One Hundred Years of Solitude, Ch. 19-20

1. pernicious (page 382): highly injurious or destructive; deadly.


2. Amaranta Ursula returns from Europe with her husband, Gaston, and is determined to restore the town of Macondo. While she is there she discovers that nobody remembers their family, and also that she is falling in love with Aureliano II. With Gaston gone trying to fulfill his dream of establishing an airmail service, Amaranta Ursula finally gives in to Aureliano II and they are lovers. Meanwhile, the affair between Aureliano II and Amaranta continues even though the Buendia house is falling apart due to red ants. The two of them have a child named Aureliano III and since he is a result of incest, he is born with a pig's tail. Amaranta Ursula bleeds to death after giving birth. After her death he takes comfort in alcohol and with a prostitute, and he neglects the child to the point where it has died and he discovers the corpse is being fed on by ants. Depressed by his realization that this is the end of the Buendia's he locks himself up in the house and deciphers Melquiades' messages. He learns that it is a detailed history of the whole Buendia family and it mirrors his life as it is in that exact moment. Also in that moment, a wind stirs and rips the town away, erasing it from memory.


3. The last paragraph of the novel, the last sentence in particular was very interesting to me, "Before reaching the final line, however, he had already understood that he would never leave that room, for it was forseen 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." It is because of this last paragraph that Aureliano Babilonia realizes that because of the Buendia's and other character's choices that this is why they were condemned to solitude. He understands that because of his ancestor's decisions, he and many others will not have a second chance. Had several characters not had children as a result of incest or even attempted to make connections with others, they could possibly have had another chance at a different life. It is made especially evident in the last paragraph that the Buendia family's decisions and lack of progress is the reason behind their isolated, and solitary lives.



4. a) Because of the fact that Marquez did not intend for the title to be taken literally, makes me wonder, was I supposed to take some of the other events literally, or figuratively?

b) Was there any significance to the fact that Aureliano Babilonia (a descendant of Colonel Aureliano Buendia) was the one who deciphered Melquiades' messages?

c) Is Amaranta Ursula also unable to fall in love (not lust) due to her name which as we discussed in class is similar to "before love"?