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Races condemned to 100 years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth. These powerful last words of the novel One Hundred Years of Solitude ring true. The book demonstrates through many examples that human beings cannot exist in isolation. People must be interdependent in order for the race to survive. Solitude. Examples are found of this idea throughout the one-hundred-year life of Macondo and the Buendia family.
It is both an emotional and physical solitude. It is shown geographically, romantically, and individually. It always seems to be the intent of the characters to remain alone, but they have no control over it. To be alone, and forgotten, is their destiny. The novel begins with geographic isolation.
Jose Arcadio Buendia shouts, God damn it! Macondo is surrounded by water on all sides! Whether it is, in truth, an island is irrelevant. The town believed itself to be cut off from the rest of the world. In addition, Jose Arcadio Buendia and Ursula are looking for solitude. The founding of Macondo was a result of escaping Jose Arcadio Buendia's murder of Prudencio Aguilar.
Aguilars ghost haunted them, eventually forcing them to retreat. The family seems to remain very involved within itself. Much of this is Spanish culture. In Spanish-speaking countries, it is not uncommon to find many generations of the same family living in one house. The Buendia house always has various relatives within it. Yet, this is not the only explanation.
The incest of the family is a theme throughout the novel, and is a significant factor in the solitude of this family. If a family rarely turns to others to branch out, it eventually becomes completely turned in upon itself: isolated and detached. Occasionally, the family poisoned with the fate of solitude does reach out. Those who interact with this family share in its unfortunate fate.
First to Pilar Turner, the sexual companion of two of the Buendia boys. Following this sexual interaction, Pilar spends the rest of her life alone. The same pattern is seen with Petra Cotes, simply with another generation. Another example is demonstrated by Remedies Moscow.
She is another outsider, paired with Aureliano Buendia. Soon after their marriage she dies unexpectedly and violently. And so it goes for all those infected by this family's deadly solitude. Each Buendia has individual qualities and attributes that separate him from the others. Every person is an enigma to everyone else. No one understands anyone but himself.
The exception to this statement is Ursula, yet she is alone in her understanding. Colonel Aureliano Buendia is puzzling from the moment hes born, but after the wars he becomes almost cryptic. He keeps to himself, and shows no emotion. After Jose Arcadio's violent death, Rebeca holes herself up in her home in which she and Jose Arcadio had lived happily.
She refuses to come out, and as a result, the house rots, just as she, and is forgotten. Amaranta chose to seclude herself romantically. Though men proposed, she refused, and she remained alone until the day she died. Solitude, whether it be perceived or real, individual or collective, physical or emotional, condemns a race to self-destruction. Garcia Marquez illustrates that point in every aspect of One Hundred Years of Solitude, letting the reader walk away with the realization that all acts society, such as sex, love, and dependence are essential for the survival of any species.
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Research essay sample on Jose Arcadio Buendia One Hundred Years
