One Hundred Years of Solitude

With artistic form the great Gabriel Garcia Marquez created the most well known Latin piece of literature known in the world today. Starting out with journalism this well known author raised himself out of poverty by showing others the living state of the Latin people and conditions that they were exposed to. This novel is called One Hundred Years of Solitude and today still acts as a living testimony to all Latin America.Gabriel Garcia Marquez is know today as the well accomplished Columbian author made famous by his ground breaking novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude. Born in Aracatuba, Columbia in 1927 it has been said that Garcia Marquez (for short known as Gabo) became an overnight success for his work on demonstrating the Latin American culture in such an artistic way that it was translated into many foreign languages. In fact the novel was so powerful the William Kennedy had said that the book is, "the first piece of literature since the Book of Genesis that should be
required reading for the entire human race." Marquez is responsible for contributing if not starting "magical realism", which came about in the 20th century along with other modern movements, which means he would add almost fantasy or magical element, i.e. flying carpets and alchemy into his writing which is what he especially did in his novel One Hundred Years of Solitude.It was with this style of writing that Garcia Marquez contributed to the Latin American Boom, allowing Latin American culture such as art and literature to be introduced to Europe. Being a radical and independent writer was what Gabriel was about which was a key factor to his Nobel Prize award in 1982 for his "novels and short stories, in which the fantastic and the realistic are combined in a richly composed world of imagination, reflecting a continent's life and conflicts". Much of the events that occur in the novel One Hundred Years of Solitude, are similar to the situations he was in when he was being
raised. His grandparents who raised him are greatly similar to the main characters of the novel such as the very superstitious mother afraid of being cursed for marrying her cousin acting superstitious like his grandmother and the grandfather who kill a man in a duel.It was in 1965 when Gabriel Garcia Marquez issued the moving novel of a family's struggle to survive the ways of life in the simple, yet mysterious town of Macondo. Plagued but what is later revealed as destiny the town bears witness to more ups and downs over the course of a century than most civilizations experience in over two or three hundred years. Due to Garcia's occasional use of out of order writing, the novel becomes well fitted at the end, causing all pieces of foreshadow and irony to meet together at the novels resolution. One Hundred Years of Solitude was written in the past tense however Garcia references the future many times with the almost exact, repeating phrases throughout the novel, with also
references of the past that seems to haunt many of the characters of the novel. The families we follow are called the Buendias, their story of their journey and struggles coincide with the town itself making the Buendias and the town of Macondo reflect each others actions of all kinds. Fate and destiny play a major role in the novel amongst the town and the family almost in such an eerie way that the novel seems suspenseful to the reader who is unaware of the town's predestined fate. Macondo was seen as a greatly special town because of its isolated nature yet the story picked up when that isolation was broken, whether by an old friend, relative, culture, trade route, imperialist or war. When the town was isolated in the start of the novel the people of the town got along great while each member gave their own part and contribution to the means of benefiting society. Upon confliction with other cultures, turmoil grew until it was too much to handle for the town. In a snowba
lling effect sadly enough the town just like the family which was responsible for its start ended in a broken down, deserted manner.Intricately woven between the happenings of Macondo, the novel One Hundred Years of Solitude is filled with meaning and symbolism made to entice the readers understanding of life's concepts. One major factor that Garcia shows is isolation verse association; this is shown in not a one or the other fashion but is referenced to as a necessary balance within a community. Garcia Marquez shows this relationship with the town of Macondo itself and the Buendia family starting out as isolated, then gradually becoming more involved with other cultures and then ending in an almost deserted yet this time saddened town do to too much influence of foreign culture. More specifically it was the greed which introduced suppressive force to make sure the necessary work by the native Macondos was getting done. In contrast to his distaste of oppression when talking
about the Buendias family, because of a past couple who were too closely related, they bore a son who was born with a pigs tail, and in an attempt to cut it off he bled to death thus being natures punishment for a family being too closely related. Garcia is mainly telling us that there is to be a balance between involvements with other sources. Predictions played a major role in the novel also. While being recurrent about the novel and being claimed by almost as many as the prophecies affected almost all of these prophecies came to be true. Whether it was a random prediction by a youth of a coming visitor, or the final scene in which a very important characters prophecy would need a translation to find out that the town already had its fate made out the passing of things seemed predestined. Part of the reason for this is because of the movement he was bringing of magical realism which as stated before had the goal of bringing forth fantasy with reality; the unreal part of th
is motif was that it was predestination while the real part was the happenings of the prophecies, a real intricate way to state what Garcia Marquez was trying to get across while including magical realism.The majority of the Garcia's inspiration was based on his early life's events in Aracataca, Columbia. Most of the references of the small town of Macondo can be applied to many of the small towns in all of Latin America during the early times of superstitious lifestyles and the times without advanced technology. Primarily the Latin American ideology of living is very focused on the family rather than the individual which is exactly how the story of One Hundred Years of Solitude worked; it focused on the Buendia family as if they were a single character as a whole, progressing through the ageing family and allowing the reader to experience the lives and deaths of almost each family member. The opening of the novel can relate to the most primitive cultures of the Americas suc
h as the Mayans, the Incas or the Aztecs this is due to the civilizations extreme isolation and the families main concern with attempts to better themselves with science and technology and their fascination with the element of gold. The imperialistic invasion is something that Gabriel had experienced first hand at a very young age.Garcia makes no attempt to hide his agenda to expose the ruthlessness of the fruit trading imperialists, making the climax of the entire epic he created being the time when the American industry claim over 1,000 lives of the suppressed and abused banana workers because the workers, upon going on strike, attempted to obtain their freedoms back. Through his fictional almost fantasy work; Garcia is able to make such a novel a historical if not biographical one that exposes the happenings of his fathers and the present state of his smaller Latin towns. Just like in what happened in real life after the imperialists came to the Mayans, with much bloodshe
d to take over, they left the great civilization. All of these reasons were enough for Marquez to show this carnage in his writings.The novel itself had a spectacular effect which caused almost an overnight success making Gabriel Garcia Marquez a forerunner in Latin literature persuading a current influential Latin novelist Mario Vargas Llosa to compose an over 600 page review dedicated to Marquez's fiction. Not only successful amongst his own people Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude saw fame and likings of many European countries too. The novel received the Chianchiano Prize in Italy, best foreign book of the year in France, the Books a broad's Neustadt Award, the Romulo Gallegos Prize and an honorary doctorate from Columbia University, this all being within a time frame of three years after its publication. While being such a success overseas Garcia's novel was able to contribute to the Latin Boom and represented magical realism to the critics and doubters of the leg
itimacy of the movement. At his home, Garcia became a household name and was considered to be a hero for Columbia thus eventually leading to his most prestigious award, The Noble Prize in 1982.It is clear that this novel was ground breaking to all literary cultures breaking down the barriers of language and reminding the present of our past actions. Today Gabriel Garcia Marquez is still alive, and his novels and legacy for not only the people of Columbia but for all literary culture still lives on today. His work is a constant reminder that the best written novels are the ones that use great, well defined characters to explain what has happened in our world today while intricately combining necessary literary movements of the time.

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