Pg. 410
“As the pregnancy advanced they were becoming a single being, they were becoming more and more integrated in the solitude of a house that needed only one last breath to be knocked down. They restricted themselves to an essential area, from Fernanda’s bedroom, where the charms of sedentary love were visible, to the beginning of the porch, where Amaranta Ursula would sit to sew booties and bonnets for the newborn baby and Aureliano would answer the occasional letter from the wise Catalonian. The rest of the house was given over to the tenacious assault of destruction. The silver shop, Melquiades’ room, the primitive and silent realm of Santa Sofia de la Piedad remained in the depths of a domestic jungle that no one would have the courage to penetrate.”
As Macondo begins to decline, Amaranta Ursula and Aureliano’s affair results in an incestuous pregnancy between the two. Since they are related, they were becoming more and more like the same person resulting with an infant that represents their similarity. The Buendia household, upon Ursula’s death, has spiraled into chaos. Solitude has overwhelmed the remaining Buendias, as their fate rapidly approaches. Amaranta Ursula and Aureliano only keep to certain areas of the house, keeping them only in Fernanda’s bedroom because there was an absence of love in her and Aureliano Segundo’s relationship. Amaranta Ursula also sews clothes for the baby on the porch, representing repetition, as past Amarantas have sat on the porch sewing. The other regions of the house are suffering the effects of the decline of Macondo. Melquiades’ room is filled with his scriptures prophesizing the fate of Macondo, but no one can decipher them. Amaranta Ursula and Aureliano are not brave enough to go into Melquiades room, along with the silver shop and Santa Sofia de la Piedads room.
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2 comments:
Good explication, however the other repetition that I saw in this passage is the idea of a shared solitude, which, like most of the repetitions in this novel, is intensified. The first time we saw this shared solitude was between Aureliano Segundo and Petra Cotes, who had a similar loving relationship that Aureliano II and Amaranta have. The intensification is that they are SO close that they "were becoming a single being." They soon forget about the rest of the house, leaving it to the disposal of the ants and decay. On one hand, it is positive to see happiness in the deteriorated Macondo, but on the other hand, it hurts to see nobody do anything to help save Macondo.
Nice job explicating your passage. You touched on numerous important points pertaining to motifs and symbolism. I really thought it was interesting that Gabriel Garcia Marquez says foreshadows the eventual cyclone and destruction of Macondo by saying, "The solitude of a house that needed only one last breath to be knocked down". Looking back on this pasage, this phrase gives a more "godly" feeling to the destruction of macondo, furthering the plethora of biblical illusions we see throughout the last several chapters.
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