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?