Week 14

100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

100 Years of Solitude, written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, traces the story of the Buendia family for over one hundred years and seven generations. The patriarch of the family, Jose Arcadio Buendia Macondo, founded the town they lived in and named it Macondo. The time span of the novel covers the family’s rise and fall throughout the nineteenth century.

The town of Macondo is like the founder Jose Arcadio Buendia; they are isolated, discontent, and hostile. Macondo and the Buendia family have been isolated for years which have stemmed seclusion and incest. The isolation of Macondo is eventually interrupted when the town comes into contact with neighboring towns and their people. The interaction with others opens a stream of violence, hostility, and discontent within the town limits. A civil war breaks out and many of Macondo’s government officials are murdered. This weakness gives way to an American plantain company that invades the town and begins exploiting the land and the people. Ultimately the people of Macondo became fed up with the plantation company and they instituted a strike. The Army steps in to maintain control during this time, but that led to more fighting and deaths. At this point a heavy rain and storm hits Macondo and the town floods. Again, Macondo becomes desolate and isolated.

The entire story parallels Paulo Freire’s ideas in Pedagogy of the Oppressed. The city of Macondo and the entire population, more specifically the Buendia family, never really had their freedom. They were always oppressed in their solitude which kept them very limited in life. The people of Macondo never seemed to join together and fight the oppression effectively. This seemed to be that the Buendia family was held back by their past experiences. Freire stated that the fate of our culture lies in our hands and that we must end oppression through progressive action. Even when the people of Macondo tried to progressively act they were oppressed through violence and destruction to their home. This was seen with the uprising to the plantain company that resulted in violence, the flood that destroyed their town, and the Civil War that devastated the lands. Freire also said that oppression repeats itself and throughout the century of the story, the Buendias were repeatedly oppressed. The progressive decline of the family and city led to a completely oppressed environment because of the geographical and psychological solitude that was experienced.

Jose Arcadio Buendia influenced the growth and development of his family members and neighbors. His sons inherited his impulsiveness, physical strengths, focus, and intensity. One’s influence on others is often underestimated and Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed influence on society was underestimated as well.