One Hundred Years of Solitude, Ch. 1-2

1. tenuous (page 11): having little substance or strength, flimsy or weak.





2. This novel begins with a flashback of Aureliano Buendia. Jose Arcadio Buendia, the founder of the town Macondo is obsessed with the "magical" items that a gypsy named Melquiades would sell him. He squanders his money, and his wife Ursula becomes angry. Again prompted by the gypsy, he decides to explore alchemy which leads him into a life of solitude working in his lab all day. Soon, however, he desires to make contact with civilization and leads an expedition in which he concludes that Macondo is surrounded by water and cannot be reached by others. Jose wishes to move the village to a place that can be reached by other civilizations, but his wife stops him. Gypsies bring word of Melquiades' death, but they then decide to show him ice, which he is fascinated by. In the second chapter, it moves even farther back in time to when Jose and Ursula were first married, and afraid to consummate their marriage as children who are born as a result of incest are likely to have birth defects such as a pig's tail, like some of their relatives who were also born as a result of incest. When another man in the village makes fun of Jose, he kills him and because of this he feels guilty and leaves his home to then go on and establish Macondo. When the gypsies show Jose Arcadio Buendia the ice, he remembers a dream that he had that Macondo was a city built will reflective walls, he took this to be ice. Meanwhile, his son impregnates a woman named Pilar Ternera, and he leaves her before the baby is born to be with a gypsy.

3. I find Marquez's style of magical realism to be very interesting. For example, when the discovery of ice is made it is treated by the characters in the book to be something fantastic, even though it is something ordinary. This is exhibited again when Jose Arcadio Buendia becomes fascinated by the objects that the gypsies bring to Macondo he believes that they are magical although they are just regular items and they are not capable of the things Jose thinks they are. Is there a purpose to this style of writing? Is it to show the power of memory, or what somebody believes something is as compared to history or what it might actually be?

4. a) What is the significance, if any, of the repition of names?

b) Why does Jose have a dream that the town is built within walls of ice? What is the importance of this?

c) Is there a deeper meaning behind the incest that takes place, other than to show that the characters are incapable of making connections with others?