One Hundred Years of Solitude, Ch. 13-14

1. languid (page 245): drooping or flagging from or as if from exhaustion; weak.


2. This chapter begins with Ursula noticing that she is growing much older and time is passing very quickly, she continues to obsess over Aureliano Segundo's son becoming the pope. When he and his sister leave the house it becomes emptier and Fernanda takes even more control over the Buendia household. Aureliano Segundo then moves in with his lover Petra Cotes except when his daughter comes home from school, then he decides that he needs to be a father. Jose Arcadio Segundo reappears to talk with Colonel Aureliano Buendia, who has given up making fish, which used to be one of his favorite things to do, and eventually he dies. In chapter fourteen, Fernanda and Aureliano Segundo have another child named Amaranta Ursula. The elder Amaranta has a premonition of her own death and announces it to the town. She also offers to deliver letters from the people of the town to their dead loved ones, and as she predicted she dies. After this death, Ursula goes to her bed and does not leave it, however, there she establishes a relationship with Amaranta Ursula. Meme, the oldest daughter of Fernanda and Aureliano Segundo creates a bond with her father over a mutual dislike of Fernanda. Meme becomes friends with American girls and learns a little bit of English, around the same time she meets and falls in love with Mauricio Babilonia who is always followed by yellow butterflies. Fernanda catches the two of them kissing and keeps Meme locked in the house, but when she finds out that he has been sneaking in she has a man guard the house who eventually catches him and shoots him so he is paralyzed forever.


3. The political or social path, or lack of, that Macondo has taken I feel is very important to the novel as a whole. Whenever a political or social advancement is made in the town of Macondo, the characters resist the change. For example, when the magistrate comes to the town and tries to dictate what color the houses must be painted, the characters run him out of town. When the Wandering Jew appears in the streets of Macondo, the people in the town are scared of him and try to avoid him at all costs. Politically speaking, the town has again failed to move forward when the Liberal party is unable to win the war and Colonel Aureliano Buendia has to convince his men to stop fighting. He realizes that they are simply fighting for pride, and nothing else. Overall, Macondo does not make much of a path over time as they resist all political and social changes that take place in Macondo.





4. a) In this section the color yellow appears when it is said that Mauricio Babilonia is always followed by yellow butterflies. However, the color appears many times in the novel, is what is the symbolism behind this?

b) What is the importance of premonitions in this novel, such as the one that Amaranta has in this section about her own death?

c) Is Marquez intending to make a point about women by the types of female characters he chooses, such as how controlling Fernanda is in these chapters?