—with every similar name comes a

similar personality, forcing each character to relive the tragedies of their past selves.​ As

described in the novel, “The history of the family was a machine with unavoidable repetitions, a
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turning wheel that would have gone on spilling into eternity were it not for the progressive and

irremediable wearing of the axle” (396). This message ​fuels the notion that a human being’s

refusal to learn from history is what ultimately leads to their demise. Every Aureliano—from the

first Colonel Aureliano Buendía to the final Aureliano Babilonia—is a pensive, silent, and

emotionally charged intellectual who spends his life writing, crafting, and deciphering

parchments. The Arcadios of the family each take on a patriarchal role, leading their lives with

boisterous impulse and investing their time into uninhibited pursuits that leave their family

behind. Both Remedios Moscote and Remedios the Beauty hold looks beyond comparison, yet

the youngest Remedios does not learn from history and unintentionally ends the lives of various

men who are enthralled by her alluring features.​ ​The story ends the same way it began​—​two

members of the same family fall in love with one another and produce a child with a tail of a pig.

Seven generations of repeated mistakes never taught the characters right from wrong​—​every

Buendía is so caught up in their own lives that they forget to learn from the deeply flawed history

of those who came before them.

The fluidity of time is a theme in the novel that connects not only to the repetition of

character traits and names, but also to the overall arc of the family, repeating the concept of

solitude to enforce the claim that each family member is too caught up in their own life to care

about those around them. As the story unfolds, it is clear that the isolation the Buendía family

brings upon themselves serves as nothing more than a barrier, preventing them from finding true

love and happiness. The Aurelianos continue to close themselves off from the rest of the world

as they pursue their own creative interests, Aureliano Segundo marries Fernanda del Carpio for

her beauty and reputation despite the fact that he loves another woman, and Meme is silenced
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and sent away to a convent as a punishment for falling in love with a lowly mechanic. Near the

end of the novel, the sole member of the seventh generation is born. As described by M​árquez,

“Through her tears Amaranta Úrsula could see that he was one of those great Buendías, strong

and willful like the José Arcadios, with the open and clairvoyant eyes of the Aurelianos, and

predisposed to begin the race again from the beginning and cleanse it of its pernicious vices and

solitary calling, for he was the only one in a century who had been engendered with love”

(411-412). Aureliano’s parents truly love one another​—Amaranta ​Úrsula gives up a life of

wealth and prestige with her husband Gastón to instead pursue a life of pure happiness with

Aureliano Babilonia, even when it is wrong​. ​It is this quote that causes the reader to understand

that the sense of elitism felt by young Aureliano’s ancestors did not make them superior to others

or even happier​—​it simply caught them in a cyclical manner of time, leading each coming

generation to cause more destruction than the last, every family member too blind to understand

that love was the only way to break the constant state of solitude.

Magical realism is a literary device applied to further develop the concept of elitism that

is so intricately woven into the tale​—the fantastical tone fuels the idea that the members of the

Buendía family are not quite human, and the magical qualities possessed by each character

enhance the story, suggesting that because of their isolation from the rest of the world, they are

perhaps greater than human. Examples of this fantastical tone and the supernatural qualities held

by each generation are present throughout the novel—children who are products of incest are

born with the tail of a pig, Mauricio Babilonia (Meme’s love interest) has a trail of yellow

butterflies that follow him wherever he goes, and a great wind destroys the town of Macondo the

second Aureliano Babilonia finishes translating the parchments of Meliquades. Remedios the
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Beauty is another character that remains mystical, distant, and nearly phantom-like—she ends

her life simply by floating away in a majestic manner, as if she had been too wise for this world

all along. As illustrated in the novel, “​She watched Remedios the Beauty waving good-bye in the

midst of the flapping sheets that rose up with her, abandoning with her the environment of

beetles and dahlias and passing through the air with her as four o’clock in the afternoon came to

an end, and they were lost forever with her in the upper atmosphere where not even the

highest-flying birds of memory could reach her” (pg. 173). Along with many other descriptions

of the Buend​ía household, this quote connects to the original founding of Macondo, allowing the

concepts of wealth and solitude to link together as one. Macondo is a small town very shielded

from the rest of the world, and as the Buendías grow more wealthy at the beginning of the novel,

they too separate themselves from the rest of civilization. The usage of magical realism provides

a metaphor for their distance from humanity, and as the family grows wealthier, they grow to be

less human as well, suggesting that wealth is what leads to their separation from the rest of the

world. Near the end of the novel, however, as Macondo suffers from a four-year rainfall, the

final line of the Buendía family finds happiness, as they are no longer trapped in a state of

solitude or blinded by their wealth. This idea also connects to the political history of Latin

America during author Gabriel ​García ​Márquez’s lifetime, specifically the Cuban Revolution

(Márquez was a friend of Fidel Castro). The novel offers a critique of those with money and

power, reminding the world that wealth separates us from humanity and allows us to easily

ignore the challenges faced by those who are less fortunate.

Upon reading this literary masterpiece, one feels a greater sense of understanding for

what it truly means to be human, and by noticing the parallels between each repeating
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generation, connecting to the overarching themes of solitude and the fluidity of time, and by

identifying the mystical qualities of each Buend​ía, can recognize that rather than leading to

success and happiness, elitism causes nothing but more solitude. The historical ties to this novel

as well as the final heartfelt romance between two people who no longer have to worry about

prestige emphasize​ that togetherness is what truly connects us to one another, not money or

status. M​árquez’s criticism of the political history he grew up experiencing is still quite relevant

today, and this novel brings to light the significance of learning from the past to make the future

a better place.
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Works Cited

Márquez Gabriel García. One Hundred Years of Solitude.​ Harper Perennial, 2006.

Panichelli-Batalla, Stéphanie. “When Garcia Marquez Met Castro: There Was an Instant

Connection.” ​The Independent​, Independent Digital News and Media, 15 Dec. 2016,

17:45,

www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/fidel-castro-gabriel-garcia-ma

rquez-a7474596.html.