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?