Themes

Chapter 1

Solitude

- Jose Aracadio Buendia is willing to go against the world for his beliefs, even if it consists of him being backed into a corner, a predicament he’s fine with at least for the time being. In order to be seen as correct, in the eyes of himself above all, the consequences, neither here nor there, don’t cross his mind though he has all the time, while alone, to think about the way his actions affect others besides just him. Reference: “having completely abandoned his domestic obligations…” p. 4

- Melquiades, like his becoming friend, Jose Arcadio Buendia, is mostly alone not so much by choice but more so because people tend to avoid or fear what they don’t understand, so as a gypsy it was only evident that the people of Macondo would stay out of his path. This rare uniqueness is what I think drew Melquiades and Jose Arcadio Buendia together besides their passion for the future/unexplored and science.

- The appearance of the Spanish galleon is unusual. It is a space of solitude and oblivion protected from time. It makes Jose Arcadio Buendia lose faith just as his solitude makes his family and the people of his town lose faith in him. Interesting!

Religious References and Plagues

- The two above are frequently mentioned and obscenely interjected having not really formed significance yet but stand out as something that will come to play a part throughout the novel.

Chapter 2

Solitude

- It is seen early how much the characters will come to yearn for solitude or end up having it even if they don't ask for it. Too many wrong turns are made and it this case it won't make a right. Efforts had to be made to avoid abandonment from others and themselves so they'll have an identity, being one strong enough and able to say exactly who they are. Not a duplicate though the name may be unchanged.

Chapter 3

Change

- It was coming about so fast for Macondo as a whole. Things were just getting worse and worse. More and more they had to adapt to actions made, but the detriment thing was that they didn't know how to react toward them. It's all right, I can't express it enough, to mess up once, but two and three times or more is just ridiculous.

Chapter 4

Self-Piety

– steered both Rebeca and Aureliano toward solitude for lose of what they felt they needed to survive. Because of it they understood each other. It would remain this way until life is regained through those wants and desires being met.

Thirst for Life

– it seems so powerful that it drives not only the living but the dead as well. “After many years of death, the yearning for living was so intense, the need for company so pressing, so terrifying the nearness of that of that other death which exists within death…” p. 84

Chapter 5

Exodus

– Jose Arcadio like other men in the novel, went away for a long time of most likely self-journey and finally had returned home in this chapter.

Social Skills

- Oddly, though most of the time speaking English, the characters don't understand each other or really know how to communicate. If this is difficult, of coarse when Jose Arcadio Buendia begins to speak giberish (Latin) that not many, except the father, understand makes things even more complicated. Everyone need to calm down and make considerate gestures toward everyone so they can come to understand their environment more.

Chapter 6

Obsession

- No matter what, they were given into, they along with their friend Torment won in the end. It seemed as if defeatism was inevitable and for a Buendia it probably was.

Chapter 7

Death

- Death has struck the Buendia family hard, back-to-back, showing no mercy. They have either been through war, through mystery, through love/grief, or through solitude.

Identity

- No one, thus far has proven to be a leader so to speak by standing on their own two feet and being who they want to be without major influence. They've all lived through others' actual experiences or their names. All I, as the reader, can do is sit back and wait until someone takes charge.

Solitude

- Many of the characters place themselves in solitary mode rather than being mislead and strayed away from by the world. They push themselves into close-knit corners with no other interaction because of the actions and decisions they've made. If solitude isn't a punishment/consequence for actions, then it's a way out.

Premonition

- Throughout the book people have been forewarned to be careful of what they are destined for to be their fate. "Watch out for your mouth." p. 148

Chapter 8

Incest

- Apparently, not too many of the characters got the memo about not dating siblings or family members close or distant. Loneliness drew many of them, even the thought that it was truly love, into the relationships they made with no thought of turning back. In this chapter Amaranta begins a fling (no intercourse though) with her nephew(YUCK), Aureliano Jose. She knew it wasn't a good idea but she was lost in her wants and temptation. In the end she knew what decision needed to be made, but in the midst she hurt herself and him, causing only more sorrow like she experienced with Pietro Crespi.

Family

- The strength of the family is constantly being tried and tested and for the most part has failed. If through the worst, they could stick together and hold each other up, maybe the mistakes wouldn't be made let alone for the second time.

Chapter 9

War

- Since chapter 6, this theme has been the most affective. It has changed people, taken them away from their families and responsibilities, and even killed them for reasons they can't explain.

Solitude

- The soul that drives this novel may hop on the back-burner every now and again but never ceases to exist. It makes people stand in the way of themselves, trapped in what they believe might happen. Amaranta wept over her solitude and Colonel Gerineldo Marquez, lost in the war, became solitude as well. They become afraid of what they are capable of doing. It concludes that the only thing to fear is fear itself and as your fear being yourself, you are your greatest enemy, a threat to your prosperity.

Chapter 10

Plagues

- They reappear causing mischief as they always do. This time, out of no where, the animals of Aureliano Segundo begin to reproduce rapidly, which gives him the feeling of having struck a gold mind. There were thousands of rabbits, plenty of cows, dozens of pigs and an entire farm. His fortune seemed as if it had no end, but once you get reach your pick no where else to go besides if you stay there, is down.

Determination

- A burst of Determination had struck Macondo hitting Ursula in finally deciding to make right the disaster that had been brought to her family's name, and Jose Arcadio Segundo who keeps up his great-grandfather's plans of Upgrading Macondo by showing that his imagination exists.

Chapter 11

Cyclical

- Ursula remembered her chastity belt and wondered whether Fernanda had the same and whether it would be the joke of the town.

- The Industrialization Plans of the Buendia men for Macondo were pretty similar if not exact. Aureliano Triste and Jose Arcadio Buendia dreamed of linking Macondo to the rest of the world and finally that dream came through. Unlike his grandfather though, Aureliano Triste didnt look toward solitude to make his dreams come true. He harebrained and made rational decisions, etc. like any real intellectual planning constructor would.

Exodus

- The Aurelainos had left with their mothers after being baptized and christened to return again to Macondo from their separate journeys and homelands as men... like Buendia men.

Communication

-The fact that Amaranta changed herself by speaking gibberish that she normally wouldn't, as far as her speech/social skill, because of an uncomfort with Fernanda to insult/mock her instead of maturely addressing the situation.

Chapter 12

Evolution

- Macondo was changing before everyone's eyes and maybe it was too much to handle at once but with those priviliges came great responsibilities. They hoped for more time to experience the notion "more to life" and now they have that chance. It's now time to step up and take charge by really putting Macondo on the map. The town has become modernized and hopefully the people would be too, for the better.

Plagues

- In this chapter, the banana plague struck Macondo, which caused the evolution, at least to happen more rapidly.

Chapter 13

Torment

– It triumphed in the end no matter what case or scenario, no matter how good it got it seemed that the bad always outweighed that good that lasted for a minute period of time.

Chapter 14

Secrecy

- People tend to believe that lying and hiding from the truth is the best way to avoid conflict and make situations a lot easier for both parties but MeMe and Mauricio believed otherwise. Aureliano Segundo and Fernanda and Petra Cotes proved that having things out in the open was best, it may have not made them like eacho other or come to terms with the fact that that Aureliano Segundo was married to Fernanda but maintained a relationship with Petra (his cocubine).

Chapter 15

Plague of Rain

– Throughout this chapter and the next it rains and rains non-stop for a very unusual length of time.

Chapter 16

Solitude

- With the lose of the loves of their lives and desires that haunted their dreams, the characters would seep into solitude. It seemed to be the only outlet besides death, which were highly flirting with each other. People just thought...'What's the point?' If it's going to be this hard and you're already expected to fail because of your name then why bother? Sometimes you can't depend on others to encourage you, you have the push yourself and in the end that makes the success story all the more better because you did it on your own.

Chapter 17

Time/Cyclical

– More and more things would repeat themselves in Macondo that it was almost expected. For example, the same reply that Ursula gave Colonel Aureliano Buendia in his death cell, she had just given to Jose Arcadio Segundo who was spellbound in solitude. It happened not because times change but people don’t but because they never took a stab at changing the mode but instead to just live up to the names they bore.

Resignation to Depression

– It menaced the family and Macondo as a whole tearing them apart but only because they allowed it to. No real attempt was put forth because once they were knocked down they never got the chance to experience how good it felt to make a complete 360 because they never tried.

Chapter 18

Defeatism

- Like torment, sorrow, pain, and any of the other negative powers over humans, won in the end. The Buendias were always conquered, belittled and placed in solitude. There was no use in having hope, what was the point if they believed with every bit of themselves that they were defeated from the start.

Chapter 19

Misfortune

- The actions of the characters in the novel were sometimes just a strike of bad luck, probably because they were Buendias. Things, no matter what would be blown out of proportion or taken in the direction that they wouldn't have wanted or expected. They couldn't roll with the punches or recover after their devastating blows so like a cycle, they reverted back to step one.

Incest

-Aureliano, after being haunted with thoughts of being with Amaranta Ursula, finally gave in and had his way with her. At first it was a struggle but for a moment she, herself, gave in to temptation and before she could come back to her senses, it had happened, aunt and nephew.

Chapter 20

Time

– As time progresses, you would think one would learn what makes them happy and continue to keep that up, but throughout One Hundred Years of Solitude, especially in this chapter, with Catalonian, how nature took its course and the reverse happened. Instead of things getting better, it was seen how they got worse. It was indeed a case of just getting back to your first love but if you never gave that a chance but chose to simply run to solitude or death, as the best solution, then there was no way possible that a great forthcoming was to sprout.

Abandonment

– Catalonian proved why no one remembered the terrible things like the massacre or the foolish people like the Buendias, of the past because they were ashamed of them. They lied to themselves and strayed from their obligations in order to keep up a fictitious imagination. Instead of facing the past mistakes and saying that you can still be proud because though their efforts failed, they paved the way so no we know how to make the future turn out not in the same manner, they insisted on living falsely as if nothing ever happened to the point that they really believed it. You may can run and turn your back but the truth can’t be escaped.

Annihilation

– Macondo had run its cycle on Macondo. The fruit of its people placed the state of defeat that it was in. It consumed itself from within, ending at every moment but never ending it ending until now, a vicious series.

Love

– One of the many obsessions throughout the novel that prevailed even after death, was seen how powerful it really was. It made people exist only in an “empty universe where the only everyday and eternal reality was (that) love”. When the characters fell, they fell hard and for the worse, to never recover like in Rebeca’s case for Jose Arcadio or in Pietro Crepsi’s incident over Amaranta. There was no way around it because even in solitude it would find them. As much as they hated it when it deserted them in their most vulnerable moments, they needed it to survive. With or without it, it helps to make them who they were.