A comprehensive analysis of multiple themes interwoven in the novel.

3. ANALYSIS OF THEMES
BY
SADIQA BATOOL NAQVI

5.  The most dominant theme as
evident from the title also.
 Solitude does not stand only for
‘loneliness’ in the novel but refers to
withdrawal, alienation, retreat and
isolation also.
 One form of solitude is that of
madness. The first Jose Arcadio’s
solitude is being tied to a tree ,
speaking an unknown language ,
and lost in thought.

6.  The ultimate expression of solitude is
Colonel Aureliano’s achievement of
absolute power,” an inner coldness
which shattered his bones.
 Consequently, he orders a chalk circle to
be marked around him at all times
allowing nobody to approach him.
 Amaranta is another extreme example .
She keeps her hand bandaged as a sign
of her ‘solitude unto death’.

7. All the other characters
have lesser forms of these
two extremes. They either’
lost in solitude’ or
‘achieve an honourable
pact with solitude’.

8. FATE
AND
CHANCE

9.  Commenting about the plot of his novel,
Marquez once said ,” It is the story of a
family who for a hundred years did
everything they could to prevent having
a son with Pig’s tail, and just because of
their very efforts to avoid having one,
ended up by doing so’.
 The fate of the women in the novel is
Eve’s fate. they bear the pain of birth
knowing in advance their children’s fate.

10.  Ursula’s attempt to avoid taking part in
this fate is not only circumvented, but
her efforts prompt her family’s expulsion
from home under the shadow of a
murder.
 Thus the cycle of violence, incest and
procreation starts and all efforts to alter
this course fail.
 For instance , Fernanda decides the fate
of her children but receives hatred in
return.

11. The epigraph of
Melquidas’s manuscript
aptly points towards the
role of fate,
 “The first of the line is
tied to a tree and the last is
being eaten by the ants.”

12. Religious Symbolism

13. Symbolically, Macondo is just
like the ‘Garden of Eden’, where
Ursula and Jose Arcadio Buendia
are like Adam & Eve ,producing
the long line of Buendia family.
The city is full of innocence and
joy in the beginning ,with no death
and no war.

14. The incest of Ursula & Jose Arcadio
relates to the idea of ‘Original Sin’, and
results in the inevitable burden of
solitude in all the offsprings.
As Garden of Eden was invaded by
Satan, similarly Macondo lost its
peace and innocence when foreign
imperialism came in with devastating
effects.

15. According to Bible, as a devastating
flood was sent by God to purify the
world of sinfulness, in the same way
Macondo receives a flood of rains for
five years after the ‘Banana Massacre’ as
it is a way of cleansing Macondo from all
the impurities brought to it by
technology.
The book begins with a story of
creation and ends with total destruction

16. TIME

17. Playing a role in the development of fate is the
nature of time. Throughout the novel, time moves
in ways that are non-linear.
When Ursula sees Aurliano Triste planning for
thr railroad just as his grandfather Jose Arcadio
planned Macondo’s development, it “confirmed
her impression that time was going a circle”
She makes similar observations about her great
grandson Jose Arcadio Segundo, whose actions
resemble those of her son Aureliano

18. Time and the circular history of the
Buendia family.
Every child is named after a
family member and their
personality traits are also repeated
within every generation.
The name creates a predestined
character in the child.
Every family member
experiences extreme solitude.

19. The characters seem to have no control over
their own history or destiny, so that history
inevitably repeats itself and they have no real
future besides what fate has for them.
“it’s as if the world were repeating itself”(320)-
Ursula
This circular or non-linear sense of time ,along
with the mythical elements of the novel, create
the feeling that time is nothing more than an
illusion, which motivates the reader to interpret
the situations in a unique way.

20. HISTORICAL
PERSPECTIVE

21. One Hundred Years Of Solitude also
reflects political ideas that apply to
Latin America as a whole.
Latin America once had a thriving
population of native(Aztecs & Incas)
but, slowly, as European explorers
arrived, the native population had to
adjust to the technology and
capitalism that the outsiders
brought with them.

22. Similarly Macondo begins as a very simple
settlement, and money and technology become
common only when the outsiders arrive.
In addition to mirroring this early stage of Latin
America’s growth, civil wars & political unrest;
dictatorships in various countries have been
condemned .
Though in real life Marquez was a staunch
communist , yet his objective depiction of the
atrocities of dictatorships show that his
communist sympathies do not extend to the cruel
governments that communism sometimes
produces.

24. One Hundred Years
of Solitude is an
extremely ambitious
novel.

25. To a certain extent, in its
sketching of the histories of civil
war, plantations, and labor
unrest, One Hundred Years of
Solitude tells a story about
Colombian history and, even
more broadly, about Latin
America’s struggles with
colonialism and with its own
emergence into modernity.

26. García Márquez’s masterpiece,
however, appeals not just to Latin
American experiences, but to larger
questions about human nature. It is,
in the end, a novel as much about
specific social and historical
circumstances—disguised by fiction
and fantasy—as about the
possibility of love and the sadness
of alienation and solitude.