One Hundred Years of Solitude (Spanish: Cien años de soledad, American Spanish: [sjen Ëaɲoz ðe soleËðað]) is a landmark 1967novel by Colombian author Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez that tells the multi-generational story of the BuendÃa family, whose patriarch, José Arcadio BuendÃa, founded the town of Macondo, a fictitious town in the country of Colombia.
The magical realist style and thematic substance of One Hundred Years of Solitude established it as an important representative novel of the literary Latin American Boom of the 1960s and 1970s,[1] which was stylistically influenced by Modernism (European and North American) and the Cuban Vanguardia (Avant-Garde) literary movement.
Since it was first published in May 1967 in Buenos Aires by Editorial Sudamericana, One Hundred Years of Solitude has been translated into 37 languages and sold more than 30 million copies.[2][3][4] The novel, considered GarcÃa Márquez's magnum opus, remains widely acclaimed and is recognized as one of the most significant works in the Spanish literary canon.[5]
Biography and publication[edit]
Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez was one of the four Latin American novelists first included in the literary Latin American Boom of the 1960s and 1970s; the other three were the Peruvian Mario Vargas Llosa, the Argentine Julio Cortázar, and the Mexican Carlos Fuentes. One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) earned GarcÃa Márquez international fame as a novelist of the magical realism movement within Latin American literature.[6]
As a metaphoric, critical interpretation of Colombian history, from foundation to contemporary nation, One Hundred Years of Solitude presents different national myths through the story of the BuendÃa family,[7] whose spirit of adventure places them amidst the important actions of Colombian historical events, such as the Liberal political reformation of a colonial way of life, and the 19th-century arguments for and against it; the arrival of the railway to a mountainous country; the Thousand Days' War (Guerra de los Mil DÃas, 1899â1902); the corporate hegemony of the United Fruit Company ('American Fruit Company' in the story); the cinema; the automobile; and the military massacre of striking workers as governmentâlabour relations policy.[8]
Plot[edit]
The Buendia's Family tree.
One Hundred Years of Solitude is the story of seven generations of the BuendÃa Family in the town of Macondo. The founding patriarch of Macondo, José Arcadio BuendÃa, and Ãrsula Iguarán, his wife (and first cousin), leave Riohacha, Colombia, after José Arcadio kills Prudencio Aguilar after a cockfight for suggesting José Arcadio was impotent. One night of their emigration journey, while camping on a riverbank, José Arcadio dreams of 'Macondo', a city of mirrors that reflected the world in and about it. Upon awakening, he decides to establish Macondo at the riverside; after days of wandering the jungle, his founding of Macondo is utopic.[3]
José Arcadio BuendÃa believes Macondo to be surrounded by water, and from that island, he invents the world according to his perceptions.[3] Soon after its foundation, Macondo becomes a town frequented by unusual and extraordinary events that involve the generations of the BuendÃa family, who are unable or unwilling to escape their periodic (mostly self-inflicted) misfortunes. For years the town is solitary and unconnected to the outside world, with the exception of the annual visit of a band of gypsies, who show the townspeople technology such as magnets, telescopes, and ice. The leader of the gypsies, a man named MelquÃades, maintains a close friendship with José Arcadio, who becomes increasingly withdrawn, obsessed with investigating the mysteries of the universe presented to him by the gypsies. Ultimately he is driven insane, speaking only in Latin, and is tied to a chestnut tree by his family for many years until his death.
Eventually Macondo becomes exposed to the outside world and the government of newly independent Colombia. A rigged election between the Conservative and Liberal parties is held in town, inspiring Aureliano BuendÃa to join a civil war against the Conservative government. He becomes an iconic revolutionary leader, fighting for many years and surviving multiple attempts on his life, but ultimately tires of war and signs a peace treaty with the Conservatives. Disillusioned, he returns to Macondo and spends the rest of his life making tiny gold fish in his workshop.
The railroad comes to Macondo, bringing in new technology and many foreign settlers. An American fruit company constructs a banana plantation outside the town and builds its own segregated village across the river. This ushers in a period of prosperity that ends in tragedy as the Colombian army massacres thousands of striking plantation workers, an incident based on the Banana Massacre of 1928. José Arcadio Segundo, the only survivor of the massacre, finds no evidence of the massacre and the surviving townspeople refuse to believe it happened.
By the novel's end, Macondo has fallen into a decrepit and near-abandoned state, with the only remaining BuendÃas being Amaranta Ãrsula and her nephew Aureliano. Aureliano's parentage is hidden by his grandmother Fernanda, and he and Amaranta Ãrsula unknowingly begin an incestuous relationship. They have a child who bears the tail of a pig, fulfilling the lifelong fear of the long-dead matriarch Ãrsula. Amaranta Ãrsula dies in childbirth and the child is devoured by ants, leaving Aureliano as the last member of the family. He decodes an encryption MelquÃades left behind in a manuscript generations ago. The secret message informs the recipient of every fortune and misfortune the BuendÃa family's generations lived through. As he reads the manuscript, a hurricane destroys all traces of Macondo's existence.[8]
Symbolism and metaphors[edit]
A dominant theme in One Hundred Years of Solitude is the inevitable and inescapable repetition of history in Macondo. The protagonists are controlled by their pasts and the complexity of time. Throughout the novel the characters are visited by ghosts. 'The ghosts are symbols of the past and the haunting nature it has over Macondo. The ghosts and the displaced repetition that they evoke are, in fact, firmly grounded in the particular development of Latin American history'.[9] 'Ideological transfiguration ensured that Macondo and the BuendÃas always were ghosts to some extent, alienated and estranged from their own history, not only victims of the harsh reality of dependence and underdevelopment but also of the ideological illusions that haunt and reinforce such social conditions.'[9]
The fate of Macondo is both doomed and predetermined from its very existence. 'Fatalism is a metaphor for the particular part that ideology has played in maintaining historical dependence, by locking the interpretation of Latin American history into certain patterns that deny alternative possibilities. The narrative seemingly confirms fatalism in order to illustrate the feeling of entrapment that ideology can performatively create.'[9]
GarcÃa Márquez uses colours as symbols. Yellow and gold are the most frequently used and symbolize imperialism and the Spanish Siglo de Oro. Gold signifies a search for economic wealth, whereas yellow represents death, change, and destruction.[10]
The glass city is an image that comes to José Arcadio BuendÃa in a dream. It is the reason for Macondo's location, but also a symbol of its fate. Higgins writes, 'By the final page, however, the city of mirrors has become a city of mirages. Macondo thus represents the dream of a brave new world that America seemed to promise and that was cruelly proved illusory by the subsequent course of history.'[3] Images such as the glass city and the ice factory represent how Latin America already has its history outlined and is therefore fated for destruction.[9]
There is an underlying pattern of Latin American history in One Hundred Years of Solitude. It has been said that the novel is one of a number of texts that 'Latin American culture has created to understand itself.'[11] In this sense, the novel can be conceived as a linear archive that narrates the story of a Latin America discovered by European explorers, which had its historical entity developed by the printing press. The Archive is a symbol of the literature that is the foundation of Latin American history and also a decoding instrument. MelquÃades, the keeper of the archive, represents both the whimsical and the literary.[11] Finally, 'the world of One Hundred Years of Solitude is a place where beliefs and metaphors become forms of fact, and where more ordinary facts become uncertain.'[8]
The use of particular historic events and characters renders One Hundred Years of Solitude an exemplary work of magical realism, wherein the novel compresses centuries of cause and effect whilst telling an interesting story.[7]
Characters[edit]First generation[edit]
José Arcadio BuendÃa is the patriarch of the BuendÃa family and the founder of Macondo.[12] BuendÃa leaves Riohacha, Colombia, along with his wife Ãrsula Iguarán after being haunted by the corpse of Prudencio Aguilar (a man BuendÃa killed in a duel), who constantly bleeds from his wound and tries to wash it.[12] One night while camping at the side of a river, BuendÃa dreams of a city of mirrors named Macondo and decides to establish the town in this location. José Arcadio BuendÃa is an introspective and inquisitive man of massive strength and energy who spends more time on his scientific pursuits than with his family. He flirts with alchemy and astronomy and becomes increasingly withdrawn from his family and community.
Ãrsula Iguarán is one of the two matriarchs of the BuendÃa family and is wife to José Arcadio BuendÃa.[12] She lives to be well over 100 years old and she oversees the BuendÃa household through six of the seven generations documented in the novel. She exhibits a very strong character and often succeeds where the men of her family fail, for example finding a route to the outside world from Macondo.
Second generation[edit]
José Arcadio BuendÃa's firstborn son, José Arcadio seems to have inherited his father's headstrong, impulsive mannerisms.[12] He eventually leaves the family to chase a Gypsy girl and unexpectedly returns many years later as an enormous man covered in tattoos, claiming that he's sailed the seas of the world. He marries his adopted sister Rebeca, causing his banishment from the mansion, and he dies from a mysterious gunshot wound, days after saving his brother from execution.
José Arcadio BuendÃa's second son and the first person to be born in Macondo.[12] He was thought to have premonitions because everything he said came true.[12] He represents not only a warrior figure but also an artist due to his ability to write poetry and create finely crafted golden fish. During the wars he fathered 17 sons by unknown women,[12] all named Aureliano. Four of them later begin to live in Macondo, and in the span of several weeks all of them but one (including those who chose not to remain in Macondo) are murdered by unknown assassins, before any of them had reached thirty-five years of age.
Remedios was the youngest daughter of the town's Conservative administrator, Don Apolinar Moscote.[12] Her most striking physical features are her beautiful skin and her emerald-green eyes. The future Colonel Aureliano falls in love with her, despite her extreme youth. She dies shortly after the marriage from a blood poisoning illness during her pregnancy. Until soon before the Colonel's death, her dolls are displayed in his bedroom.
The third child of José Arcadio BuendÃa, Amaranta grows up as a companion of her adopted sister Rebeca.[12] However, her feelings toward Rebeca turn sour over Pietro Crespi, whom both sisters intensely desire in their teenage years. Amaranta dies a lonely and virginal spinster, but comfortable in her existence after having finally accepted what she had become.[12]
Rebeca is the second cousin of Ãrsula Iguaran and the orphaned child of Nicanor Ulloa and his wife Rebeca Montiel.[12] At first she is extremely timid, refuses to speak, and has the habits of eating earth and whitewash from the walls of the house, a condition known as pica. She arrives carrying a canvas bag containing her parents' bones and seems not to understand or speak Spanish. However, she responds to questions asked by Visitación and Cataure in the Guajiro or Wayuu language. She falls in love with and marries her adoptive brother José Arcadio after his return from traveling the world. After his mysterious and untimely death, she lives in seclusion for the rest of her life.
Third generation[edit]
Arcadio is José Arcadio's illegitimate son by Pilar Ternera.[12] He is a schoolteacher who assumes leadership of Macondo after Colonel Aureliano BuendÃa leaves.[12] He becomes a tyrannical dictator and uses his schoolchildren as his personal army and Macondo soon becomes subject to his whims. When the Liberal forces in Macondo fall, Arcadio is shot by a Conservative firing squad.[12]
Aureliano José is the illegitimate son of Colonel Aureliano BuendÃa and Pilar Ternera.[12] He joins his father in several wars before deserting to return to Macondo upon hearing that it's possible to marry one's aunt. Aureliano José is obsessed with his aunt, Amaranta, who raised him since birth and who categorically rejects his advances. He is eventually shot to death by a Conservative captain midway through the wars.[12]
Santa SofÃa is a beautiful virgin girl and the daughter of a shopkeeper.[12] She is hired by Pilar Ternera to have sex with her son Arcadio, her eventual husband.[12] She is taken in along with her children by the BuendÃas after Arcadio's execution. After Ãrsula's death she leaves unexpectedly, not knowing her destination.
During his 32 civil war campaigns, Colonel Aureliano BuendÃa has 17 sons by 17 different women, each named after their father.[12] Four of these Aurelianos (A. Triste, A. Serrador, A. Arcaya and A. Centeno) stay in Macondo and become a permanent part of the family. Eventually, as revenge against the Colonel, all are assassinated by the government, which identified them by the mysteriously permanent Ash Wednesday cross on their foreheads. The only survivor of the massacre is A. Amador, who escapes into the jungle only to be assassinated at the doorstep of his father's house many years later.
Fourth generation[edit]
Remedios the Beauty
Remedios the Beauty is Arcadio and Santa SofÃa's first child.[12] It is said she is the most beautiful woman ever seen in Macondo, and unintentionally causes the deaths of several men who love or lust over her.[12] She appears to most of the town as naively innocent, and some come to think that she is mentally delayed. However, Colonel Aureliano BuendÃa believes she has inherited great lucidity: 'It is as if she's come back from twenty years of war,' he said. She rejects clothing and beauty. Too beautiful and, arguably, too wise for the world, Remedios ascends into the sky one afternoon in the 4pm sun, while folding Fernanda's white sheet.
José Arcadio Segundo is the twin brother of Aureliano Segundo, the children of Arcadio and Santa SofÃa.[12] Ãrsula believes that the two were switched in their childhood, as José Arcadio begins to show the characteristics of the family's Aurelianos, growing up to be pensive and quiet. He plays a major role in the banana worker strike, and is the only survivor when the company massacres the striking workers.[12] Afterward, he spends the rest of his days studying the parchments of MelquÃades, and tutoring the young Aureliano. He dies at the exact instant that his twin does.[12]
Of the two brothers, Aureliano Segundo is the more boisterous and impulsive, much like the José Arcadios of the family.[12] He takes his first girlfriend Petra Cotes as his mistress during his marriage to the beautiful and bitter Fernanda del Carpio.[12] When living with Petra, his livestock propagate wildly, and he indulges in unrestrained revelry. After the long rains, his fortune dries up, and the BuendÃas are left almost penniless. He turns to a search for a buried treasure, which nearly drives him to insanity. He dies of an unknown throat illness at the same moment as his twin. During the confusion at the funeral, the bodies are switched, and each is buried in the other's grave (highlighting Ãrsula's earlier comment that they had been switched at birth).
Fernanda del Carpio
Fernanda comes from a ruined, aristocratic family that kept her isolated from the world.[12] She was chosen as the most beautiful of 5,000 girls. Fernanda is brought to Macondo to compete with Remedios for the title of Queen of the local carnival; however, her appearance turns the carnival into a bloody confrontation. After the fiasco, she marries Aureliano Segundo, who despite this maintains a domestic relation with his concubine, Petra Cotes. Nevertheless, she soon takes the leadership of the family away from the now-frail Ãrsula. She manages the BuendÃa affairs with an iron fist. She has three children by Aureliano Segundo: José Arcadio; Renata Remedios, a.k.a. Meme; and Amaranta Ãrsula. She remains in the house after her husband dies, taking care of the household until her death.
Fernanda is never accepted by anyone in the BuendÃa household for they regard her as an outsider, although none of the BuendÃas rebel against her inflexible conservatism. Her mental and emotional instability is revealed through her paranoia, her correspondence with the 'invisible doctors,â and her irrational behavior towards Aureliano, whom she tries to isolate from the whole world.
Fifth generation[edit]
Renata Remedios, or Meme is the second child and first daughter of Fernanda and Aureliano Segundo.[12] While she doesn't inherit Fernanda's beauty, she does have Aureliano Segundo's love of life and natural charisma. After her mother declares that she is to do nothing but play the clavichord, she is sent to school where she receives her performance degree as well as academic recognition. While she pursues the clavichord with âan inflexible discipline,â to placate Fernanda, she also enjoys partying and exhibits the same tendency towards excess as her father.
Meme meets and falls in love with Mauricio Babilonia, but when Fernanda discovers their affair, she arranges for Mauricio to be shot, claiming that he was a chicken thief. She then takes Meme to a convent. Meme remains mute for the rest of her life, partially because of the trauma, but also as a sign of rebellion. Several months after arriving at the convent, she gives birth to a son, Aureliano. He is sent to live with the BuendÃas. Aureliano arrives in a basket and Fernanda is tempted to kill the child in order to avoid shame, but instead claims he is an orphan in order to cover up her daughter's promiscuity and is forced to 'tolerate him against her will for the rest of her life because at the moment of truth she lacked the courage to go through with her inner determination to drown him'.
José Arcadio, named after his ancestors in the BuendÃa tradition, follows the trend of previous Arcadios.[12] He is raised by Ãrsula, who intends for him to become Pope. He returns from Rome without having become a priest. He spends his days pining for Amaranta, the object of his obsession. Eventually, he discovers the treasure Ãrsula had buried under her bed, which he wastes on lavish parties and escapades with adolescent boys. Later, he begins a tentative friendship with Aureliano Babilonia, his nephew. José Arcadio plans to set Aureliano up in a business and return to Rome, but is murdered in his bath by four of the adolescent boys who ransack his house and steal his gold.
Amaranta Ãrsula is the third child of Fernanda and Aureliano.[12] She displays the same characteristics as her namesake who dies when she is only a child.[12] She never knows that the child sent to the BuendÃa home is her nephew, the illegitimate son of Meme. He becomes her best friend in childhood. She returns home from Europe with an older husband, Gastón, who leaves her when she informs him of her passionate affair with Aureliano. She dies of a hemorrhage after she has given birth to the last of the BuendÃa line.[12]
Sixth generation[edit]
Aureliano Babilonia, or Aureliano II, is the illegitimate child of Meme. He is hidden from everyone by his grandmother, Fernanda. He is strikingly similar to his namesake, the Colonel, and has the same character patterns as well. He is taciturn, silent, and emotionally charged. He barely knows Ãrsula, who dies during his childhood. He is a friend of José Arcadio Segundo, who explains to him the true story of the banana worker massacre.
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While other members of the family leave and return, Aureliano stays in the BuendÃa home. He only ventures into the empty town after the death of Fernanda. He works to decipher the parchments of MelquÃades but stops to have an affair with his childhood partner and the love of his life, Amaranta Ãrsula, not knowing that she is his aunt. When both she and her child die, he is able to decipher the parchments. '..MelquÃades' final keys were revealed to him and he saw the epigraph of the parchments perfectly placed in the order of man's time and space: 'The first in line is tied to a tree and the last is being eaten by ants'.' It is assumed he dies in the great wind that destroys Macondo the moment he finishes reading MelquÃades' parchments.
Seventh generation[edit]
Aureliano is the child of Aureliano and his aunt, Amaranta Ãrsula.[12] He is born with a pig's tail, as the eldest and long dead Ãrsula had always feared would happen (the parents of the child had never heard of the omen).[12] His mother dies after giving birth to him, and, due to his grief-stricken father's negligence, he is devoured by ants.[12]
Others[edit]
MelquÃades is one of a band of gypsies who visit Macondo every year in March, displaying amazing items from around the world.[12] MelquÃades sells José Arcadio BuendÃa several new inventions including a pair of magnets and an alchemist's lab. Later, the gypsies report that MelquÃades died in Singapore, but he, nonetheless, returns to live with the BuendÃa family,[12] stating he could not bear the solitude of death. He stays with the BuendÃas and begins to write the mysterious parchments, which are eventually translated by Aureliano Babilonia, and prophesy the House of Buendia's end. MelquÃades dies a second time from drowning in the river near Macondo and, following a grand ceremony organized by the BuendÃas, is the first individual buried in Macondo. His name echoes Melchizedek in the Old Testament, whose source of authority as a high priest was mysterious.
Pilar is a local woman who sleeps with the brothers Aureliano and José Arcadio.[12] She becomes the mother of their sons, Aureliano José and Arcadio.[12] Pilar reads the future with cards, and every so often makes an accurate, though vague, prediction.[12] She has close ties with the Buendias throughout the whole novel, helping them with her card predictions. She dies some time after she turns 145 years old (she had eventually stopped counting),[12] surviving until the very last days of Macondo.
The word 'Ternera' in Spanish signifies veal or calf, which is fitting considering the way she is treated by Aureliano, Jose Arcadio, and Arcadio. Also, it could be a play on the word 'Ternura', which in Spanish means 'Tenderness'. Pilar is always presented as a very loving figure, and the author often uses names in a similar fashion.
She plays an integral part in the plot as she is the link between the second and the third generation of the Buendia family. The author highlights her importance by following her death with a declaratory 'it was the end.'[12]
Pietro is a very handsome and polite Italian musician who runs a music school.[12] He installs the pianola in the BuendÃa house. He becomes engaged to Rebeca, but Amaranta, who also loves him, manages to delay the wedding for years. When José Arcadio and Rebeca agree to be married, Pietro begins to woo Amaranta, who is so embittered that she cruelly rejects him. Despondent over the loss of both sisters, he kills himself.
Petra is a dark-skinned woman with gold-brown eyes similar to those of a panther. She is Aureliano Segundo's mistress and the love of his life. She arrives in Macondo as a teenager with her first husband. After her husband dies, she begins a relationship with José Arcadio Segundo. When she meets Aureliano Segundo, she begins a relationship with him as well, not knowing they are two different men. After José Arcadio decides to leave her, Aureliano Segundo gets her forgiveness and remains by her side. He continues to see her, even after his marriage. He eventually lives with her, which greatly embitters his wife, Fernanda del Carpio. When Aureliano and Petra make love, their animals reproduce at an amazing rate, but their livestock is wiped out during the four years of rain. Petra makes money by keeping the lottery alive and provides food baskets for Fernanda and her family after the death of Aureliano Segundo.
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Mr. Herbert is a gringo who showed up at the BuendÃa house for lunch one day. After tasting the local bananas for the first time, he arranges for a banana company to set up a plantation in Macondo. The plantation is run by the dictatorial Mr. Brown. When José Arcadio Segundo helps arrange a workers' strike on the plantation, the company traps the more than three thousand strikers and machine guns them down in the town square. The banana company and the government completely cover up the event. José Arcadio is the only one who remembers the slaughter. The company arranges for the army to kill off any resistance, then leaves Macondo for good. That event is likely based on the Banana massacre, that took place in Ciénaga, Magdalena in 1928.
Mauricio is a brutally honest, generous and handsome mechanic for the banana company.[12] He is said to be a descendant of the gypsies who visit Macondo in the early days. He has the unusual characteristic of being constantly swarmed by yellow butterflies, which follow even his lover for a time. Mauricio begins a romantic affair with Meme until Fernanda discovers them and tries to end it. When Mauricio continues to sneak into the house to see her, Fernanda has him shot, claiming he is a chicken thief. Paralyzed and bedridden, he spends the rest of his long life in solitude.
Gastón is Amaranta Ãrsula's wealthy, Belgian husband. She marries him in Europe and returns to Macondo leading him on a silk leash. Gastón is about fifteen years older than his wife. He is an aviator and an adventurer. When he moves with Amaranta Ursula to Macondo he thinks it is only a matter of time before she realizes that her European ways are out of place, causing her to want to move back to Europe. However, when he realizes his wife intends to stay in Macondo, he arranges for his airplane to be shipped over so he can start an airmail service. The plane is shipped to Africa by mistake. When he travels there to claim it, Amaranta writes him of her love for Aureliano Babilonia BuendÃa. Gastón takes the news in stride, only asking that they ship him his velocipede.
He is the friend and comrade-in-arms of Colonel Aureliano Buendia. He fruitlessly woos Amaranta.
Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez is only a minor character in the novel but he has the distinction of bearing the same name as the author. He is the great-great-grandson of Colonel Gerineldo Márquez. He and Aureliano Babilonia are close friends because they know the history of the town, which no one else believes. He leaves for Paris after winning a contest and decides to stay there, selling old newspapers and empty bottles. He is one of the few who is able to leave Macondo before the town is wiped out entirely.
Major themes[edit]
Subjectivity of reality and magic realism[edit]
Critics often cite certain works by GarcÃa Márquez, such as A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings and One Hundred Years of Solitude, as exemplary of magic realism, a style of writing in which the supernatural is presented as mundane, and the mundane as supernatural or extraordinary. The term was coined by German art critic Franz Roh in 1925.[13]
The novel presents a fictional story in a fictional setting. The extraordinary events and characters are fabricated. However, the message that GarcÃa Márquez intends to deliver explains a true history. GarcÃa Márquez uses his fantastic story as an expression of reality. 'In One Hundred Years of Solitude myth and history overlap. The myth acts as a vehicle to transmit history to the reader. GarcÃa Márquez's novel can furthermore be referred to as anthropology, where truth is found in language and myth. What is real and what is fiction are indistinguishable. There are three main mythical elements of the novel: classical stories alluding to foundations and origins, characters resembling mythical heroes, and supernatural elements.'[11]Magic realism is inherent in the novel - achieved by the constant intertwining of the ordinary with the extraordinary.This magic realism strikes at one's traditional sense of naturalistic fiction. There is something clearly magical about the world of Macondo. It is a state of mind as much as, or more than, a geographical place. For example, one learns very little about its actual physical layout. Furthermore, once in it, the reader must be prepared to meet whatever the imagination of the author presents to him or her.[14]
GarcÃa Márquez blends the real with the magical through the use of tone and narration. By maintaining the same tone throughout the novel, GarcÃa Márquez makes the extraordinary blend with the ordinary. His condensation of and lackadaisical manner in describing events causes the extraordinary to seem less remarkable than it actually is, thereby perfectly blending the real with the magical.[15] Reinforcing this effect is the unastonished tone in which the book is written. This tone restricts the ability of the reader to question the events of the novel. However, it also causes the reader to call into question the limits of reality.[8] Furthermore, maintaining the same narrator throughout the novel familiarizes the reader with his voice and causes him or her to become accustomed to the extraordinary events in the novel.[8]
Fluidity of time[edit]
One Hundred Years of Solitude contains several ideas concerning time. Although the story can be read as a linear progression of events, both when considering individual lives and Macondo's history, GarcÃa Márquez allows room for several other interpretations of time:
Incest[edit]
A recurring theme in One Hundred Years of Solitude is the BuendÃa family's propensity toward incest. The patriarch of the family, Jose Arcadio BuendÃa, is the first of numerous BuendÃas to intermarry when he marries his first cousin, Ãrsula. Furthermore, the fact that 'throughout the novel the family is haunted by the fear of punishment in the form of the birth of a monstrous child with a pig's tail'[3] can be attributed to this initial act and the recurring acts of incest among the BuendÃas.[3]
Solitude[edit]
Perhaps the most dominant theme in the book is that of solitude. Macondo was founded in the remote jungles of the Colombian rainforest. The solitude of the town is representative of the colonial period in Latin American history, where outposts and colonies were, for all intents and purposes, not interconnected.[3] Isolated from the rest of the world, the BuendÃas grow to be increasingly solitary and selfish. With every member of the family living only for him or her self, the BuendÃas become representative of the aristocratic, land-owning elite who came to dominate Latin America in keeping with the sense of Latin American history symbolized in the novel.[3] This egocentricity is embodied, especially, in the characters of Aureliano, who lives in a private world of his own, and Remedios the Beauty, who innocently destroys the lives of four men enamored by her unbelievable beauty, because she is living in a different reality due to what some see as autism. [3] Throughout the novel it seems as if no character can find true love or escape the destructiveness of their own egocentricity.[3]
The selfishness of the BuendÃa family is eventually broken by the once superficial Aureliano Segundo and Petra Cotes, who discover a sense of mutual solidarity and the joy of helping others in need during Macondo's economic crisis.[3] The pair even find love, and their pattern is repeated by Aureliano Babilonia and Amaranta Ãrsula.[3] Eventually, Aureliano and Amaranta Ãrsula have a child, and the latter is convinced that it will represent a fresh start for the once-conceited BuendÃa family.[3] However, the child turns out to be the perpetually feared monster with the pig's tail.
Nonetheless, the appearance of love represents a shift in Macondo, albeit one that leads to its destruction. 'The emergence of love in the novel to displace the traditional egoism of the BuendÃas reflects the emergence of socialist values as a political force in Latin America, a force that will sweep away the BuendÃas and the order they represent.'[3] The ending to One Hundred Years of Solitude could be a wishful prediction by GarcÃa Márquez, a well-known socialist, regarding the future of Latin America.[3]
Interpretation[edit]
Throughout the novel, GarcÃa Márquez is said to have a gift for blending the everyday with the miraculous, the historical with the fabulous, and psychological realism with surreal flights of fancy. It is a revolutionary novel that provides a looking glass into the thoughts and beliefs of its author, who chose to give a literary voice to Latin America: 'A Latin America which neither wants, nor has any reason, to be a pawn without a will of its own; nor is it merely wishful thinking that its quest for independence and originality should become a Western aspiration.'[18]
Although we are faced with a very convoluted narrative, GarcÃa Márquez is able to define clear themes while maintaining individual character identities, and using different narrative techniques such as third-person narrators, specific point of view narrators, and streams of consciousness. Cinematographic techniques are also employed in the novel, with the idea of the montage and the close-up, which effectively combine the comic and grotesque with the dramatic and tragic. Furthermore, political and historical realities are combined with the mythical and magical Latin American world. Lastly, through human comedy the problems of a family, a town, and a country are unveiled. This is all presented through GarcÃa Márquez's unique form of narration, which causes the novel to never cease being at its most interesting point.[19]
The characters in the novel are never defined; they are not created from a mold. Instead, they are developed and formed throughout the novel. All characters are individualized, with many characteristics that differentiate them from others.[19] Ultimately, the novel has a rich imagination achieved by its rhythmic tone, narrative technique, and fascinating character creation, making it a thematic quarry, where the trivial and anecdotal and the historic and political are combined.[19]
Literary significance and acclaim[edit]
One Hundred Years of Solitude has received universal recognition. The novel has been awarded Italy's Chianciano Award, France's Prix de Meilleur Livre Etranger, Venezuela's Rómulo Gallegos Prize, and the United States' Books Abroad/Neustadt International Prize for Literature. GarcÃa Márquez also received an honorary LL.D. from Columbia University in New York City. These awards set the stage for GarcÃa Márquez's 1982 Nobel Prize for Literature. The novel topped the list of books that have most shaped world literature over the last 25 years, according to a survey of international writers commissioned by the global literary journal Wasafiri as a part of its 25th-anniversary celebration.[20]
The superlatives from reviewers and readers alike display the resounding praise which the novel has received. Chilean poet and Nobel LaureatePablo Neruda called it 'the greatest revelation in the Spanish language since Don Quixote of Cervantes', while John Leonard in The New York Times wrote that 'with a single bound, Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez leaps onto the stage with Günter Grass and Vladimir Nabokov.'[4]
According to Antonio Sacoto, professor at the City College of the City University of New York, One Hundred Years of Solitude is considered as one of the five key novels in Hispanic American literature (together with El Señor Presidente, Pedro Páramo, La Muerte de Artemio Cruz, and La ciudad y los perros). These novels, representative of the boom allowed Hispanic American literature to reach the quality of North American and European literature in terms of technical quality, rich themes, and linguistic innovations, among other attributes.[19]
In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, GarcÃa Márquez addressed the significance of his writing and proposed its role to be more than just literary expression:
I dare to think that it is this outsized reality, and not just its literary expression, that has deserved the attention of the Swedish Academy of Letters. A reality not of paper, but one that lives within us and determines each instant of our countless daily deaths, and that nourishes a source of insatiable creativity, full of sorrow and beauty, of which this roving and nostalgic Colombian is but one cipher more, singled out by fortune. Poets and beggars, musicians and prophets, warriors and scoundrels, all creatures of that unbridled reality, we have had to ask but little of imagination, for our crucial problem has been a lack of conventional means to render our lives believable. This, my friends, is the crux of our solitude.[21]
Critiques[edit]
Although One Hundred Years of Solitude has come to be considered one of, if not the, most influential Latin American texts of all time, the novel and Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez have both received occasional criticisms. Stylistically, Harold Bloom remarked that 'My primary impression, in the act of rereading One Hundred Years of Solitude, is a kind of aesthetic battle fatigue, since every page is rammed full of life beyond the capacity of any single reader to absorb.. There are no wasted sentences, no mere transitions, in this novel, and you must notice everything at the moment you read it.'[22] Additionally, David Haberly alleges that GarcÃa Márquez may have borrowed themes from several works, such as William Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County, Virginia Woolf's Orlando: A Biography, Defoe's A Journal of the Plague Year, and Chateaubriand's Atala. This, however, is not necessarily a negative criticism, as it involves the concept of intertextuality.[23]
Internal references[edit]
In the novel's account of the civil war and subsequent peace, there are numerous mentions of the pensions not arriving for the veterans, a reference to one of GarcÃa Márquez's earlier works, El coronel no tiene quien le escriba. In the novel's final chapter, GarcÃa Márquez refers to the novel Hopscotch (Spanish: Rayuela) by Julio Cortázar in the following line: '..in the room that smelled of boiled cauliflower where Rocamadour was to die' (p. 412). Rocamadour is a fictional character in Hopscotch who indeed dies in the room described. He also refers to two other major works by Latin American writers in the novel: The Death of Artemio Cruz (Spanish: La Muerte de Artemio Cruz) by Carlos Fuentes and Explosion in a Cathedral (Spanish: El siglo de las luces) by Alejo Carpentier.
Adaptations[edit]
While One Hundred Years of Solitude has had a large effect on the literary world and is the author's best-selling and most translated work, there have been no movies produced of it as GarcÃa Márquez never agreed to sell the rights to produce such a film. On March 6, 2019, GarcÃa Márquez's son Rodrigo GarcÃa Barcha, announced that Netflix was developing a series based upon the book with a set release in 2020.[24]
Shuji Terayama's play One Hundred Years of Solitude (ç¾å¹´ã®å¤ç¬, originally performed by the Tenjo Sajiki theater troupe) and his film Farewell to the Ark (ããã°ç®±è) are loose (and not officially authorized) adaptations of the novel by GarcÃa Márquez transplanted into the realm of Japanese culture and history.
See also[edit]Notes[edit]
Further reading[edit]
External links[edit]
Reading curriculum[edit]Lectures and recordings[edit]
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=One_Hundred_Years_of_Solitude&oldid=902174981'
(Redirected from Ten Thousand Years)
In various East Asian languages, the phrase 'ten thousand years' is used to wish long life, and is typically translated as 'Long live' in English. The phrase originated in ancient China as an expression used to wish long life to the emperor. Due to the political and cultural influence of China in the area, and in particular of the Chinese language, cognates with similar meanings and usage patterns have appeared in many East Asian languages. In some countries, this phrase is mundanely used when expressing feeling of triumph, typically shouted by crowds.
China[edit]
Mount Song, the location where the phrase 'Ten thousand years' was coined.
The phrase wansui (è¬æ²; literally 'ten thousand years') was once used casually to wish a person long life. The term's use was probably coined during Han dynasty. In 110 BC, Emperor Wu of Han was addressed by the phrase 'Wansui' on Mount Song. According to legend, Mount Song itself called out the phrase to address the emperor. During the Tang dynasty, it came to be used exclusively to address the emperor as a prayer for his long life and reign. Then, during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, its use was temporarily extended to include certain higher-ranking members of the imperial court,[2] but this tradition was relatively short-lived: in later imperial history, using it to address someone other than the emperor was considered an act of sedition and was consequently highly dangerous. During certain reigns of weak emperors, powerful eunuchs such as Liu Jin and Wei Zhongxian circumvented this restriction by styling themselves with jiÇ qiÄn suì (ä¹åæ², literally '9000 years') so as to display their high positions, which were close to or even exceeded the emperor's, while still remaining reverent to the title of the emperor.
Traditionally, empresses consort and empresses dowager were addressed with 'thousand years' (åæ²) rather than 'ten thousand years', which was reserved for the emperor. However, Empress Dowager Cixi, the de facto supreme ruler of China from 1861 to 1908, was addressed with 'ten thousand years'. Several photographs of her[3] show a banner on her litter reading 'The Incumbent Holy Mother, the Empress Dowager of the Great Qing, [will live and reign for] ten thousand years, ten thousand years, ten thousand of ten thousand years' (大æ¸
åç¶ä»èæ¯ç太åè¬æ²è¬æ²è¬è¬æ²). The Emperor was addressed by the title 'Lord of Ten Thousand Years' (simplified Chinese: ä¸å²ç·; traditional Chinese: è¬æ²çº; pinyin: Wà nsuìyé).[4][5]
Usage[edit]
A late-1960s era bridge on Hwy 209 in Shennongjia, Hubei, with the inscription ' (Long live the great leader Chairman Mao!)
Classically, the phrase wansui is repeated multiple times following a person's name or title. For example, in ancient China, the Emperor would be thus addressed with (Chinese: å¾çè¬æ²ï¼è¬æ²ï¼è¬è¬æ²; pinyin: Wú huáng wà nsuì, wà nsuì, wà nwà nsuì; literally: '[May] my Emperor [live and reign for] ten thousand years, ten thousand years, ten thousand of ten thousand years'). The foregoing phrase often appears in televised films, but is not historically accurate; in the Ming dynasty, the only occasion during which è¬æ² is used is the great court, held thrice a year. Approaching the end of the ceremony, the attending officials will be asked to shout è¬æ² three times. An important distinction made in Chinese but not in English is the use of suì (æ²) to mean year, rather than the equally common nián (å¹´), which is also translated as year. The former is used as a counter for years of life, whereas the latter is used for periods of time and calendar years. Thus the phrase 'ten thousand years' in its original sense refers to ten thousand years of life, and not a period of ten thousand years.
The significance of 'ten thousand' in this context is that 'ten thousand' in Chinese and many other East Asian languages represents the largest discrete unit in the counting system, in a manner analogous to 'thousand' in English.[citation needed] Thus 100,000 in Chinese is expressed as 10 ten-thousands; similarly, whereas a million is 'a thousand thousands' in Western languages, the Chinese word for it is bÇiwà n (simplified Chinese: ç¾ä¸; traditional Chinese: ç¾è¬), which literally means 'hundred ten-thousands'. Because of this, Chinese people often use wà n in a manner analogous to 'thousand' â whereas an English speaker might exclaim 'there are thousands of ants on the ground', the Chinese speaker would substitute it with 'ten thousand' in the description. So in the context of wà nsuì, a literally incorrect but culturally appropriate translation might be, 'may you live for thousands of years'. The number simply denotes innumerability, in a manner etymologically similar to the Greek myriad (although the current usage of that word differs).
During the Qing, at the entrances of mosques in China, a tablet was placed upon which the characters for Huangdi, wansui, wansui, wanwansui (çå¸è¬æ²ï¼è¬æ²ï¼è¬è¬æ²) were inscribed, which means, 'The Emperor, may he live forever'. Westerners traveling in China noted the presence of these tablets at mosques in Yunnan and Ningbo.[6][7]
During the Battle of Sihang Warehouse in 1937 during the Second Sino-Japanese War, Chinese civilians cheered 'ZhÅnghuá MÃnguó wà nsuìï¼' (Chinese: ä¸è¯æ°åè¬æ²ï¼; literally: 'Long live the Republic of China!') after raising the Flag of the Republic of China on a flag-raising ceremony, to celebrate their victory over the Japanese. [8]
In August 1945, after Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek announced the defeat of Japan in the Second Sino-Japanese War, the people exclaimed 'JiÇng.. ZhÅngguó.. Wà nsuì.. Wà nwà nsuì!' (è£..ä¸å..è¬æ²..è¬è¬æ²!), which means, 'Chiang .. China .. live ten thousand years .. live ten thousand ten thousand years'.[9]
Modern use[edit]
The two slogans that contain the term wà nsuì ('Long live the People's Republic of China!', and 'Long live the solidarity of the peoples of the world!') on the Tiananmen gatehouse in Beijing
One of the most conspicuous uses of the phrase is at the Tiananmen gate in Beijing, where large placards are affixed to the gatehouse reading 'ä¸å人æ°å
±åå½ä¸å²'; pinyin: ZhÅnghuá RénmÃn Gònghéguó wà nsuì; literally: '[may the] People's Republic of China [last for] ten thousand years') and 'ä¸ç人æ°å¤§å¢ç»ä¸å²'; pinyin: Shìjiè rénmÃn dà tuánjié wà nsuì; literally: '[may] the Great Unity of the world's people [last for] ten thousand years').
During the Cultural Revolution, the saying æ¯ä¸»å¸ä¸å² (pinyin: Máo ZhÇxà Wà nsuì; literally: '[may] Chairman Mao [live for] ten thousand years!') was also common. After Mao's death, the phrase has never been used for any individual. Apart from these special cases, the phrase is almost never used in political slogans today. In casual conversation, however, the phrase is used simply as an exclamation of joy. For example, CCTV commentator Huang Jianxiang shouted 'Yìdà lì wà nsuì' (simplified Chinese: æ大å©ä¸å²; traditional Chinese: 義大å©è¬æ²; literally: 'Italy ten thousand years!'; translated as 'Forza Italia!' by some media) during a game of the 2006 FIFA World Cup. Taiwan-based singer Leehom Wang's 2007 album Change Me contains a song called 'è¯äººè¬æ²' (Húarén Wà nsùi; 'Long Live Chinese People').
Within the Republic of China, shouting the phrase ä¸è¯æ°åè¬æ²; pinyin: ZhÅnghuá mÃnguó wà nsuì!; literally: '[may] the Republic of China [live for] ten thousand years!', translated as Long Live the Republic of China!) has been the final act ending presidential speeches on the National Day of the Republic of China, a tradition which was broken in 2016. It has been combined in recent years with another saying, å°ç£æ°ä¸»è¬æ² (TáiwÄn mÃnzhÇ wà nsuì; '[may] a democratic Taiwan [live for] ten thousand years!', translated as Long Live the Democratic Taiwan!) When this is said, everyone raises their right fists while standing.
Chinese authorities censored the phrase in 2018 after their decision to abolish term limits on the Chinese presidency. It was feared that it could be used ironically to mock the alleged aspirations of Xi Jinping to become president for life.[10] Xi is also the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, the de factoparamount leader with no term limits.[11][12]
In Cantonese, 'ten thousand years' (è¬æ²) can also be a slang term for treating others to foods and drinks.[13]
Japan[edit]
A group of Japanese soldiers during World War II shouting 'banzai!' near Beijing.
The Chinese term was introduced to Japan as banzai (Kana: ã°ããã; Kanji: ä¸æ³) in the 8th century, and was used to express respect for the Emperor in much the same manner as its Chinese cognate.
Even earlier, however, according to the Nihongi, during the reign of Empress KÅgyoku, A.D. 642, 8th Month, 1st Day: The Emperor made a progress to the river source of Minabuchi. Here, (s)he knelt down and prayed, worshipping towards the four quarters and looking up to the Heaven. Straightway there was thunder and a great rain, which eventually fell for 5 days, and plentifully bedewed the Empire. Hereupon the peasantry throughout the Empire cried with one voice: 'Banzei' and said 'an Emperor of exceeding virtue'.
Banzei was later revived as banzai (Kana: ã°ããã) after the Meiji Restoration. Banzai as a formal ritual was established in the promulgation of the Meiji Constitution in 1889 when university students shouted banzai in front of the Emperor's carriage.
Around the same time, banzai also came to be used in contexts unrelated to the Emperor. The supporters of the Freedom and People's Rights Movement, for example, began to shout 'JiyÅ« banzai' (Kanji: èªç±ä¸æ³; Kana: ãããã°ããã, or, roughly, 'Long Live Freedom!') in 1883.
During World War II, banzai or its full form TennÅheika Banzai! (天çéä¸ä¸æ³, 'Long live His Majesty the Emperor') served as a battle cry of sorts for Japanese soldiers.[14] Ideally, kamikaze pilots would shout 'banzai!' as they rammed their planes into enemy ships; although Japanese popular culture has portrayed this romanticized scene, it is unknown if any pilot actually did so. Its confirmed use by ground troops, however, was heard in numerous battles during the Pacific Campaign, when Japanese infantry units attacked Allied positions. As a result, the term 'banzai charge' (or alternatively 'banzai attack') gained common currency among English-speaking soldiers and remains the most widely understood context of the term in the West to this day.
During the Battle of Saipan and Battle of Tinian, some Japanese troops and civilians shouted 'banzai' before committing mass suicide at Banzai Cliff and Suicide Cliff.[15] Open programs not showing on taskbar windows 10.
Modern use[edit]
Traditionally, 'banzai' (roughly translated as 'hurrah') was an expression of enthusiasm, and crowds shouting the word three times, arms stretched out above their heads, could be considered the traditional Japanese form of applause.[16] More formally, the word is shouted three times during the dissolution of the House of Representatives, and also as an acclamation at the enthronement of the Japanese Emperor.
Korea[edit]
The same term is pronounced manse (Korean: ë§ì¸; Hanja: è¬æ²) in Korean. In Silla, it was used as a casual exclamation. It was a part of the era name of Taebong, one of the Later Three Kingdoms declared by the king Gung Ye in 911. During Joseon, Koreans used cheonse (Korean: ì²ì¸; Hanja: åæ², 'one thousand years') in deference to the Chinese emperor's ten thousand years.
In the 20th century, various protests against Japanese occupation used the term in their names, including a pro-independence newspaper established in 1906, the March 1st Movement of 1919, and the June 10th Movement of 1926.
In North Korea, manse was used to wish long life for Kim Jong-il, and for the political principles of his father, Kim Il-sung. It is now used to wish Kim Jong-un with a long life. Akin to the 'banzai charge' used by Japanese servicemen during the Pacific War, the Korean People's Army used Witaehan SuryÅng Kim IlsÅng Manse! (ìëí ìë ¹ ê¹ì¼ì± ë§ì¸; å大í é¦é éæ¥æ è¬æ²; 'Long live the great leader Kim Il-sung') as a charge mantra during the Korean War.
It is also used as a casual proclamation, commonly used as the English equivalent of 'Victory.'
Vietnam[edit]
A banner at the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum proclaiming 'Ten thousand years to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam!'
The banner above the National Assembly building in Hanoi, Vietnam reads 'Long live the glorious Communist Party of Vietnam!'
In Vietnamese, 'vạn tuế' is the phrase cognate to the Chinese wà n suì and is the Sino-Vietnamese reading of Chinese: è¬æ². However, this word is rarely used in the modern language, appearing instead only in China-related contexts (such as in 'vạn tuế, vạn tuế, vạn vạn tuế'âcompare to Chinese usage, above). In other situations, 'muôn nÄm' is used instead, and is frequently heard in communist slogans, such as 'Há» Chà Minh muôn nÄm!' (Long life to Ho Chi Minh) and 'Äảng cá»ng sản muôn nÄm!' (Long live the Communist party). Just like the Japanese banzai, it is said 3 times.
Muôn is the Old Sino-Vietnamese reading of the Chinese character è¬ (Sino-Vietnamese reading: vạn).[17]
Tuá»i is the Old Sino-Vietnamese reading of the Chinese character æ² (Sino-Vietnamese reading: tuế).[18] It is derived from the pronunciation of this character in Middle Chinese.[19]
NÄm is a native Vietnamese word that inherited from the Proto-Mon-Khmer language (cognates with Khmeráááá¶á and Monááá¬á¶).[20]
There are many ways to write the words muôn tuá»i, muôn nÄm in chữ Nôm characters, for example: Find my most visited sites.
Elsewhere[edit]
In Portuguese the word 'banzé' (how it would have looked and sounded to the Portuguese in Japan in the 16th century), directly taken from the Japanese 'banzai,' is still used as meaning a lot of noise made by a gathering of people.[citation needed]
See also[edit]
References[edit]
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ten_thousand_years&oldid=904062978'
10000 Years Later (Chinese: ä¸ä¸å¹´ä»¥å) is a 2015 Chinese animatedepicactionfantasy film directed by Yi Li. It was released on March 27, 2015.[1]
Synopsis[edit]
This story takes place in the far future after a cataclysmic event that forces humanity to revert to a medieval-style civilization. Wugreb, the leader of a Tibetan tribe called the Wu Tribe, led an expedition to the Western Regions of China to rediscover an ancient city called Tech City, which their ancestors created at the acme of their civilization. Wugreb, however, became drunk with the new-found technology he recovered from Tech City, and uses it to created a vast army of monsters and demons to conquer the world, starting with the Western Regions.
His plans for global domination were thwarted, however, by the guardian goddess of Tibet, Kelsang. Wugreb is then imprisoned within the tomb of Kuger for a thousand years. The effects of Wugreb's onslaught are evident around the world. Many new creatures and even new human species rise up because of Tech City's return to the world. The seal placed by Kelsang, holding Wugreb in his prison, begins to wane in power. It's up to a young storyteller and her warrior comrades from around the world to rise up and stand against the invasion of Wugreb and the return of Tech City.
Cast[edit]
Reception[edit]
The film earned CNÂ¥27.731 million at the Chinese box office.[2]
References[edit]
External links[edit]
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=10000_Years_Later&oldid=865881249'
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