“So Aureliano was still a virgin when Amaranta Úrsula returned to Macondo and gave him a sisterly embrace that left him breathless. Every time he saw her, and worse yet when she showed him the latest dances, he felt the same spongy release in his bones that had disturbed his great-great-grandfather when Pilar Ternera made her pretexts about cards in the granary.” (386)
Through repetition and seemingly recurring events and situations, Gabriel García Márquez conveys the uncertainty of chronology in Macondo. This passage shows a situation between Aureliano and his aunt Amaranta Úrsula that shows striking similarity to Colonel Aureliano Buendía’s relationship with Pilar Ternera. When Colonel Aureliano Buendía is a virgin, he has the same kind of urge to lose his virginity that his great-great-grandson does. Next, they both have scandalous sex, as Colonel Aureliano sleeps with the same woman that his brother slept with, and Aureliano sleeps with his aunt. Throughout the novel, sexual lust between two characters in the Buendía family occurs several times. Some situations, like the ones presented in this passage, are so similar that it is hard to distinguish the two. The entire novel is sometimes difficult to follow because of the repetition of events, and also names. Thus far, there have been four characters with “Aureliano” somewhere in their name (not counting Colonel Aureliano’s seventeen sons, who are also named Aureliano). Other names, such as Amaranta, Arcadio, and Remedios, have also appeared multiple times throughout the novel. The names become so confusing that when situations occur multiple times, it becomes nearly impossible to distinguish the past, present, and future. Gabriel García Márquez uses repetition in his novel, One Hundred years of Solitude, as a device to further establish Macondo as a fantastic and magical place.
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4 comments:
I agree with this, but I also think that Aureliano has fallen in love with Amaranta because of his lack of connection with the outside world. Aureliano has not been exposed to other women, besides Nigromanta, thus he is attracted to the only other attractive woman, Amaranta. He also grew up in a small room, not learning whats right and wrong in the real world. As he becomes older, he becomes more desprite to be with a woman, so he goes for the easiest, Nigromanta, and for the most beautiful, Amaranta.
Your explication highlights and explains Marquez's use of names to deliberately create general confusion and hinder the reader's ability to distinguish past and present. I also find it interesting that you have touched upon the many moments of "scandalous sex" as they give an apparent repetitious feeling and presence throughout the novel. Nice job old chum.
In this passage, GGM relates the current Aureliano to the Jose Arcadio, his great-grandfather. this shows the repitition throughout the book because of Jose Arcadio's relationship with Pilar and Aureliano's need for Amaranta Ursula. The repitions in names and the personality traits that are shown in the people with the name Aureliano versus Jose Arcadio are clear in this passage. Ultimately, Jose Arcadio's are more masculine and impuslsive whereas Aureliano's are much more solitary and less sexual.
I agree with your comments on repetition and how it functions in the novel. I also think that GGM uses repetition of names to show not only the magical world that Macondo is, but also to show how the Buendia family falls into the same trap of solitude by only naming their relatives a certain set of names, never expanding or growing to accumulate other names and personalities. Thus, repetition of names also exemplifies how the Buendia family is stuck in a rut of solitude and cooperates with the solitude by keeping the same family names for (you can guess) 100 years.
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