The memory in 100 years of solitude
One hundred years of solitude has been classified by many writers as one of the best literary works in Latin America and even worldwide;Part of this recognition is due to the innovative use of the magical realism of which Gabriel García Márquez takes over to give life to Macondo. Magic realism is characterized by the incorporation of surreal elements into the real world, and in this way the author has managed to cross the barriers of time and reality to mix national and personal history in his work and also highlight the role he playsMemory within the same characters in one hundred years of solitude.
Born in Aracataca, on the Caribbean Coast of Colombia, García Márquez is a sign that the mixture of the different cultures in which it grew: pre -Columbian, Spanish and African left traces in their fiction. The Colombian author was also influenced by the stories told by his grandparents, with whom he lived until the age of eight;Incredible stories that his grandmother narrated with the greatest naturalness along with war adventures related to his grandfather, Colonel Nicolás Ricardo Márquez Iguarán. García Márquez recreates his grandfather’s figure in Colonel Gerineldo Márquez, remembering episodes of his life as the murder that his grandfather had committed when he was young, his later escape and his foundation of a town, as José Arcadio Buendía does inOne hundred years of loneliness. Finally, the surname Iguarán transposes from the writer’s life to his work in the character Ursula Iguarán, who marries his cousin, as the maternal grandmother of García Márquez had done. (Vega-González)
Perhaps one of the most celebrated phrases of the work is that initial prayer with which the novel opens, “many years later, in front of the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía had to remember that remote afternoon in which his father led him to know theice.”(García Márquez, & Joset) Here the story begins by emphasizing that it is a memory that will make known what Macondo was and from there giving development to the story.
Knowing Colombian history can provide a better understanding of different events that happen over a hundred years of solitude. In the first place, the political struggle was unbridled in Colombia of the nineteenth century and caused by the parties formed under liberal and conservative flags, the bipartisan struggle, Roji-Azul generated different clashes, but the civil war from 1899 to 1902 was incredibly violent, leavingaround 100.000 dead. In the novel, this story of constant political struggle is reflected in the career of Colonel Aureliano Buendía and his revolutionary attempts.
On the other hand, the exploitation carried out by the banana company in Macondo is the representation of the events of the early twentieth century in Latin America, when foreign investors were practically responsible for sugarcane, coffee, oil, oil andother gains producing industries in the region. Foreign investment in these industries created booming conditions, which led to an increase in wages, and to offer a seductive impression of progress and modernization;produced new social conditions, opened to the possibility of something different, new and exciting. Thus, also, in Macondo the arrival of the Bananera company brings a new animation to the city with the dances of Saturdays and the friendships that develop, particularly among local and American children. However, the company also stratifies the Society of Macondo, with the Americans living in their own closed premises and without showing any interest in the development or modernization of the people.
However, the arrival of United Fruit Company to Colombia did not only mean a positive advance for society, in December 1928 the workers of the banana plantations were killed in what is now known as the massacre of the banana trees. Here is again a transposition of reality to literary fiction because García Márquez also mentions this event. The role that memory plays in this scenario is illustrated by the selective amnesia of the people, who believing what the authorities say and adding the fear of reprisals creates a network where only José Arcadio is aware of a manipulation so aware of the events. Thus, this tells Aureliano the real version of what had happened, although it is years later that Aureliano realizes that collective amnesia still dominates Macondo, where many ‘repudiated the hoove of the workers cornered at the station,and the train of two hundred cars loaded with dead … and even stubbornly stubbornly had been established in judicial files and in the texts of the primary school: that the banana company had never existed "
During the development of the story appears a character named Rebeca from whom the Indian of the house warns brings the plague of the insomnia. Again, the important role that memory has, because it is not enough that the insomnia by its nature does not let those who contract the plague is repeated, over time they begin to lose their memory. As the insomnia worsens, amnesia begins to take care of the village and little by little, all the inhabitants begin to forget the names of things and their use. As a solution, José Arcadio Buendía writes the names and the use of things in papers and sticks them into those things. Forgetting this other world, this greater reality, means having completely erased the normative structure of tradition and, what is more important, means having lost historical and traditional identity with it had been gifted. The importance of memory lies in the fact that not only orders values but also defines the self and the other (Ahsan, and Shahabuddin). Memory loss also results in the loss of the concept of time. Time only exists in memory. There can be no such thing as time immemorial. The narration of the plague of the insomnia from the beginning to the end does not mention the period of time that lasted, because when speaking of memory loss speaks therefore, of waste of time, there can be no record of time during the plague. In other words, the period of time of the insomnia cannot be determined because the memories cannot be recorded.
Another important role of memory in the novel is its relationship with war. At first, the population of Macondo manages their affairs by mutual consultation. They do not have weapons and are never divided into groups. This used to be the traditional and sacred way to deal with communal problems. Contact with the outside and advance of the world forces Macondo to import weapons and his modern political structure. People divide into two games, liberals and conservatives, and fight war throughout the continent. Colonel Aureliano Buendía becomes a legend of war, but soon realizes the nonsense of war, because it is not his war;He has no memories of enmity with anyone. The final consequence of the struggle of thirty -two wars, without even giving a sacred purpose to any of them, is that Colonel Aureliano Buendía develops a sense of reality unimaginably mundane. He is lost in solitude. Nothing remains sacred to him. He forgets the sacred of the values of love and life and even death does not make sense to him and conceives the time in the same way as all the other goodness: always moving like a pendulum, in motion motionless.
One hundred years of solitude is a meditation on the history of an independent Colombia, merging several hundred years of events in an allegorical description of the evolution of Macondo. At the same time, the novel emphasizes how prone are people to intentionally or accidentally forget their past and origins, usually with terrible and avoidable consequences. Because it is continually lost, the time in the novel is cyclical and repetitive, since the generation after generation is condemned to repeat the errors of their ancestors or fall into spirals of ineffective and useless activity.
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