Sula 3

1. Fastidious: 1 archaic : scornful
2 a : having high and often capricious standards : difficult to please b : showing or demanding excessive delicacy or care c : reflecting a meticulous, sensitive, or demanding attitude
3 : having complex nutritional requirements
-Merriam-Webster Online

P 167: "She had neither iron nor clothes but did not stop her fastidious lining up of pleats or pressing out of wrinkles even when she acknowledged Nel's greeting."


2. In the final section of the novel, 1965, Nel reminisces on the past and the changes she has witnessed. Bottom has gone from being an all-black, community-based town to an integrated city spanning to the valley with isolated households. She marvels at the change from beautiful black boys and lively, vivacious prostitutes to dull men and shameful, unhappy whores. She visits Circle Number 5, an old-folks home, and thinks about the differences between whites and blacks regarding family and old age. While whites put their relatives in homes with what seems like no consideration whatsoever, it takes absolute turmoil to cause a black family to let go of a loved one. Nel spent the years after Sula's death raising her children alone. She visits Eva, who is ironing invisible clothing in a mad fashion. Eva condemns Nel for the death of Chicken Little, blaming her and seeming to see no difference between Sula and Nel. Nel reflects on the child's death, remembering her cold demeanor and the tranquility she felt watching him slip into the river. Shamed, she visit the cemetary to see Sula and Sula's family's graves. As she's leaving, she runs into Shadrack, who has trouble recognizing her. Nel is hit with a sudden burst of compassion and sorrow for her lost friend and cries out in grief that it was Sula she was missing all along, not Jude. "It was a fine cry - loud and long - but it had no bottom and ithad no top, just circles and circles of sorrow."


3. Once again, we see community appear as a theme in one of our in-class novels. After Sula's death, the community of the Bottom gradually unravels. As black folks begin to mingle with white folks, gaining better paying jobs and moving closer to the valley that they have so longed to live in, they become more isolated from one another. Gone are the days of porch-sitting and gossiping, replaced with wealthier, solitude-based households. Nel's visit to Eva was both enlightening and sad. The older woman, who for so much of the novel was so powerful and emotionally strong, has slipped mentally into senility. She believes herself to be ironing with invisible tools and clothes, and she offers Nel oranges. However, she is just as alert as ever in some senses. Although she confuses Nel and Sula as one person, she knows about Chicken Little. The book never mentions Nel or Sula telling Eva, so how she knows is unclear. However, she is definitely aware of the events that took place by the river, and she confronts Nel about her part in the tragedy. This forces Nel to re-evaluate the obviously painful death, realizing for the first time that her calm serenity was not an honorable reaction, but rather a horrific one. She questions her reaction to death, feeling it to be inadequate and heartless. I really struggle with the idea of a "proper grief." What constitutes proper grieving? Who says that there is any one proper way to react to a tragedy? Factors such as shock, personality, and situation could all play a part. Maybe I'm wrong on this, but I don't think Nel was necessarily "bad" in reacting the way she did. This also raises the question of "good" vs "evil," however. While Sula reacted in the conventional way, crying hysterically and showing a lot of emotional pain at the death of the child, Nel remained calm and collected, certainly a societal anomaly. Does this mean that in this case, Sula was the "good" one? I think grey areas play a major role in this segment, and I am a firm believer in no set standards of "good" and "evil," so this really fascinated me. Who dictates what is socially acceptable? Why do we feel we can judge each other's emotions?


4. Is there a proper reaction to death? This book really made me think about that. Personally, I find expected deaths to be a lot less sad than unexpected ones. When my grandmother died, it came at a point where I was glad she could be out of her pain. I felt really bad at her funeral because I did not cry, but I couldn't see it as a sorrowful event, but rather a freeing one. Was I right to be ashamed of my reaction? Is there a proper way to grieve?

How did Eva know about Chicken Little? Is it just to be assumed that she knew all? Did Sula tell her? Did she witness it, but never say anything?

Nel realizes at the end that she missed Sula all along. Is she also mourning her lifelong pursuit of social acceptance? It's quite obvious that she lived her life according to the book, playing each role she felt society demanded of her. Was her final grief a show of her regretting this decision? Does she wish she had lived more like Sula, in a free, inhibition-based way?

Sula 2

1. Mooring: 1 : an act of making fast a boat or aircraft with lines or anchors
2 a : a place where or an object to which something (as a craft) can be moored b : a device (as a line or chain) by which an object is secured in place
3 : an established practice or stabilizing influence : anchorage 2 —usually used in plural
-Merriam-Webster Online

P 139: "Virtue, bleak and drawn, was her only mooring."


2. Sula returns to the Bottom, bringing a "plague of robins" with her. Eva and Sula's relationship immediately becomes tense, with Sula asserting that Eva cut off her own leg in order to gain wealth. Eva fires back, and Sula insinuates that Eva murdered Plum. Eva then brings up Hannah's death, and Sula's lack of reaction. Sula threatens to kill Eva, and eventually moves her into an old-folks home. The community sees this as an act of evil on Sula's part, as people in the Bottom are generally not moved into nursing homes until absolutely necessary. Nel walks in on Sula and Jude, her husband, having sex. Jude leaves Nel and their children for Sula, and Nel is deeply hurt. Meanwhile, the community becomes more and more wary of Sula, ostracizing her even more from their realm. They blame her for everything, ranging from the death of a man by choking on a chicken bone to Teapot, a child, accidentally falling off of a porch. Sula follows in Hannah's footsteps, however, having many affairs and committing to no man. Ajax, a man who originally made lewd comments to the girls as they went to get ice cream, takes interest in Sula's unusual nature. The two begin an affair, and Sula begins to fall for Ajax. However, as she becomes more entranced by him, Ajax loses interest, feeling that Sula has become a typical lover. Later, Sula becomes ill, and Nel visits her in retribution. She questions why Sula slept with Jude, and the two feud over morality and the implications of friendship. Sula remains stubborn that she did nothing wrong, while Nel remains adamant that she was wronged. Nel leaves, and Sula thinks back on her life before passing away. Sula's death is regarded positively throughout the Bottom. Many people believe she was evil, and her death is seen as an omen of good times to come. However, a frost comes, "silvering" the town. People lose livestock, crops, and wages. The weather warms just in time for National Suicide Day, and Shadrack remembers Sula's visit immediately following Chicken Little's death. He did not know of the death of the child; rather, he saw the fear in Sula's face, and tried to comfort her. On Shadrack's annual Suicide Day parade, many of the townsfolk follow him, an unprecedented reaction. They parade to the tunnel in the valley, but the tunnel collapses, and many die, including the Deweys and Tar Baby.


3. Sula seems to have a genuine lack of interest in societal norms. She doesn't sleep with married men to be spiteful or to hurt women, she does so because she doesn't see the harm in it. She doesn't see that all of the Bottom associates her directly with the devil because she put Eva in a nursing home prematurely, or if she does, it certainly doesn't seem to bother her. She recognizes that she is a pariah within the community, but she doesn't appear to be affected by it. She acts as a free spirit, doing what she wants when she wants, without concern for how it will be interpreted by others. This is so unlike Nel, whose entire life seems to be designed around what she is "supposed to be doing." She married Jude because it seemed like the right thing to do. It's interesting that Nel seems to blame Sula entirely for the affair with Jude; after all, it takes two to have an affair. Jude was just as willing, and likely not as naive as Sula seems to be. While Sula may not have seen the harm in their lovemaking, Jude should have. He should have realized that it would destroy his marriage, and by taking up with his wife's best friend, he showed a blatant lack of respect for the woman he promised to love and honor till death do them part. Jude then left his family, of his own free will, for Sula, who did not love him. She never pretended to love him, only went to bed with him. Jude, however, escapes the blame of the entire town, which is instead focused on Sula. Sula's ostracizing from the community has an interesting affect on the townsfolk. As they label her more and more as an evil woman, their own moral standing increases. They try to prove how bad she is by behaving in a more morally righteous way. They are kinder to each other and to their children. In this way, Sula actually betters the Bottom, whether those around her see it or not. The one time Sula does attempt to be conventional ends traumatically for her. She begins to fall for Ajax, relying on him and enjoying his visits. Instead of finding love, however, she finds rejection and heartbreak. Ajax, who was only interested in Sula because of her free spirit, finds her dull and typical when she begins to become interested and reliant on him. Sula later finds out that she didn't even know his real name, which was Albert Jacks. As Sula dies, she looks over her life, remarking that she lived it in a natural, "good" way. Unlike Nel, who has always been so worried about societal conventions and behaving in a proper, expected manner, Sula did as she pleased and accepted the consequences when necessary. She was unapologetic, but this raises the question of what "good" and "evil" are. Sula, who lived as she saw fit, has never fallen prey to the commonalities of society. Does this make her "evil"? Does this make Nel morally better than her, simply for following societal standards? As Sula dies, it's interesting that she thinks of Nel. Clearly she harbors no ill wishes toward her old friend, indicating that Sula is prone to forgiveness and not one to hold a grudge. Nel leaves Sula's house bitter and angry, once again questioning which woman was a "better" person.


4. Is Morrison using this section to question the standard assumptions of "good" and "evil"? It seems to me that she is bringing them up as grey areas, questioning which woman is truly the virtuous one.

Will the Bottom jump to another "devil woman" after Sula's passing? The inhabitants of the town were morally upright when Sula was around, using her to bolster the virtue of their actions. Will they look for another victim, or will they slack into immorality?

What is the meaning behind the collapse of the tunnel on National Suicide Day? The people did not want to die; they were behaving completely out of character, participating in a carefree, almost instinctual and animal parade. What does the large-scale death mean?

Sula 1

1. Citified:: of, relating to, or characteristic of a sophisticated urban style of living .
-Merriam-Webster Online.

P 35: "His shoes were a shiny orange, and he had on a citified straw hat, a light-blue suit, and a cat's-head stickpin in his tie."


2. The Prologue opens with a description of the Bottom, a once all-black neighborhood that is being turned into a white suburban golf course. The whites, who were originally interested in the valley, convinced the blacks to move to the Bottom, as it was "the bottom of heaven," nestled high in the hills above the valley. In 1917, Shadrack, a veteran of WWI, suffers hallucinations involving his hands swelling to great proportions, leading to his containment in a mental hospital. He is released and allowed to move to the Bottom, where he institutes National Suicide Day, a day on which he parades through town ringing a bell and proclaiming that people can kill themselves or others if they feel the urge. Helene Wright is introduced, the mother of Nel. Helene was the daughter of a Creole prostitute and was raised by her grandmother, building a respectable life after marrying Wiley Wright and starting their family. When Cecile, Helene's grandmother, dies, Helene and Nel make a train trip south to see her, and on the way they are humiliated by the white conductor. Nel becomes close friends with Sula Peace, whose mother is known for sleeping around. Sula's life is chronicled next, and focus is put on her grandmother, Eva. Eva's husband, BoyBoy, left her and their children, Hannah (Sula's mother), Ralph (Plum), and Pearl, to fend for themselves. Plum becomes ill, unable to pass bowel movements, and in desperation Eva puts the absolute last bit of lard in the house on her finger and sticks it up his bottom, digging the stools out. She then leaves the children with a neighbor for a year and a half, and when she returns it is with one less leg but a large amount of wealth. Eva uses the money to build a house, where she lives to old age with Hannah and Sula, as well as three "adopted" children, all named Dewey, and many boarders, including Tar Baby, a white alcoholic. When Plum returns from WWI, he becomes heavily dependent on drugs, and in her frustration and love, Eva pours kerosene over him in his bed, rocks him in her arms and soothes him, and then sets him on fire and lets him burn to death. Nel and Sula seem to complete each other, with each girl's personality holding the lacking aspects of the other's. Nel is shy, while Sula is assertive; Nel is reserved, while Sula acts on whims. One day, while faced with bullying older boys, Sula cuts off the tip of her finger to frighten them, demonstrating her lack of fear and restraint. Growing up, the girls are fascinated by the men who sit outside the ice cream parlor and occasionally make sexual comments. As the girls play by the river, Chicken Little wanders up. Nel teases him and Sula swings him in circles, but he slips and flies into the river, never resurfacing. Sula is hysterical, but Nel remains composed but guilt-burdened, and the girls keep the death a secret. Hannah asks Eva whether she ever loved her children, and Eva becomes angry, defending everything she did for them. Hannah then brings up the murder of Plum, and Eva becomes emotional, saying that she killed him out of love. Hannah tells Eva of her dream of being married in a red dress, and that afternoon, she catches on fire in the yard. Eva jumps out of the window in an effort to smother the flames, but her attempt is unsuccessful. Hannah dies, and Eva attributes the death to the dream of the red dress. She then remembers seeing Sula on the porch, watching her burning mother but not moving to help. When the girls grow older, Nel married Jude Greene and Sula leaves the Bottom for college.


3. Shadrack seems to be a very pitiful character. Suffering what appears to be extreme after-affects of the war, possibly shell shock, he hallucinates to a point where his own body seems to be against him. He feels he has no control over his life, and even his hands, with their "rapid growth," are an example of the chaos surrounding him. I believe this is what leads to his creation of National Suicide Day; he wants an opportunity, even if just for one day, to be in charge of something important. His tremendous fears and his mental inadequacy in dealing with the everyday nature of life are allowed to run freely for twenty-four hours. Helene, on the other hand, has no lack of structure and no need to compartmentalize. Growing up with Celine has instilled a sense of strict rigidity and religious repressiveness in Helene, who then tries to force this way of life onto Nel, although her attempts prove unsuccessful. It's interesting to look at the contrasts between Nel's household and Sula's household. While both girls are raised by women, Nel's mother Helene is strict and conservative. She is repressive and wants Nel to grow up religious, reserved, and neat. Sula, on the other hand, is raised by her mother, Hannah, and her grandmother, Eva. Hannah is known to be quite loose. She sleeps with many men in the pantry, the kitchen, or the bedroom, wherever she finds space. She has a reputation for sleeping with married men, but she never seeks to keep a man, only to bed him. Eva is a very strong woman, and her killing of her son is not necessarily meant to make her seem cruel. Rather, it is an act of love and sacrifice: because she cannot stand to see her son in such pain, sinking deeper and deeper into drug addiction and depression, she does what she can to save him. This also raises a question of morality. Was Eva right in killing Plum, doing what she could to save him, or should she have let him struggle through life? Was it her place to step in? The Deweys are very intruiging characters, in a way paralleling Nel and Sula. Like the girls, the Deweys complete each other; in fact, they have in a sense become one person. Although they do not share physical characteristics, many people have trouble telling them apart, as their personalities and demeanors are so similar. Although different ages, the Deweys are allowed to begin school together, as separating them would be traumatic for all. I found the part of the novel where Hannah claims that she does not like Sula although she loves her to be very thought-provoking. I agree with Morrison's idea here: you do not necessarily need to like someone to love them, and vice versa. There are definitely times where I do not like my brother and my sister. They grind on my nerves, and sometimes they cross the line. However, I will always love them. I feel that you can be really angry at someone and dislike them, even if it is a temporary dislike, but that doesn't mean that your love for them has gone away. Love is not a simple matter, as we've certainly asserted in class; it is arguably the most complex human emotion, and I know I'm nowhere near understanding it completely. Chicken Little's death was obviously a very striking and important part of the story. His death ultimately shows the girl the reality of humanity - it serves as a transition from innocence into realization of immortality. The way the girls grieve is noteworthy. Sula grieves outwardly and loudly, crying and trembling, visibly shaken. Nel, however, shows no outward signs of grief. Instead, she carries the burden of guilt. It's like, once again, the girls are a single person split into two; each carried half of the normal signs of grief.


4. Does Shadrack actually know what happened at the river with Chicken Little? What is the significance of his remark, "Always"?

Hannah and Plum both die by fire. Is this significant? Is there meaning behind two of Eva's children dying in flames?

Why did Sula not react to the burning of her mother, especially since she grieved so obviously for Chicken Little? Was it shock? If so, wouldn't she have had the same reaction to the death of the child?

Spring, from Walden

The flowers entrance me. Their delicate, beguiling petals, laced together as if by magic. They do not meet at the top, nor in the middle, but are joined at the very bottom tip, liable to fall away at the slightest touch or pull. Graceful, yet so weak. The stems, however, are entirely different. So small, so innocuous, yet so startlingly strong. Each fiber working to hold the elegant petals up, to support the beautiful topper. Swaying in the breeze, yet never toppling down. Supplying warmth, nourishment, and constant growth. The stem will continue to provide throughout various small visitors, until the final visitor comes with clippers to shear the earthen beauty. Each year, flowers continue to bloom. From a dull brown patch of dirt rises a miracle, forcing its way to sunlight and life. Through frost and hard times, the bulb stays underground. Fair-weather fan? Quite certainly. Once the difficulties pass, however, comes the rebirth. The growth begins, an eternal metaphor. We grow, as our gardens, stretching for the warmth and yearning for the beauty. We reach skyward, our only goal eternity. Sometimes, like our roses, tulips, and daisies, we must break through dirt. We must push our way through rocks and soil, through trouble and insecurity. There are those who refuse to break free, and those who simply cannot. These will never bloom. Their beauty will remain forever hidden; their value, buried in the soil. However, for those who succeed, the journey is but commencing, the limits not yet tested. Skyward, always reaching skyward. Flourishing, from small pebble-like seed to vibrant, radiant bloom. The variety of the flowers also entices me; lilies, azaleas, chrysanthemums. Poppies, lavender, orchids, and violets. Forget-me-nots and baby's breath. Each with its own beauty and charm, each with slightly different lifestyles, yet all experiencing the same journey, upward and on.

Birds, although fear-invoking, are breathtaking. Flight, one of the inabilities of man, is recognized. Envy, avarice. We want to fly, too. To soar above the earth, viewing our homely situations and mediocre lives from such great heights. The freedom, the exhilaration, of feeling the wind from all directions. No roads, no paths to follow; simply open air, space to roam and explore. So small, so exquisite, are the birds. Their beady, watchful eyes, and their sharp and formidable beaks. Their soft, magnificent feathers, ruffling in the breeze or fluttering with the strokes of their wings. I admire birds, as well as fear them. They have something that I do not, something that I never will, but that I long for and dream of frequently.

One Hundred Years of Solitude 10

1. Evanescent: : tending to vanish like vapor
synonyms see transient.
-Merriam-Webster Online

P 403: "In the postcards that he sent from the way stations he would describe with shouts the instantaneous images that he had seen from the window of his coach, and it was as if he were tearing up and throwing into oblivion some long, evanescent poem: the chimerical Negroes in the cotton fields of Louisiana, the winged horses in the bluegrass of Kentucky, the Greek lovers in the infernal sunsets of Arizona, the girl in the red sweater painting water-colors by a lake in Michigan who waved at him with her brushes, not to say farewell but out of hope, because she did not know that she was watching a train with no return passing by."


2. Amaranta Ursula moves to Macondo with her husband, Gaston. The pair are highly sophisticated, with Amaranta Ursula a modern, independent woman, and Gaston a wealthy older man deeply in love with her. Amaranta Ursula's love for Macondo is based on her nostalgic memories, not on the reality of the town's condition. Aureliano (II) falls in love with Amaranta Ursula, and in an attempt to cope with his unwanted feelings he develops a friendship with four young intellects that he meets in the bookstore. They go to brothels and have scholarly discussions, and Aureliano (II) begins sleeping regularly with a black prostitutue, Nigromanta. Gaston, bored in the run-down and isolated Macondo, plans to start an airmail service. Aureliano (II) confesses his love for Amaranta Ursula, and although she resists at first, eventually the two become lovers. Meanwhile, Gaston leaves for Brussels to continue the development of his airmail company. Amaranta Ursula sends him a letter notifying him of her affair, and he never returns, sending only for his bicycle. Aureliano (II)'s friends leave Macondo to pursue various destinies, and the two lovers are left in solitude with one another. Amaranta Ursula has a child, who is born with a pig's tail. Amaranta Ursula dies from childbirth complications, and Aureliano (II) wanders to Nigromanta's home in destitution, leaving the child behind. When he returns to his house, the baby has been carried away by ants, who have fed on the corpse of the newborn. Aureliano (II) deciphers Melquiades' prophecies, which turn out to be a detailed history of the Buendia family. The end of the book tells of him reading the texts, and as he finishes reading, a huge wind wipes the town from the earth, erasing it entirely.


3. Incest, in the end, ruins the Buendia line. Ursula's biggest fear comes true, as a child is finally born with a physical deformity. Had Aureliano (II) and Amaranta Ursula not committed incest, resulting in Amaranta Ursula's pregnancy, she likely would not have died, and the line could have continued via a child of Amaranta Ursula and Gaston. However, because of the family's gravitation toward incest, the line comes to a close with the death of the child and the mother. The family, through multiple generations, never managed to make outside connections. Even when a family member married outside of the family, the marriage was almost always forced and uncomfortable. It's interesting that when the Buendia family ends, so does the entire town of Macondo. I'm not sure how many people were remaining in the town outside of the Buendia family, but I found it fascinating that no mention of the other townsfolk was made. The idea of the book of prophecies containing the complete history of the Buendia line is a thought-provoking one. Melquiades obviously knew everything that would happen to the family, yet he did not warn them. He did not allow the prophecies to be read in advance, which would have provided the opportunity for the family to remediate the situation. Rather, he let their actions play out, allowing the incest and the solitude to continue. I think this speaks to the idea that what is fated to happen must happen. The Buendia family had its destiny set long before all of the generations were even born. If the novel is thought about in this manner, it means that no Buendia could truly have changed his or her fate. His or her choices were not his or her own; instead, their choices were predetermined by the writings of Melquiades.


4. Did Melquiades make up the fate of the Buendias, or did he simply record it?

Is Melquiades supposed to be like Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and the book of prophecies supposed to be One Hundred Years of Solitude? Or are the two books something entirely separate?

If the Buendias tried, could they have escaped their fate? Could they have gotten out of the cycle of incest? Or not, because it would go against the prophecies?

One Hundred Years of Solitude 9

1. Pessaries: 1 : a vaginal suppository
2 : a device worn in the vagina to support the uterus, remedy a malposition, or prevent conception
-Merriam-Webster Online

P 349: "Since Aureliano Segundo had no other pictures except those of his wedding and the copies were all in the family album, he kept searching all through the house when his wife was not looking, and finally, in the bottom of the dresser, he came across a half-dozen pessaries in their original box."


2. Ursula, refreshed by the end of the four-year rain, decides to fix the house. She finds Jose Arcadio Segundo, and Aureliano Segundo returns to Petra Cotes. With their animals dead, they spend more time enjoying each other, eventually falling deeply into a passionate love. Ursula dies, small and weak and definitely over 120 years of age. Rebeca also dies. A heat wave begins affecting the town, and a strange creature is said to be wandering the streets. The "Wandering Jew," as it is called, concerns the townspeople greatly. Aureliano Segundo and Jose Arcadio Segundo near death, with Aureliano rushing to finance Amaranta Ursula's education and Jose Arcadio struggling to decipher Melquiades' prophecies. The two men die at the same time, and at the last moment, their coffins are switched and they are buried in one another's places. Aureliano (II) seems to inherit Aureliano Buendia's love of solitude, and he spends much of his time in Melquiades's lab, sometimes even encountering the ghost of Melquiades, who tells him that the manuscripts will only be decipherable when they reach one hundred years of age. Santa Sofia de la Piedad, who has been serving as an unofficial and unrecognized servant to the family, gathers her things and leaves in frustration. Fernanda dies in this section as well, and her son Jose Arcadio (II) comes to claim the glory and wealth she boasted about in her letters. He, in fact, has not been in the seminary, but instead living in wait for his inheritance. He discovers the falsity of his mother's illustrations of grandeur, but not long after he also discovers the fortune of the Saint Joseph statue. He invites over children from the town and lives recklessly, also attempting to make a connection with Aureliano (II). The last son of Aureliano Buendia, the one hidden in the mountains, comes asking for help, but is shot in front of the house. The section ends with one of the children from the town killing Jose Arcadio (II) to steal the gold.


3. Ursula, in her shrinking old age, serves as a parallel to Macondo. As she advances in age, she becomes smaller, eventually looking "like a newborn old woman." "Little by little she was shrinking, turning into a fetus, becoming mummified in life to the point that in her last months she was a cherry raisin lost inside her nightgown, and the arm that she always kept raised looked like the paw of a marimonda monkey." This descent, or rather return, to childhood is also visible in Macondo, which is returning to its infancy as well. Ignorant and repellant of progress, Macondo has returned to the way it was at the commencement of the novel; in fact, the gypsies come to town again, bringing the magnifying glasses and magnets, and the residents are as amazed as they were in Jose Arcadio Buendia's time. This demonstrates the cyclical movement of time, particularly within the novel, as once again, Macondo is back to its origins. Arcadio (II) attempts to tell the true story of what happened with the banana plantation workers, but the people of Macondo refuse to listen to what they do not want to hear. Because of this unwillingness to accept or even listen to reality, the people have created a false reality of their own. They are essentially living in a fiction, but to them it is absolute truth. Once again, this really made me question reality vs. perception. Who is to say that what one person views as reality is, in fact, reality? We could all be blocking out important facts, or having things hidden from us. Just because we aren't aware of something does not mean that it did not happen. The extremes in this novel are fascinating, particularly those of weather and progress. The weather constantly switches from one far-fetched extreme to another. First, Macondo experiences a draught. Soon after the draught begins wearing the town down, the rain starts, and does not ease up for well over four years. Once the town is suitably destroyed, or cleansed, depending on the interpretation, the rain stops and gives way to a heat stroke. There is no middle ground, no pleasant weather. Everything is one end of the spectrum or the other. Likewise, with progress, Macondo is either extremely far behind and isolated or much too connected. The town goes from being entirely solitude-based and innocent to corrupt and political. It then regresses into solitude and naivety again. The town never seems to stop changing, whether toward or away from progress.


4. Will anyone decipher Melquiades' manuscripts? Many a Buendia has tried to read the prophecies, but so far nobody has succeeded. Melquiades's ghost seemed to give clues that they will be read, however. Who will read them?

Water seems to be becoming more significant; in fact, I had not noticed prior to this section its prominence within the story, but it plays a large part. Between the fish, the rain, the quest for the land route, the attempt to bring a ship to Macondo, and the death of Jose Arcadio (II) in the bathtub, it is obviously a common theme. What is it suggesting?

Will fire make another appearance? It was suggested strongly throughout much of the earlier book, from blatant mentions to the hidden references to yellow. Will it appear again before the novel concludes?

How old was Ursula really? I know age is not a huge meticulous matter in the book, but I'm confused. I thought she was older than Pilar?

One Hundred Years of Solitude 8

1. Cataclysm: 1 : flood, deluge
2 : catastrophe 3a
3 : a momentous and violent event marked by overwhelming upheaval and demolition; broadly : an event that brings great changes.
-Merriam-Webster Online.

P 305: "A seismic voice, a volcanic breath, the roar of a cataclysm broke out in the center of the crowd with a great potential of expansion."


2. After Fernanda's attack of Mauricio, Meme stops talking altoghether. Fernanada sends her to a convent in her hometown, and in her sorrow, Meme never protests. She never gets over Mauricio, however, and spends her remaining days pining for her lost love. While in the convent, Meme gives birth to Mauicio's child, who is named Aureliano (II), and Fernanda hides the child in Aureliano's workshop, claiming that she found him in a basket. Jose Arcadio Segundo helps with the banana plantation's worker's strike protesting poor working conditions, and when the government asks for a meeting of all of the workers, they believe their protests have been heard. The meeting is a trick, however, and the government massacres all attendees, shipping the bodies off silently in the night and dumping them into the sea. Jose Arcadio Segundo is the lone survivor, and despite his efforts, the rest of the town believes he imagined the incident. It begins to rain, a rain that lasts four years and virtually destroys Macondo. The government comes looking for Jose Arcadio Segundo, but as he hides in Melquiades's room, the search party looks right over him, seeing the decay around him but not Jose Arcadio Segundo himself. He then shuts himself up in Melquiades's room, studying the texts of the gypsy and making little to no human contact. Aureliano Segundo, meanwhile, loses his affinity for the extravagent. His fortune is diminished because of the rain, but he devotes much of his time to trying to find the treasure from the statue of Saint Joseph. Ursula's health deteriorates even farther, and Aureliano (II) escapes from his seclusion in Aureliano's workshop.


3. I got the feeling that Meme's lost love and then return to Fernanda's convent was kind of circular, drawing a comparison to the life Fernanda lived and escaped from. However, things happened backwards for Meme. She found love, but had it ripped away from her, and in her misery she was forced to move to the convent, where she spent the rest of her life in a state of melancholy reflection. She in a sense fulfilled her mother's destiny, which was changed when Aureliano Segundo came and took her away. Had he not done so, she likely would have spent the remainder of her life in the convent, pining for wealth and affluence. It's almost as if the two women shared a fate, each carrying part of the burden. In this way, it's as if the life comes full circle, with the latter generation finally finishing what was started by the first. Jose Arcadio Segundo echoes the life of Colonel Aureliano Buendia, as he rises to power supporting the less fortunate and eventually crossing the government. After the massacre, he locks himself up in solitude, again mirroring Aureliano. Even Ursula seems to notice this, as she proclaims that, "It's as if the world were repeating itself." Magical realism is very strong in this section, as the massacre, which seems absolutely ludicrous, is more real than the flying carpets and mystic gypsies of earlier in the tale. Why would a government wipe out three thousand of its own people? It seems like a horrifying fiction to imagine a whole town able to deny such occurrances, yet this event is based in reality. This idea really makes one question what reality is, as well. If a whole town denies that an event happens, did it happen? If nobody remembers, or recognizes, something as reality, is it really reality? Jose Arcadio Segundo is the only one who knows what happened the night of the massacre, yet nobody believes him. To the other citizens of Macondo, he is the one telling falsities, while they "know" the truth. This is applicable in life outside of the novel, as well. Reality is really decided by what the majority think or choose to remember. The rain that makes its appearance in this section reminds me of the forty-day flood in the Bible. In the Bible, the flood erases everything from earth, with the exception of Noah and two of each kind of animal. In a way, this is what's happening in Macondo; although everything does not disappear, much is destroyed, and only a few of Aureliano's animals live. It's almost as if God is punishing the people for their excessive materialism, as well as cleansing the town after the massacre.


4. Will Fernanda ever repent for the way she treated her children and her husband? Will she bring Meme home, or will Meme die alone in the convent? Will Fernanda accept Aureliano (II)?

Who are the "invisible" doctors Fernanda keeps consulting? I do not understand this storyline at all... are they real doctors? Are they in her imagination? What's going on?

Will Macondo ever return to its former glory? After the rains nearly demolish the town, is a recovery even possible?

One Hundred Years of Solitude 7

1. Proboscidian: A mammal of the order Proboscidea, such as the elephant or its extinct relatives, having a long trunk, large tusks, and a massive body.
-Free Online Dictionary.

P 256: "Later on, when he saw her consume a side of veal without breaking a single rule of good table manners, he commented seriously that that delicate, fascinating, and insatiable proboscidian was in a certain way the ideal woman."


2. Ursula, in her old age, begins to lose her vision. However, by memorizing the placement of items and the habits of her family members, she is able to hide her ailment. She remains certain that Jose Arcadio II will become pope, sending him to seminary while Meme attends school. Amaranta begins weaving a shroud for Rebeca, determined that she will outlive her sister, but Death appears to her and tells her to weave her own shroud instead. Fernanda continues to dominate the household, and in frustration, Aureliano Segundo moves in with Petra Cotes. The house, emptier than it has been for years, seems unnaturally quiet with the exception of Meme's visits home, when Aureliano Segundo returns to the house in an act of normality. Jose Arcadio Segundo returns to the house and begins speaking with Colonel Aureliano Buendia, who is drawing toward death. Eventually he does die, but during his mourning period Fernanda gives birth to a son, who they name Amaranta Ursula, and in this way life goes on. Amaranta finishes her shroud and passes away, just as death predicted. Before her death she offers to take letters to the dead loved ones of the townsfolk, and many people take her up on her offer. After Amaranta's death, Ursula gets into bed, and in her weariness does not get up for many years. Meme becomes a clavichord virtuoso but only feigns interest in order to please her strict mother. She becomes very close with her father, Aureliano Segundo, as they share a careless nature and a dislike of Fernanda. Meme befriends white settler girls and falls in love with Mauricio Babilonia, a mechanic who is constantly followed by yellow butterflies. Fernanda dislikes the man, however, and tells a guard that someone has been stealing her chickens, setting the guard up to shoot the intruder. When Mauricio sneaks in to see her daughter, the guard shoots him, paralyzing him just as Fernanda had hoped.


3. Ursula makes a lot of observations on time in this section, particularly as she begins to age quite rapidly. She says that children grow up much more quickly now than they did when Macondo was young, and that time in general has sped up. It's strange to think about how old Ursula really is; her children, after all, begin dying of old age in this chapter. Although she is losing her vision and decides to stay in bed for the majority of this section, she is still fairly youthful in mentality. She is alert and aware of her surroundings, demonstrating her intelligence in the way she is able to hide her blindness through memorization and careful attention. I think she makes a valid point with the theory about children maturing faster. In the beginning of the novel, time was a slow-moving, confused thing. It was hard to tell how old any character was meant to be, and their youth seemed to drag on and on. However, as the book has progressed, the younger characters seem to be more rushed through childhood, and therefore, innocence. This could have to do with Macondo's loss of innocence. It is much easier to remain pure in a town that is untouched by death, unaware of modern technology and advancements, and in most ways completely naive. However, as Macondo became "modernized" and experienced death, sin, and greater knowledge in general, children began losing their innocence much sooner. I believe that these two ideas are meant to mirror each other, and their alignment is not simply a coincidence. The idea of pointless repitition near death makes an appearance in this section as well, particularly in Aureliano Buendia's habit of making two fishes each day, melting them down, and then beginning again the following day, and in Amaranta's weaving and unweaving of the funeral shroud. This suggests that the characters wish to prolong death, but eventually both characters succomb to death, which is inevitable. Ursula, although she has quite obviously slowed down, shows no sign of impending death. She seems to be stuck in life, watching the suffering of her family but unable to stop the tragedies from reoccurring.


4. Why is Ursula able to live for so long? Her husband passed away long ago, and her children have begun to die of old age. What makes her able to avoid death?

Meme attempted to start a relationship out of the family and found love, possibly the first true relationship not involving incest. However, her mom ruined the relationship before it had time to truly develop. Is this part of the "curse" of the Buendia family? Nobody can form a successful outside connection... is this, more than anything, why the relationship was doomed to failure?

Will Jose Arcadio II continue the path to priesthood? Ursula has wanted a holy life for her children before, but none of them have made it there. Will he be the first?

One Hundred Years of Solitude 6

1. Dirge: 1 : a song or hymn of grief or lamentation; especially : one intended to accompany funeral or memorial rites
2 : a slow, solemn, and mournful piece of music
3 : something (as a poem) that has the qualities of a dirge
-Merriam-Webster Online.

P 205: "She had been born and raised in a city six hundred miles away, a gloomy city where on ghostly nights the coaches of the viceroys still rattled through the cobbled streets. Thirty-two belfries tolled a dirge at six in the afternoon."


2. Fernanda del Carpio, the mysterious "queen" who married Aureliano Segundo, was raised in a highly unusual situation. The daughter of old but fading money, Fernanda was raised believing she would one day be queen. Brought up to be haughty, she attended school at the cost of her family's remaining wealth, and she separated herself all throughout her youth in an arrogant delusion of innate greatness. Despite all of this, Aureliano Segundo sees wondrous beauty in her, and goes to great lengths to track her down and bring her back to Macondo. Because of her strict religious refusal to consummate the marriage and her uptight ways, Aureliano continues sleeping with Petra Cotes, also ensuring continued livestock fertility. Fernanda goes on a crusade to transform the Buendia household. She becomes a dictator within the family, only fearing Colonel Aureliano Buendia. Aureliano Segundo and Fernanda have two children, Renata Remedios (Meme) and Jose Arcadio (II). Ursula is determined to bring Jose Arcadio up as a holy man, even asserting that he will one day be pope. The president of the Republic decides to have a ceremony honoring Aureliano, much to the latter's dismay. Coincidentally, all seventeen of Aureliano's illegitimate sons show up at the same time to attend the celebration, and when they receive ashes on Ash Wednesday, the marks will not wash off. Aureliano Triste and Aureliano Centeno decide to stay in Macondo and open an ice factory that has immediate success. Aureliano Triste also builds a railroad, bringing a train to Macondo. Foreigners come in with the railroad, establishing a banana plantation and a settlement of their own with high fences. Remedios the Beauty makes another appearance, still as oblivious but breathtaking as ever. She becomes connected to death as men who love her begin meeting immediate fatality. One day, as she is folding a sheet in the backyard, Remedios the Beauty is lifted by the sheets and a breeze, and simply floats away blissfully. Meanwhile, Aureliano becomes angered by the foreign invaders, and wishes to start a rebellion. He threatens to gather his seventeen sons and start a war, and the boys are killed one by one as a result. Only one gets away, escaping into the mountains.


3. There has been a definite change in the sense of wonder felt by the characters from the beginning of the novel to this point. When the train arrives, nobody seems absolutely enthralled. Granted, a woman exclaims that it is "a kitchen dragging a village behind it," but the characters do not seem to show the strange vehicle much interest. This contrasts greatly with Jose Arcadio Buendia at the beginning of the novel, whose fascination with various "magical" objects such as magnets, magnifying glasses, and ice was both humorous and endearing. It seems as though the more technology and innovation that makes its way to Macondo, the more the residents are able to take new inventions for granted. Fernanda's entrance into the Buendia family also marks a turning point. She is cold, methodical, and religious, all characteristics that really have not existed within the family to this point. Her attempts to make the family more proper and "respectable" are futile, but they also provoke negative reader reactions. I believe this serves to criticize organized religion. Fernanda, with her rosary-saying habits and strict religious values, is painted in such a disapproving light that I cannot imagine Gabriel Garcia Marquez putting her in the novel for any other reason. She also demonstrates the irony of the haughtiness of many "religious" folk. She believes that, as a holy woman, she is better than the crude, immoral family she has married into. This again ties into the idea mentioned in my previous posts that Macondo was a better place before the church arrived, more innocent and more peaceful. While Fernanda wallows in misery with her uptight values, Petra Cotes lives freely and immorally as a concubine, enjoying great wealth and romance with Fernanda's husband. Remedios the Beauty was a fascinating character to me. Representing both innocence and naivety, I believe she was a metaphor for Macondo in general. Beginning as a beautiful, pure town, with the emergence of technology and expansion, the youth and beauty of the town "blew away," so to speak. She might also be representative of Eden, once again. Remedios the Beauty's lack of shame in the face of nudity and obliviousness to lust could be a reference to Adam and Eve prior to the fruit of knowledge, when they were entirely free from sin. There was a quote that I really liked in this section, as well. On page 242 it is written that "The others, more honorable, were still waiting for a letter in the shadow of public charity, dying of hunger, living through rage, rotting of old age amid the exquisite shit of glory." The quote is talking about the soldiers that Aureliano tried to arouse into action, awaiting the payment they were promised. The part that especially struck me was the idea of the "exquisite shit of glory." Although crude, it sums up so much of what the novel represents, particularly the war sections: glory is fleeting, and often an excuse for unnecessary struggle and violence.


4. Is Remedios the Beauty supposed to be supposed to have floated to heaven? Did she go somewhere specific, or is it intended to remain an unanswered question?

What will happen to the remaining illegitimate son of Aureliano? Will he make another appearance? Is his survival significant?

I assume the fertility of the animals via the Petra Cotes-Aureliano Segundo affair is supposed to draw significance to the immoral activity, which seems to be rewarded. Is Gabriel Garcia Marquez trying to make a point regarding conventional values? Is he disregarding morality?

One Hundred Years of Solitude 5

1. Emissary: 1 : one designated as the agent of another : representative
2 : a secret agent.
-Merriam-Webster Online.

P 167: "He sat in a chair between his political advisers and, wrapped in his woolen blanket, he listened in silence to the brief proposals of the emissaries."


2. Jose Raquel Moncada, the man put in charge of Macondo in the absense of a leader during the time of war, is sentenced to death. Moncada was a friend of Aureliano, even though the two were supposed to be rivals. Because of this implied rivalry, Aureliano allows the sentence to be carried out. Both Gerineldo Marquez and Aureliano become more depressed, feeling that the war has become a pointless power struggle. Marquez spends more time attempting to woo Amaranta, who refuses him although she seems to feel something for him. Aureliano isolates himself even more than usual, completely withdrawing from society and his family. Marquez is tried and sentenced to death, but Aureliano frees him and they fight against the Liberals, who they were fighting for. They eventually sign a peace treaty, leading to such feelings of failure that Aureliano attempts to commit suicide via bullet. The bullet misses every single vital organ, however, and Aureliano survives. Ursula sees his miraculous aversion of death as a final chance for peace, so she moves him into the house and throws herself into cleaning it up. Despite her best attempts, however, Aureliano remains withdrawn. He spends his time making golden fish in the workshop. Aureliano Segundo gets permission to enter Melquiades's room, where he finds a mysterious book. Upon reading the book, Melquiades himself appears, and the two have many conversations. Jose Arcadio Segundo becomes involved in a brief stint in the church, but he then changes his focus to cockfighting. The two both sleep with Petra Cotes, unbeknownst to her, as she believes she is sleeping with one man. After she gives Jose Arcadio Segundo an STD he ends the relationship, but Aureliano maintains their relationship. While they are lovers, Aureliano's livestock reproduces at a fantastic rate. He becomes extravagantly wealthy, throwing parties and pasting money to the walls of Ursula's home. Jose Arcadio Segundo, more and more resembling Jose Arcadio Buendia with his fleeting whims and frenzies, decides to make the river passable by boat. He eventually succeeds in bringing a raft carrying French women into Macondo via water, and the newcomers arrange for a tremendous festival. Remedious the Beauty is chosen to be Queen of the festival, as she is the most gorgeous woman alive. During the carnival, strangers arrive with a queen of their own, Fernanda del Carpio, and the men fire into the crowds, shouting, "Long live the Liberal party!" After the riot, Fernanda del Carpio is looked after by Ursula, and eventually she marries Aureliano Segundo in an elaborate celebration.


3. Aureliano finally feels again, as evident when he attempts to take his own life. He seems to finally come out of his black stupor, realizing that the war is being fought for all the wrong reasons and that the only solution is to end it once and for all. His suicide attempt demonstrates his small descent back into reality, but also his ever remaining solitude. The twins are two very intriguing characters; they both seem to be the incarnation of previous characters. Jose Arcadio Segundo, contrary to his name, is not large and crude like Jose Arcadio was. Rather, he is thin and intense, like the elder Aureliano. However, he embodies a lot of what Jose Arcadio Buendia was, particularly in his passionate exploits. He attempted to create a water-navigable route to Macondo, much as Jose Arcadio Buendia devoted much time and attention to trying to find a land route away from Macondo. He devotes himself wholeheartedly to first the church, then to cockfighting, always searching for that which will prove to be successful and fulfilling. This whimsical nature is very similar to that of Jose Arcadio Buendia, whose life was full of ever-changing obsessions and passions. Aureliano Segundo, on the other hand, is larger and more crude, similar to Jose Arcadio. However, he spends much of his time locked in Melquiades's workshop, uncovering ancient secrets and probably dabbling in experiments of his own. He also embodies a lot of Jose Arcadio Buendia, particularly in his reading. He seems fascinated by magical ideas and mystical histories contained in Melquiades's books. This adoration of the unknown is similar to the love Jose Arcadio Buendia showed toward the flying carpets, magnets, and ice brought by the gypsies. Aureliano is prone to excess, though, especially monetary extravagance. The twins, in general, seem like a mixture of many of the characters previously seen in the story. They combine names, traits, and resemblances to create a confused identity. Although this is clear repetition within the family, there is no exact replication at any point. The same characteristics and names appear quite often, but never in the exact same way. Traits are combined to create a character who, while very similar to many characters, is ultimately unique and provides new experiences for the Buendia family. I also think it's interesting that Aureliano breaks the incest line, but in a way that is certainly unconventional. He marries Fernanda del Carpio, the beauty who arrives from a mysterious land, but he keeps Petra Cotes as a concubine. This is never said to be frowned upon. In fact, it is never mentioned at all, with the exception of its first explanation. It seems to be widely accepted, or at least not given a second thought. Granted, Ursula and the rest of the remaining Buendia family might welcome anything other than incest, but I would think that someone would find his wife and mistress situation unusual. The arrangement once again emphasizes the inability of any Buendia to have a normal, functioning relationship. Also, this all occurs after the priest has set up his church in Macondo. Apparently religious convictions hold little or no sway on the citizens of Macondo. Jose Arcadio Segundo joins the church for some time, but soon after he begins having sex with donkeys. This blatant lack of concern for the church seems to be significant: I believe Gabriel Garcia Marquez may be making a point about religion, particularly about its foolishness. Before the church came to Macondo, the town was innocent and vibrant. Since its arrival (but not necessarily resulting from its arrival), the town has declined in morality and in quality of life. Does this connect with the church? Should the church be able to save the town?


4. Similar to the conclusion of my analysis, shouldn't the church have a moral bearing on the town? Why does the priest not intervene? Highly immoral things are going on within the Buendia family, yet nobody seems to want to step in. Why?

Will Macondo continue to flourish, welcoming new arrivals like the French women? It seems that as time goes on, Macondo becomes more urbanized and diverse. Maybe flourish isn't the correct word, but will Macondo continue to grow?

The twins feel very significant to me for some reason. Will they do something to severely impact the story? They're the first two characters who truly include traits of every prior character, not really having an identity of their own, but one made up of a multitude of other personalities. Is this important? Will they play a major role in the coming action?

One Hundred Years of Solitude 4

1. Convalesce: : to recover health and strength gradually after sickness or weakness.
-Merriam-Webster Online.

P 136: "He knew, however, that as soon as he put those scruples aside he would break the vicious circle of the war. Convalescence gave him time to reflect."


2. The war seems to have drawn to an end, with the Conservatives victorious and Liberal leaders captured. Aureliano and Colonel Gerineldo Marquez, his close friend, are both sentenced to the firing squad. They are brought to Macondo to be killed, but Jose Arcadio saves the two men just in time. Aureliano immediately begins another fight, raising a small militia for the Liberal cause. His band of soldiers go up and down the country, striking up revolts, largely unsuccessful but never giving up. Eventually they recapture Macondo, but as the war draws on, Aureliano begins to question the fighting. He realizes they are fighting solely for power and pride, not for any direct "just" cause. He sinks into a depression and begins writing poetry. Back in Macondo, Santa Sofia de la Piedad gives birth to the twins Jose Arcadio Segundo and Aureliano Segundo. Jose Arcadio and Rebeca move houses, but almost imminently after doing so Jose Arcadio is mysteriously murdered. Rebeca is suspected, although she proclaims innocence, and she locks herself up in the house in solitude. Gerineldo Marquez, who has always had an interest in Amaranta, tries to strike up a romance. Jose Arcadio Buendia, still living tied to the tree, dies, as a shower of yellow flowers rains from the sky. Aureliano Jose, Aureliano and Pilar's son, becomes a young man. He develops a lust for his aunt, Amaranta, who raised him as her son. The two come very close to becoming lovers, but she realizes what is happening and cuts ties. Aureliano Jose flees to join the army with his father, Aureliano. He returns, however, to attempt to marry Amaranta. He is killed by a Conservative soldier, ending that particular storyline. All seventeen sons of Aureliano soon make their way to Macondo, each baptized with the name Aureliano by Ursula. Aureliano returns to Macondo, more solitary and solemn than ever.


3. One of my favorite parts of this section of the novel was the death of Jose Arcadio Buendia. When he finally passes away, after a long, passion-fueled life, he is given the final dignity. Although he dies tied to a tree, like a dog, the heavens rain down mounds and mounds of beautiful yellow flowers in his honor. No matter how lonely and pitiful he seemed in the end, he clearly deserved the ultimate respect. I thought of this as Gabriel Garcia Marquez's way of giving him final recognition; he was a great, powerful man, founding a great city and beginning a tragic, albeit interesting, line of descendents. It is also an instance of magical realism, as flowers do not really rain from the heavens, no matter how deserving the mortal is or was. There are a lot of deaths in the family in this section. Jose Arcadio Buendia dies, followed by Arcadio and Aureliano Jose. The latter two both die in the midst of the war. The lack of flowers, although it could simply indicate their lower status, could also imply that to die in war is a far less noble death than in old age. Being shot by a firing squad may seem a more exciting way to die than chained a tree in complete isolation, but in the end, it is no more honorable. The incest theme again makes an appearance in this section, with Aureliano Jose desiring to sleep with Amaranta, who raised him as her child. If viewing incest as being a curse passed through the generations, as it is portrayed in Middlesex by Geoffrey Eugenides, then the prevalence of incest-laden relationships in the Buendia family makes more sense. It's important to not forget that Jose Arcadio Buendia and Ursula were cousins, but married ayway. Arcadio yearned for Pilar, who is his mother. Jose Arcadio and Rebeca, although not technically related by blood, are "siblings" through nature of raising. Aureliano Jose pursues Amaranta, who is his aunt. The incest also points to extreme isolation. When marrying and reproducing within one's family, the need for outside contact is limited. After all, much of society's connecting is made up of the search for a mate. If relationships stay within a single family, there is no need to branch out. The Buendia family is able to maintain strict isolation from society, which is added to by the isolation they maintain from one another. Finally, the incest also signifies the reptition I mentioned in my previous post, and the idea that nothing is permanently gone. Names repeat; family genes repeat, as well. Even when a character dies, such as Jose Arcadio Buendia, his family carries on his legacy both in his frequently reoccurring genes and in his often repeated name.


4. Will the war ever truly end? Aureliano keeps drawing it on, even when it seems to be over. Is the war another example of things never coming to closure?

Did Gabriel Garcia Marquez put the yellow flowers in also to contrast the stark, precision-fueled military deaths of Arcadio and Aureliano Jose? Or were they there simply to honor Jose Arcadio Buendia?

Will Aureliano's seventeen sons play a role later in the story? What is their significance at this point? Are they there to simply show Aureliano's recklessness throughout the war? He seems to have lost himself, in a way. Do they have greater meaning?

One Hundred Years of Solitude 3

1. Homeopathy: : a system of medical practice that treats a disease especially by the administration of minute doses of a remedy that would in larger amounts produce symptoms in healthy persons.
-Merriam-Webster Online

P 97: "Embittered by failure, yearning for a safe place where he could await old age, the false homeopath took refuge in Macondo."


2. Pietro and Rebeca's wedding is put off on account of Pietro's mother becoming "gravely ill," an illness that proves to be made up, with Amaranta suspected of foul play. Remedios becomes a woman, regularly having a menstrual cycle, so her marriage to Aureliano is arranged. She proves to be a wonderful wife and addition to the Buendia family, getting along well with everyone and even offering to raise Aureliano Jose, Aureliano and Pilar's son. The state of bliss cannot last long, however, and Remedios dies suddenly. This again pushes back the date of Rebeca and Pietro's wedding, as a state of mourning is called for. Amaranta feels guilty for Remedios's death, suspecting that her wishes of tragedy to make the marriage of Pietro and Rebeca an impossibility have been answered in a way she did not imagine. A priest comes to town, deciding to build a tremendous church, and it is decided that Rebeca and Pietro will be the first couple married in the church. The priest also finds out that Jose Arcadio Buendia's apparent gibberish is actually Latin. Jose Arcadio, the son who ran off with the gypsies, returns, gruff and covered completely with tattoos. Rebeca becomes enamored by his crude masculinity, and the two become lovers, eventually getting married. Pietro, heartbroken, finds solace in Amaranta, who loved him all along. Aureliano, in the wake of Remedios's death, turns to the war as an outlet for his emotion and want for solitude. He works his way to leader of the Liberal forces, garnering tremendous respect and reputation along the way. He fathers seventeen children, each by a different woman, on his various military wanderings. Arcadio, son of Jose Arcadio and Pilar, is left in charge of the town in Aureliano's absense, and he inflicts cruel and tyrannical rule on Macondo as an effort to gain power and respect. He tries to force Pilar to sleep with him, unaware that she is his mother, but she tricks him by sending Santa Sofia de la Piedad. Arcadio and Sofia de la Piedad begin a relationship and are eventually married, having three kids: Remedios the Beauty, Aureliano Segundo, and Jose Arcadio Segundo. Arcadio is executed for his Liberal dictatorship, however, and never gets to see the twins Aureliano Segundo and Jose Arcadio Segundo. Pietro repeatedly proposes to Amaranta, who repeatedly turns him down, eventually driving him to commit suicide. In sorrow, as she really did love him, Amaranta severely burns her own hand, then covering it with black bandages that will remain as a sign of her penitence for the remainder of her life.


3. This section particularly demonstrated the novel's tendency to jump from storyline to storyline, from event to event, without much warning or explanation. This jumbled view of time is interesting, providing a more difficult to follow but ultimately more attention-holding story overall. As long as the reader is able to keep track of the characters with their similar names, the unexpected transitions are a positive tactic to build the novel structure. It is also interesting to note that many of the stories have similar, if not completely reoccurring, themes. Most of the young men sleep with or attempt to sleep with Pilar. There is obviously a common element of solitude in all of the characters. Time does not seem to affect anyone normally, with parents and children seeming much closer in age than they should be. The similar names are also important. Nobody and nothing ever truly dies in Macondo: even when something or someone seems dead, it makes a reappearance at some point. When the people lose their memories, they are not truly gone. Although they seem to be lost, they are brought back when Melquiades reappears with the magical cure. Melquiades is another clear example, as he continues to disappear and reappear. Although he is said to be dead at the moment, I have no doubt that he will reappear later in the story. The bones of Rebeca's parents played a large role in the earlier story, showing that her parents, although dead, were not entirely gone. They lived on, so to speak, through their lingering remains. Even if a character seems to truly leave the picture, it is almost guaranteed that through the repetition of the same few names, he or she will be "reinvented" through another generation of Buendia. Because many of the characters share characteristics, and at the very least an affinity for isolation, the distinction between characters is blurred. This suggests that nothing is final in Macondo, and nobody is gone forever. I though the emergence of a church in Macondo was another turning point in the story. Throughout the novel thus far, I've seen Macondo as somewhat representative of Eden. Jose Arcadio Buendia serves as Eve, acquiring the fruit of knowledge at the cost of innocence. It's ironic that Macondo "gains faith," in the form of a church, at a point where it is truly losing its remaining innocence. A war is raging, building in scope and in destruction, and in the midst of the chaos and dictatorship under Arcadio, a priest arrives proclaiming salvation. The people of Macondo have thus far survived incredible odds. They have been peaceful, albeit isolated, people. Although they have not had a formal church, I believe they have been more church-like than most church-going nations. Now, on the eve of the peak of their revolution, "holiness" enters. This paradox seems really important to me.


4. Will Macondo embrace the church or push it away? Will it change the lives of the people? Will it ever be completed?

Will Aureliano return, and if so, how will he react to the way Arcadio ruled the town in his absense? Granted, Arcadio has been executed, but will he try to make amends or will he be angry?

Will Melquiades return? So far no absense has been permanent. If he does return, will it be in physical form, or in another way?

One Hundred Years of Solitude 2

1. Monolithic: 1 a : of, relating to, or resembling a monolith : huge, massive b (1) : formed from a single crystal < a monolithic silicon chip> (2) : produced in or on a monolithic chip < a monolithic circuit>
2 a : cast as a single piece < a monolithic concrete wall> b : formed or composed of material without joints or seams < a monolithic floor covering> c : consisting of or constituting a single unit
3 a : constituting a massive undifferentiated and often rigid whole < a monolithic society> b : exhibiting or characterized by often rigidly fixed uniformity
-Merriam-Webster Online

Page 51: "He found Francisco the Man, like a monolithic chameleon, sitting in the midst of a circle of bystanders."


2. After Ursula finds the nearby village, Macondo changes dramatically. Ursula opens a candy animal shop, and the town in general flourishes. Pilar gives birth to a son, Arcadio, by Jose Arcadio. A young, thumb-sucking orphan arrives mysteriously one day, and the Buendia family receives her as one of their own. Unfortunately the girl is affected with an extremely contagious insomnia plague, and the whole town contracts it in time. The plague causes them to stay awake at all hours, leading to drastic memory loss. Eager to retain their memories, the townsfolk begin labeling everything from "clock" to "cow," giving specific instructions on what to do with each. One day, just as things begin looking severely melancholy for Macondo, Melquiades shows up with a remedy and a daguerreotype, the later of which fascinates the healed Jose Arcadio Buendia. He seeks to use the machine to prove that God either exists or does not exist. Aureliano, meanwhile, has become a highly successful silversmith, but seems to have a problem connecting with the opposite gender. A magistrate arrives, attempting to force all of the houses to be painted blue, but after much conflict with Jose Arcadio Buendia and other townsfolk, he gives up. His family, the Moscotes, consisting of seven daughters and his wife, moves to Macondo, and although the conflict was resolved, Jose Arcadio Buendia continues to hold hard feelings. Unbeknownst to him, Aureliano falls in love with the youngest daughter, Remedios. Fighting to hold back his emotions, he sleeps with Pilar, who soon after helps him woo Remedios. Amaranta and Rebeca, the two daughters of the Buendia family, both fall madly in love with Pietro Crespi, the energetic and refined young Italian who comes to set up their pianola. Crespi chooses Rebeca, much to Amaranta's dismay. Melquiades passes away, creating the first death in Macondo. Pilar becomes pregnant with Aureliano's child, but he is engaged to Remedios and does not pay much mind to the pregnancy. Jose Arcadio Buendia dreams of the man he killed again, and in a frenzy he asserts that it has been Monday for a week. He completely loses his mind, and his family and neighbors are forced to tie him to a tree in order to detain him.


3. It's interesting that while, in the previous section no progress was made, in this section progress is made, but it is not necessarily a good thing. The town of Macondo becomes more urbanized by the arrival of the nearby townsfolk; businesses boom, people move in, and it seems that capitalism is rising. However, although the magistrate eventually comes to an agreement with Jose Arcadio Buendia, they start off on extremely bad terms. This could be a metaphor for government in general. Although it is said that Marquez does not put his communist beliefs in this novel, he could be trying to make a subtle statement about government control. The town spacing seemed awfully communist to me, with each house receiving the same amount of shade and sun each day, and each property the same distance from the water. Also, as the town flourishes, and people arrive, so do undesirable situations. There is a young woman who sleeps with seventy men a night in order to pay her grandma back, and although Pilar was in essence prostituting herself, this girl takes it to a much greater level. Overall, I got the sense that with progress comes a kind of harsh, real-world lifestyle that seems incredibly crude compared to the innocence of earlier Macondo. Is the lack of purity worth it? Solitude again plays a critical role, exemplified particularly strongly by Jose Arcadio Buendia. After throwing himself passionately into his work yet again, he loses his mind. His family sees no choice but to tie him to a tree like an animal, where he sits raving in a foreign tongue day in and day out. This is the ultimate solitude: to live among humans, but not be allowed within them. To be treated like another species, chained to a tree to endure the elements. Aureliano, who previously seemed to dislike solitude, has isolated himself completely. He spends all of his time in the lab, never concerning himself with finding friends or a woman until he meets Remedios. He does not necessarily seems happy in his solitude, but he seems content. Even after meeting young Remedios, he tries to force his emotion aside. This uncomfortable dealing with of emotion seems to be a common trait of the Buendia family, who in their isolation seem to have lost the capacity to truly feel. The character Rebeca really interested me in this section, with her soil and wall-chipping eating tendencies and her mysterious origins. I love that Ursula did not question the child when she showed up, simply accepted her as a child and raised her as such, tough love and all. Magic again runs prominently through the novel, but again in a subtle, almost believable way. When the insomnia plague curses the village, it does not seem fantastically far-fetched; rather, it seems like something that could truly happen. Melquiades returns with his magic remedies, both saving the day and tempting Jose Arcadio Buendia with an innovation one last time. The gypsy seemed immortal, but when he died at the Buendia house, he could not come back. I wonder if this will be the case throughout the novel or if he will make another appearance.


4. Is Melquiades and his "final" death symbolic of something? He seemed immortal until the very point of his death... is he truly dead? Does his death after beating so many odds represent something?

Where did Rebeca come from? Were her parents really friends of the Buendias, even though they cannot remember them? What final purpose will she serve?

Will Jose Arcadio Buendia become sane again? If so, what will he say of his time as a lunatic? If not, why did the author choose to include this terrible fate? Is the tree symbolic of genesis, when Eve took the forbidden fruit of knowledge from the tree and in turn fated herself and her kin to sin and suffering? Is Jose Aracdio Buendia representative of Eve?

One Hundred Years of Solitude 1

1. Incipient:: beginning to come into being or to become apparent .
-Merriam-Webster Online

Page 23: "His voice had changed. An incipient fuzz appeared on his upper lip."


2. One Hundred Years of Solitude essentially begins at the end, with Colonel Aureliano Buendia going through memories from his earlier life. Jose Arcadio Buendia, Aureliano's father and the founder of the town, was a fervent supporter of the gypsies who frequently visited the town, bringing with them strange and wonderful wares. He trades much of his livelihood and possession for the fascinating contraptions, much to the dismay of his more practical wife, Ursula. His purchases range from magnets to navigation to alchemy. Because of his zany pursuits, Jose Arcadio becomes extremely isolated from his family and his community. In one of his wild tangents he becomes obsessed with finding other civilization, traveling in all directions in an unsuccessful search of something other than water. He plans to move Macondo, the village he founded, to another location, but without the support of his community or of his wife he never follows through. Disappointed, he becomes more interested in his children, the younger Jose Arcadio, who is brooding and seems to enjoy solitude, and Aureliano, the only character who sincerely seems to long for human contact regularly. The elder Jose Arcadio takes his sons to see the gypsies one last time and becomes transfixed by ice. The narrative then switches to long before Jose Arcadio Buendia and his wife were born. It turns out the two are cousins, with their great-grandparents having a business partnership and their families remaining particularly close ever since. In the early days of their marriage, Ursula was terrified to have children because of a child born with a pig's tail into another incest-based relationship within the family. Jose Arcadio is patient for a long time, but when he kills a man after a duel protecting his dignity, he forces Ursula to have intercourse with him. Haunted by the ghost of the man he murdered, Jose Arcadio and Ursula move, taking many neighbors with them, and found Macondo. The story switches back to the previous narrative, and this time Jose Arcadio and Aureliano work to establish a city of ice, while the younger Jose Arcadio carries on a secret love affair with an older woman, Pilar. When she becomes pregnant with his child, Jose Arcadio flees with the gypsies, and Ursula goes looking for him. She returns months later with a troop of people from a nearby village, and claims that although she did not find the gypsies, she found a flourishing town nearby.


3. The novel is written in the form of magical realism, a genre that I was previously unfamiliar with but have taken an immediate liking to. Everything is presented as larger than life, with extravagant exaggerations and unbelievable ideas thrown into what seems like reality. I found a line on page 9 very interesting and ironic. It is mentioned that Ursula must plug her ears and block out the sound of the singing birds throughout the village "so as not to lose her sense of reality." In a land of flying carpets and serenity in the face of a duel, Ursula's irritation at something as commonplace as birds seems highly ironic. A prevalent theme throughout the first two sections was progress, or lack thereof. Although Jose Arcadio Buendia formed Macondo in a progressive, innovative way, it was arguably the only progressive action of his that we've seen thus far. All of his explorative ventures since the foundation of the village have failed; his passionate experiments and purchases, although filled with well-meaning, have been highly unsuccessful. It seems that Jose Arcadio has hit a stalemate with progress. Even his marriage, as one of incest, is a standstill. Instead of connecting with others, progressing with new genes and relationships, the two families that Jose Arcadio and Ursula belong to have been intermingling for generations. When his son Jose Arcadio is faced with the prospect of progression in the form of new life, he flees. Instead of staying to raise his child, he leaves with the gypsies. Another theme that plays an important role in chapters one and two is solitude. Each character, with the exception of Aureliano, has shown a tendency toward isolation. The elder Jose Arcadio isolates himself through his ventures and experiments: his community does not understand nor do they approve, yet he squanders his time and resources freely. His wife, Ursula, lives in isolation because of her lack of connection with her whimsical husband. The younger Jose Arcadio isolates himself through his lack of willingness to participate with his family, particularly with his father's experiments. On page 17, Jose Arcadio Sr. takes the children to see the ice with the gypsies, and although he paid for them to touch the ice, "Little Jose Arcadio refused to touch it." When he begins his affair, it is not one of love; rather, it is one of isolation and lust. The sex begins during his formative teen years. He is a brooding, angst-ridden young man with an unexplainable attraction to an older woman. She seduces him, and they meet regularly, but there is no true love connection. They are together, but they do not speak when Pilar comes to his house during the day. Thus it is a solitude-based relationship, not a companionship-based one. Aureliano is the only character who does not seek isolation. He spends much of his time attempting to connect with his father and his brother, whether taking part in the former's attempts at alchemy or speaking to the latter about his sexual encounters. Because of the situation he is in, though, and the people he is attempting to connect with, Aureliano remains in a state of solitude.


4. Names were obviously chosen very carefully in One Hundred Years of Solitude. Aureliano, the son interested in alchemy, takes his name from gold, whose chemical formula is Au and has Latin roots in aurum, meaning "shining dawn." Ursula means little bear, indicative of her strong character. Remedios could refer to medicine, and Buendia literally means "good day" in Spanish. What is the significance of Jose Arcadio? Was Pilar chosen randomly?

Ice vs. Burning... I see the significance of it so far, as it's mentioned quite frequently. I'm not sure I'm fully understanding its meaning, however. From the "burning town" to the burning passions, and the stove that the great-grandma sits on, fire is obviously prominent. Likewise, Jose Arcadio dreams of ice walls, and the ice fascinates him. Are these two elements symbolic of something deeper?

This is probably not an easily answerable question, but was Gabriel Garcia Marquez at all inspired by Chaucer's Canterbury Tales? I was reminded heavily of them in the first two chapters, mainly because of the abundance of small, easy to miss falsities throughout the text. There are many hidden "treasures," if you will, that are easy to skim over but at closer glance prove to be absolutely ridiculous and impossible.

Petrarch 4

3. In sonnets 358-366 it is implied that Laura has died. Petrarch begins the sonnets in a state of deep mourning. He claims that, "Death cannot make her sweet face bitter, but her sweet face can make death sweet," a very strong statement in my mind. In making such a bold claim, it seems that he is implying that he would welcome death, so long as Laura accompanies it. Petrarch would rather be with Laura in death than without her in life. I find this kind of ironic, though, considering he was never really with her in life either. At one point, Petrarch suggests that Laura's ghost has spoken to him, telling him to feel no sorrow in her death. Again, extremely far-fetched, given the fact that they did not know one another. I feel like at this point Petrarch is delusional, grasping for any hope he can find. I was really confused by the lines "Sometimes my heart trembles with a sweet chill, hearing her for whom I grow pale say to me: "Friend, now I love you and now I honor you, because you have changed your habits and your hair."" Laura is dead, and she died NOT loving Petrarch. I don't think "changing his hair" would have that tremendous of an effect, unless he's suggesting she was incredibly shallow in life. If that is the case, why does Petrarch praise her moral strength? This line seems to contradict everything Petrarch built up in the first few sonnets. He also implies that they will be together when he reaches heaven, but if she wouldn't have him on earth, I doubt this is the way it will work in the afterlife. Soon after, the theme of the sonnets changes dramatically. In sonnet 364, Petrarch acknowledges his foolishness in wasting his time on a woman who did not love him back. He asks for God's forgiveness and guidance. Here again, Petrarch strays from what he built. The entire 363 preceding sonnets appeared to be written over the course of one year, but sonnet 364 mentions that "Love held [him] twenty-one years gladly burning in the fire and full of hope amid sorrow; since my lady, and my heart with her, rose to Heaven, ten more years of weeping." This suggests that he has been in love with Laura for twenty-one years, which certainly does not fit the one year idea.


4. The biggest change in the progression of these poems obviously stems from Laura's death. Petrarch can no longer gaze upon her beauty; he can no longer physically long for something he cannot have. While he has the memory of her, he no longer has her. While most of the previous sonnets were melancholy in his unrequited love, none were as sorrowful as the poems following her death. He speaks of wishing for death, something he would not have ever done had Laura been alive. I still fail to see how it's such a big deal to him, as he never really knew her. Another change occurs when Petrarch acknowledges his wasted time. For the first time through all of the poems, he recognizes the lost time and asks for forgiveness. He realizes that Laura never loved him and that he should have given it up. This is a HUGE change from previous sonnets, in which his obliviousness and naivety allowed him to imagine a world where Laura would one day leap into his arms, proclaiming her love for him.


5. I did not encounter anything in my research that warned me of the change from sorrow to remorse. Nobody mentioned that he realized he wasted years of his life. Because of this, and because it is so unlike Petrarch throughout his earlier poems to admit flaw in loving Laura, I certainly did not see his change in heart coming. I was completely surprised when he acknowledged his foolishness and prayed for guidance. However, some scholars did mention Laura's death, so that didn't surprise me, although scholars admit that it was years later, and the whole romance did not take place over one year. I wonder why Petrarch chose to present it as a single year?


6. There are two deviations from typical Petrarchan-style sonnets in this block of poems. The first comes in 359, which is incredibly long. It is written in somewhat typical format, just much longer than the usual sonnet. It is 33 lines, as opposed to the usual 14. The second different poem is also the final poem, number 366. This poem is 13 lines long and is not at all in sonnet form. It appears to have irregular rhyme scheme, with no direct pattern, although there are some ABAB patterns.

Petrarch 3

3. Poems six through fifteen further glorify Laura, although there are a few random sonnets within as well. Petrarch asserts that his desire "flies ahead of [his] slow running" in its pursuit of she who is "light and free of the snares of Love." This indicates a very one-sided attraction, where Petrarch is in love with a woman who does not feel the same toward him. Petrarch also suggests that Love has the power to deeply wound him, "as against [his] will [Love] carries [him] off to death." This is obviously an exaggeration, as Petrarch was not fatally wounded by love, but the point comes across quite strongly. Love has a tremendous hold on Petrarch, one that leaves him helpless and wounded. According to a later sonnet, Petrarch had no choice but to fall in love. He was "free and in peace... passing through this mortal life, which every living thing desires, without fear of finding on the way anything to snare us." However, as soon as he saw Laura, his life changed forever. Now "he remains in the power of another, near his end, bound with a greater chain." Whether he chose his fate or not, there is no escaping it now. He is in the reign of a lady so beautiful that "she among ladies is a sun," clearly possessing unparalleled beauty. As the poems progress it seems that Petrarch's feelings have become known to Laura, but that she dismisses them. Since "Love has made [her] aware of [him], [her] blond hair has been veiled and [her] lovely gaze kept to itself." It appears that Laura has become bashful in her morality, refusing to lead on a man while she is married to another. I respect this in her; as we talked about in class, one of my big issues was whether he wanted her solely for lust or whether he truly loved her. I feel that if Petrarch was content to watch her from afar in order to preserve her purity and dignity, it could be love that he was feeling. However, if Petrarch tried desperately to win her affections, even if it meant asking her to commit adultery, he was simply in lust. If one truly loves someone, he or she would never ask the beloved to abandon his or her moral standards. I'm not sure what this says about Petrarch, but I respect Laura for putting her veil on, so to speak, and ignoring his advances. Backing up my lust vs. love argument, Petrarch makes a lot of physical-based comments about Laura once again in this section. He mentions the "light of [her] lovely eyes," pines for her "hair of fine gold made silver," speaks of her "garlands and clothes of green," and yearns to live long enough to see her "face lose its hue." As touching as these sentiments may be, they are all appearance-based. Relationships based wholly on appearance are lustful relationships, which makes me question Petrarch's motives. However, a slightly redeeming factor occurs in his mention of her valor. Petrarch claims that "from [Laura] comes the courageous joy that leads you to Heaven along a straight path, so that already I go high with hope." He mentions his eyes looking "so high" upon seeing her, indicating either a heavenly appearance or a heavenly demeanor. I'll give Petrarch the benefit of the doubt and assume that in this case he is not referring to her beauty, as he so often does, but her character. Petrarch ends these ten sonnets on a dramatic note, claiming that "death alone can cut off [his] thoughts from the amorous path that leads them to the sweet port of their healing." He says that the only cure for his incomparable love is death, in my opinion a very dramatic thing to say.


4. Most of the poems within this section seem to remain similar in progression to what we've seen so far; however, there have been a few differences. The first "odd" poem, so to speak, is number seven. While written in the standard style, the actual message of the sonnet does not fit with the Laura theme. Sonnet seven speaks of "gluttony and sleep and the pillow of idleness" banishing "all virtue" from the world, and the "benign light of heaven by which human life should be shaped." It also makes a reference to poetry, claiming that those interested in creating poetry are frowned upon. "Philosophy, you go poor and naked!" asserts a mob. Petrarch seems to be emphasizing the importance of religion, poetry, and philosophy, which would go along with his humanistic views. However, the poem definitely sticks out in context, as it doesn't fit with the flow of the other sonnets. Sonnet ten is the other sonnet that does not fit naturally into the progression: it once again talks about poetry, this time speaks of how there are "no palaces, no theater or gallery, but in their stead a fir tree, a beech, a pine... and the nearby mountain where we climb and descend poetizing." Once again he seems to be expression admiration for poetry, but once again it seems out of place within the sonnets.


5. The love vs. lust debate seems to be heating up, at least for me. The more of the sonnets I read, the more I notice the physical descriptions and praise but the lack of mention of character. Even when he does mention her virtuous nature, it could be taken multiple ways, one of which is a lust-driven frenzy. I would like to believe that Petrarch truly loved Laura, but as I mentioned previously, him apparently making his feelings known makes me question whether he was being entirely genuine. Overall it still fits with my research: Petrarch loved a woman who could not, or would not, love him back. He continues to pine for her, but she continues to ignore his advances. The "misfit" sonnets point to humanism, an ideology which Petrarch is said to be the founder of.


6. There has been nothing notable about any of the sonnets in this section regarding style and format. Petrarch continues to use Petrarchan sonnet form. The rhymes remain the same, and there are no hidden "LAU-RE-TA"s. As far as style goes, this section was fairly monotone. Not necessarily boring, but nothing to report.

Petrarch 2

3. Poems 1-5 jump straight into Petrarch's love for Laura. He begins by declaring his sorrow found through love, and asking that anyone who understands love would treat him with compassion and pardon his ways, as well as pity him for his struggles. He also acknowledges that he was "the talk of the crowd, for which [he is] ashamed," and that his "raving, shame is the fruit, and repentance, and the clear knowledge that whatever pleases in the world is a brief dream." This is a rather sorrowful way to begin a long set of poems, but it certainly gets the point across: Petrarch, or the speaker in this case, has been deeply wounded by love. Love, Petrarch claims, has taken "a graceful revenge" and "took up his bow again secretly, like a man who waits for the time and place to hurt." This bold statement accuses love of desiring to hurt the poor souls it affects, and Petrarch obviously sees himself as a victim. Petrarch eventually gets around to explaining his love, a love which began when Petrarch "did not defend [himself] against... your lovely eyes, Lady." This raises the love versus lust question, seeing as it appears to have been "love at first sight." Apparently Petrarch was unguarded, seeing no reason for alarm or fear in the face of such powerful feelings. He traipsed boldly into love, multiplying his hurt. "Love found me altogether disarmed," implies that Petrarch was struck without any forewarning. He compares Laura to the sun, saying that "Nature is thanked and the place where so beautiful a lady was born to the world." Once again, is Petrarch suffering from unrequited love or unrequited lust? The relationship thus far seems rather appearance-based.


4. So far there have been no major changes in the progression of the poems. Petrarch spends the first poem telling the reader how love has affected him. The second poem is furthering this, saying how love hit him with a "fatal blow." The third poem is when he tells of meeting Laura and of Love attacking him while he was disarmed. The fourth sonnet compares Laura to a piece of heaven and the sun, obviously flaunting her beauty and attempting to talk her up greatly. The fifth sonnet puts Laura on an even higher pedestal, as she is "worthy of all reverence and honor." Petrarch remains smitten yet sorrowful throughout, leading the reader to infer that the feelings were one-sided.


5. So far this fits with everything I uncovered in my research. The poems indeed seem to revolve around Petrarch's love for Laura. It appears to be unrequited, as he would not be nearly so melancholy had she returned his "love." I find his admiration of her somewhat lust-based thus far, but maybe it will change as the poem progresses. It will be interesting to see whether he mentions her husband, and whether he makes advances on her. From what I've read, Petrarch might go after Laura, but if so she rejects his advances. Five sonnets in there has been no mention of this, but he is heartbroken and I'd imagine more will come out as the sonnets continue. As far as the style goes, it seems regular for Petrarch.


6. Petrarch is the father of the Petrarchan sonnet form, so it comes as no surprise that his poems (in Italian) follow this pattern. The translations obviously do not follow pattern, and as I'm not familiar with Italian phonics, it's difficult to decipher word patterns and sounds. From what I can tell, there seem to be a lot of end rhymes, and this fits with my knowledge of Petrarchan form. Poem five is interesting in its clever use of Laura's name - LAU - RE -TA is isolated from words within the stanza, and Laureta is the Latin version of Laura. This is the first time Laura is identified, although research would leave the reader with no doubts about the intended recipient of the sonnets.

Petrarch 1

1. Francesco Petrarch was born in 1304 in Arezzo, Italy, to exiled nobles. He was a devout Catholic throughout his life. Petrarch spent early childhood near Florence and then much of his early life in Avignon. His father, a lawyer, insisted that Petrarch also study law, so from 1316-1320 he attended Montpellier and from 1320-1323 he attended Bologna. However, Petrarch was entirely uninterested in law, instead preferring writing and literature. In fact, his fervor for writing was so great that he felt he could not relate to anyone else, so he wrote letters to Cicero, who had died over 1200 years prior. Petrarch's life took a turn when he met Laura in church in Avignon following law school. He began writing sonnets addressing his love for her, and the sonnets gained an immediate following. Petrarch's work became very popular, and he was a celebrity of sorts in his time. He was declared poet laureate in Rome and spent much of his later life traveling at his leisure. Petrarch settled down near the end of his life in Padua, and he died soon after. He eventually became known as one of the first Renaissance humanists, as well as an extremely successful poet and scholar.


2. It is rumored that Petrarch wrote most of his sonnets and all of the Canzoniere for Laura de Noves. Scholars believe that Laura was the love of Petrarch's life, but that she was married before he met her. It is uncertain whether she knew of his love, or whether she was oblivious, but Petrarch perfected his sonnet in her honor and pined for her for many years. Other scholars believe that Laura is a fictitious character, invented solely for his works. EIther way, the Canzoniere, also known as Rime sparse, was written in her honor. The vast majority of the pieces of the Rime sparse are in sonnet form, but there are also canzoni, madrigal, sestine, and ballate as well. The poems were written over a time period spanning forty years, and are now often recognized as the most influential love poems of the Renaissance era. The central theme of the Canzoniere is Petrarch's admiration of Laura; however, there are other themes as well. Faith and religion are questioned throughout, and the paradox of Petrarchan love makes a steady appearance. This paradox is the issue of love being both painful and highly desirable. The passage of time, man's changing of mind, desire, isolation, the vanity of youth, glory, and antithesis are also central themes and issues throughout the poetry. It can be said that Petrarch's desire for Laura is a theme leading to a string of major themes: his love leads him to strive for glory, which he believes can fight time and its destruction. However, based on Christian theology, even glory cannot fight time and guarantee eternity, because only faith in salvation can. Petrarch is believed to have based parts of the Rime sparse on the Metamorphoses of Ovid and Virgil's Aeneid. He also borrowed structure and rhetoric from Sicilian court poetry, especially Giacomo de Lentini.