Literarure & psycholoy

1443 Words3 Pages

One hundred years of solitude had numerous themes throughout the book. Gabriel Garcia Marquez talks about on how the town of Macondo from the founding to its demise. The major theme that Gabriel has brought throughout the book were different forms in solitude. Macondo experienced many events that simply lead to the town downfall, one of them is the cataclysmic events that transpired. The cataclysmic events that happen in Macondo are the tools used for solitude. There are at least three plagues that have come to Macondo, the insomnia plague and the rain. The insomnia plague is where you lose memory and can’t sleep. The second is when it rains for almost five years in Macondo. The third is the wind where it destroyed the town at the end of the novel. This paper will explain on how these three plagues brought the downfall of Macondo and why it represents Gabriel main theme in Solitude.

The first plague is the Insomnia Plague which was introduced to Macondo by Rebecca who came as an orphan to Jose. The insomnia plague can be spread by simply being nearby the person infecting it. The plague is like a common cold which someone can be have it by being near the person infected. When the Indian women saw her not sleeping and saw that Rebecca had cat like symptoms such as her eyes were lightening up during the night, she was afraid and left the house the next morning. The other Indian stayed behind because she knew that there is no escape from the plague. From what Marquez says, “His sister stayed because her fatalistic conviction says that once it gets into a house then no one can escape the plague”(44). Even if you leave the house the next morning, there is still a possibility that the person will be infected by the plague. That line s...

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..., Marquez is a brilliant writer that takes certain events from different elements and puts them in his book. The overall main theme is solitude which spreads throughout the book. Marquez uses a sequence of events such as the plagues in which represents a different form of solitude. Whether it is the loss of memory where not knowing anyone makes you isolated such as rebecca when she was first introduced. The second is the rain where it did not stop for almost five years after the massacre by the soldiers to the workers. The rain is a form of solitude because people within the town could not connect to the outside world and as such was isolated. These events made sure that the parchments happened when Aureliano deciphered the parchments thus enacting of one hundred years of solitude as not only was the town wiped out, he had no lineage no more thus was forever alone.

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