One Hundred Years Of Solitude Essay

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The presence of solitude within Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ One Hundred Years of Solitude provides a connecting factor the bridges one hundred years of complex history. Although the novel doesn’t follow a traditional linear plot line, overarching themes like solitude create cohesion. Nearly every character within the novel experience some form of solitude, that they either are born into or arises from some catastrophic event. The social and psychological instances of solitude allow Marquez to highlight the unavoidable nature of the phenomenon that both creates and destroys unity in familial relationships. Patterns of social solitude in Macondo’s history explain the more destructive nature that comes from isolation. For example, Arcadio experiences …show more content…
The life of Amaranta works to express one is capable of inhibiting themselves from experiencing any sort of intense emotional connection. Amaranta develops an emotional detachment that sprouts as an effect of the deep jealousy she has always carried for her adopted sister, Rebeca. Nearly every experience Amaranta has with a man ends with her pulling herself away from the situation all together. It seems as though all she can commit to is the intense jealousy she will always have for Rebeca, which is rather tragic. She struggles to allow herself to feel the happiness that could come from being in a meaningful relationship. Through her character Marquez depicts how solitude destructs the internal capabilities of a person to work through that loneliness. Amaranta has turned into someone who only cares for the rivalry she has with her sister “because solitude had made a selection in her memory and had burned the dimming pile of nostalgic waste that life had accumulated in her heart, and had purified, magnified, and eternalized the others, the most bitter ones” …show more content…
The rise and fall of her character is a dramatic representation of how quickly solitude can overcome someone. To a certain extent, Rebeca was capable in overcoming the psychological challenges she experienced when she first came to the Buendia home that very well could have set her on a path of lifetime isolation. Marquez quickly diminishes that platform for Rebeca with the return of Jose Arcadio. That relationship is enough to banish them from the Buendia home and the likes of Ursula specifically. It is not until the murder of Jose Arcadio that Rebeca spirals into the depths of her destructiveness for one final time. With that she “closed the doors of her house and buried herself alive” (133). Her experience with solitude greatly parallels that of her sister, Amaranta. They both have become bitter women in their solitude, unwilling to expose themselves to anything different. In this instance, solitude is a “privilege” (220). Marquez highlights the deceptive quality of solitude within the story lines of Amaranta and Rebecca. While the characters themselves believe they are living with their best interest in mind, it is very clear that they are not achieving happiness. Thus, Marquez offers commentary on the ability to inflict solitude on oneself. The sameness in solitude that exists between these vastly different characters alludes to the
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