One Hundred Years of Solitude Part II

The second part of One Hundred Years of Solitude was when it started getting a little more interesting to me. Colonel Aureliano has gone through so much and lost his main cause of fighting in the war. Instead of what he fought for in the beginning, the twisted Conservative Party, he begins fighting for pride.

I agree with steph113 when she says that Macondo had evolved over time. It was just a village with adobe houses, as she said, but now, transformed into a more modernized society because of outside influences. Railroads and ships transporting goods to and from are found in Macondo now. I think Macondo changing was a both positive and negative. It was positive because the new technology made life in Macondo easier and more suitable. It was a negative too because certain people began coming into the village wanting to rule what wasn't theirs before. This reminds me of the Native Americans in the United States and the Americans that "discovered North America" and all of a sudden wanting to take over land that didn't belong to them. The Native Americans try to fight back, but in the end, lose the fight, just like in Macondo. The "government" suddenly wants to take over a village that wasn't theirs in the first place.

I agree with mary when she says that nostalgia is a theme in the novel. Amaranta constantly knitting in solitude, thinking of Pietro Crespi and all of his qualities. Ursala was especially nostalgic because she is the oldest in the family. She gets to live one hundred years of age and with that, she sees how each of the family members have grown and changed. Things aren't the same in the Buendia household anymore and to return to the past is what she yearns for the most.

Does anyone else find it interesting how the twins Jose Arcadio and Aureliano Segundo don't come out the way their names suggest them to be? Ursala also notices it, too. "...she examined her old memories and confirmed the belief that at some moment in childhood he had changed places with his twin brother, because it was he and not the other one who should have been called Aureliano," (261-262). Jose Arcadio is the more reserved one, just like Colonel Aureliano is. But, Aureliano Segundo is the wild one, just like Jose Arcadio was when he came back from the gypsies. It's pretty obvious.

I noticed also that Meme was different from the Buendias. Her fate isn't easily chosen like the others. From the names of the Buendia children after Jose Arcadio and Colonel Aureliano, one could already see what will befall the child before it already happens.