- Published: September 14, 2022
- Updated: September 14, 2022
- University / College: Babson College, F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business
- Language: English
- Downloads: 7
OneHundred Years of Solitude The unvaryingor unchanging state is the greatest fear of humanity. Humans are by naturesocial beings, who does not live in a society? Or feels the need to belong? When one has experienced accompaniment, joy and communication; loneliness andsolitude become unbearable. But what does one do when doomed to live insolitude? Gabriel Garcia Marquez raises this question in his novel described asMagical Realism: One Hundred Years of Solitude. In the novel, the author usesfigurative language in the description of his characters and events so effectivelythat the reader identifies himself with the situation each character is goingthrough; this stylistic way of writing belongs to the literary movement, Magical Realism, which could be defined as an ‘ ideological stratagem used tocollapse many different kinds of writing, and many different political turmoil, into one single, usually escapist concept” (217).
Magical Realism is a southAmerican narrative strategy characterized by the inclusion of mystical elementsinto seemingly realistic fiction. As the founder of this literary movement, Gabriel Garcia Márquez, created the novel A Hundred Years of Solitude to depictthe magical reality of Colombia. Jose Arcadio Buendía the main character inGarcía Marquez’s novel yearns for a life of discovery, in his seeking he uncoversthe mystery town of Macondo: “…
A village of twenty adobe houses, built on thebank of a river of clear water that ran along a bed of polished stones, whichwere white and enormous, like prehistoric eggs” (1). Thecreation of this fictional world, serves primarily to introduce the experiencesof the Buendía family and emphasize the fantastic quality of imaginary events. “ The switches of voicereflect the villagers; thoughts, including what they think the dead arethinking, this complexity is all subsumed and remarkably controlled by thehumorous voice of the omniscient narrator, who makes It seem like child’s play.”(Conniff) The narrator is omniscient homogeneous and ischaracterized for his story world participation in itself.