Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Our Author!
Monday, April 11, 2011
Week #2
As we begin our second week, I expect you to dig even deeper with your exploration of Marquez's novel. We're focusing on chapters 5-7 this week. Pay particular attention to the four areas of interest we are focusing on as we read: theme, character, symbolism and/or imagery, and important quotations. Remember: you can earn extra credit by posting a third time during the course of the week.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Chapter 5: Remedios reaches puberty and she and Aureliano are married. But very soon after the marriage, Remedios dies. When Jose Arcadio returns home he is a beast, very strong, has tattoos all over his body and is impulsive. Although Rebecca is engaged to Pietro Crespi,she is attracted to Jose and they have an affair which turns into marriage which upsets Ursula. Theres a war between the conservative government and the insurgent liberals. Aureliano is upset with the conservatives, so he allies himself with the liberals. Aureliano eventually becomes the leader of the Liberal's.
ReplyDeleteRemedios is a little girl when she was engaged to Aureliano Buendia, and this engagement causes her a lot of consequences that ended up in her young death and not only hers but also the baby twins that she had in her womb. After this lost, Ursula becomes really upset but after some time, her big son who disappeared with the gypsies comes back as a grown up men and after his affairs with women to earn money he sleeps with Rebeca who was engaged to Pietro Crespi whom later she dumps in order to marry Jose Arcadio Buendia. After this marriage, Jose Arcadio and Rebeca are kicked out of the Buendia’s house by Ursula and because of this, Jose Arcadio starts working in foreign lands, reason because of why he gets in trouble later on.
ReplyDeleteThe war starts getting into Macondo with the arrival of Gregorio Stevenson who was sent by Aureliano Buendia with the purpose of delivering the message that the last centers of liberal resistance were being wiped out and that Arcadio should surrender the town without resistance. Arcadio didn’t believe him and because of his tyranny; Macondo participated in the war and after a while, the population decided to shoot Arcadio for his actions which caused a lot of deaths and consequences in Macondo.
ReplyDeleteChapter 6: Aureliano leaves Macondo with his troops and joins the national civil war, helping children around the country. Arcadio becomes a dictator and tries to sleep with his own mother (Pilar) so she sends him a virgin named Santa Sofia de la Piedad. Arcadio marries her and she has three children- Remedios the Beauty, Aureliano Segundo, and Jose Arcadio Segundo. The liberals lose the war and the conservatives retake the town and Arcadio is executed by a firing squad. Pietro Crespi proposes to Amaranta but she rejects him so he commits suicide.
ReplyDeleteIn the following chapters I find Jose Arcadio’s return to be particularly interesting. As we all know Jose left as a young boy trying to make that leap into man hood, for he was expecting to be a father. He was nothing more than a frightened adolescent who was uncertain about his future or purpose in life. However, upon his return he had transformed into a behemoth of a man who had traveled the world. His pure strength and masculinity makes him an instant icon in Macondo, for he has to literally fend off women and show off his strength for rewards. What makes this interesting to me is such a transformation seems to be so unheard of in any society. Which makes us ask the question, what exactly happened when he lived as a gypsy? Such a disconnect from his home created a different person in Jose, for he does not even fit back into Macondo when he comes back. Granted, most of this is because of the affair Rebecca and he began to have. Jose seemed to have gained enough physical maturity for the entire town of Macondo, but did what mentally was he still a kid? I guess that is a question that we will have to find out. For the opportunity to branch out and see the world may have been good for him or the loss of part of his childhood may have been detrimental to his character.
ReplyDeleteIn chapter 6 we see Arcadio, the illegitimate son of Aureliano, take charge in the city of Macondo while Aureliano is off fighting in the war. Arcadio, as stated in the chapter, becomes a power hungry dictator who acts upon the people who loved him his whole life with cruelty. After multiple killings ordered by Arcadio, the town becomes defenseless against their oppressor. However, one person can still control him, Ursula. In the text Ursula becomes disgusted with the way Arcadio is treating his people and she cannot take it anymore. She states on page 105, “I dare you to, you murderer…and kill me too, son of an evil mother. That way I won’t have the eyes to weep for the shame of having raised a monster.” I find this quote to be one of the most significant of the book thus far. I also find it a bit amusing, for as powerful and dangerous Arcadio has proven to be, he is still no contest against the women who raised him. She ends up scolding him until he is curled up in a ball. That is quite funny to me, for isn’t that how all mothers seem to be? No matter how big, strong, or important we ever become our mothers can knock us off our pedestal with the words that come out of their mouths. Despite the fact that Ursula is not his mother, or the fact that he claims to not even be a Buendia, she still has control over him. I guess the man who saw himself as the ruler of Macondo, isn’t so powerful after all.
ReplyDeleteChapter 6:
ReplyDeleteColonel Aureliano Buendía leaves Macondo with his assembled troops and joins the national civil war effort, fathering seventeen children around the country as he goes. He leaves Arcadio in charge of the town in his absence, and Arcadio becomes a dictator, obsessed with order and given to cruelty. When he tries to sleep with Pilar Ternera, she sends him a young virgin named Santa Sofía de la Piedad instead. He marries her, and she gives birth to three children: Remedios, Aureliano Segundo, and José Arcadio Segundo. When the Liberals lose the war and the Conservatives retake the town, Arcadio is executed by a firing squad. While the war rages, and Arcadio’s dictatorship continues, Pietro Crespi proposes marriage to Amaranta, but rejects him despite her love for him, and he commits suicide.
Chapter 7:
ReplyDeleteWhile Aureliano is fighting his wars, Santa Sofía de la Piedad gives birth to twins fathered by her dead husband. They are named José Arcadio Segundo and Aureliano Segundo. Apart from this happy event, tragedy strikes the Buendía family repeatedly. José Arcadio dies mysteriously, and it is unclear whether he has been murdered or has committed suicide. Rebeca, his wife, becomes a hermit, living the rest of her life in solitary grief. Colonel Gerineldo Márquez, who is left in command of the town when Aureliano leaves yet again to fight, has been in love for years with the solitary Amaranta, who spurns him as she did Pietro Crespi. And finally, after years of living outside tied to a tree, José Arcadio Buendíadies. A rain of yellow flowers from the sky marks his death.
Chapter 4 + 5
ReplyDeleteI think that a main concept in these chapters is the relationship between Aureliano and Remedios. Aureliano for some reason, had hoped to marry Remedios since he had met her, at a young age, even as young as age 5. However, they are told that they can’t marry until she hits puberty. Immediately after she hits puberty, they marry, and she is still in an adolescent stage. She still can’t care for herself or others. After marrying her, she passes away, and everyone mourns the death of Remedios, especially Ursula. “Ursula ordered a mourning period of closed doors and windows, with no one entering or leaving except on matters of utmost necessity. She prohibited any talking aloud for a year and she put Remedios’ daguerreotype in the place where her body had been laid out, with a black ribbon around it and an oil lamp that was always kept lighted.”
A main occurring theme to me is when Rebeca continues to relapse and eat the Earth continually. This occurs in the past chapters, when she first arrives at Jose and Ursula’s home, after her parents died; as well as when Pietro goes away and she has to rely on sending letters to him to contact him. In this chapter, chapter 5, Rebeca begins to relapse again and eat the Earth, because she thinks she “loves” Jose Arcadio, now that he is manly and beast-like. I believe that this happens whenever she feels that love is absent in her life, and when she feels alone, because she began to do this when he was treating her as his younger sister.
ReplyDeleteIn ch5, everything goes gloomy after death of Remedios. Then, Jose Arcadio comes back. Different from before, he is strong, has tattoos all over his body, and attractive. He even speaks Latin. The world outside the town influenced him dramatically. Anyways, Rebecca, who is engaged with Pietro Crespi, gets attracted to Jose Arcadio and has affair with him. Later on, their affair leads to marriage which creates the tenderness between Crespi and Amaranta.
ReplyDeleteCh6 was a series of awkward events. For example,
ReplyDeleteAfter the liberals lose the war and the conservatives take control over the town, Arcadio gets killed, Pietro Crespi kills himself for getting rejected by Amaranta and Penitent burn her hand badly that she has to wear a black bandage for rest of he life. Every events in this chapter gives me the feeling that this is the worst chapter in the book.