One Hundred Years Of Solitude Symbols

One Hundred Years of Solitude Take-home Essay Throughout time, authors have used the literary device, symbolism, to give objects or characters of their stories an underlying meaning that may not be easily figured out without reading between the lines. The novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude, written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez is full of objects and characters that are used as symbols to represent something more than just their existence in the book. The symbols within One Hundred Years of Solitude almost stick out like sore thumbs at times because of the constant referencing of certain objects or characters, but others may be a little harder to understand without reading between the lines. Four symbols from One Hundred Years of Solitude are
The first instance of the ice representing nostalgia is when Colonel Aurelenio Buendia was going to be shot by the firing squad. Through all of the bad thoughts about being killed, Colonel Aurelenio Buendia was able to forget about all that for a couple seconds with the memory of when his father took him to see ice for the first time. “Then the aluminum glow of dawn disappeared and he saw himself again in short pants, wearing a tie around his neck, and he saw his father leading him into a tent on a splendid afternoon , and he saw the ice” (Marquez 128). The next example of how the ice is a symbol for nostalgia is when the sound of the brass instruments in the streets brought Colonel Aurelenio Buendia out of his feverish obsession with making his little gold fishes because the sound of the instruments brought his memory back again to that day when the gypsies showed him and his father ice for the first time. “He went out into the courtyard at ten minutes after four, when he heard the distant brass instruments, the beating of the bass drum, and the shouting of the children, and for the first time since his youth he knowingly fell into a trap of nostalgia and relived that prodigious afternoon of the gypsies when his father took him to see ice” (Marquez
The first example of how Remedios the Beauty symbolizes innocence is that she had to be dressed and bathed well into puberty. Not only did she need help with those trivial things that are learned through maturity, but she also could not read or write into her early twenties. “Until she was long into puberty Santa Sofia de la Piedad had to bathe and dress her, and even when she could take care of herself it was necessary to keep an eye on her so that she would not paint little animals on the walls with a stick daubed in her own excrement”(Marquez 196). Another example of how Remedios the Beauty is a symbol for innocence is when she levitated to Heaven before she actually died. Remedios the Beauty was so innocent and pure in the novel that she was accepted into Heaven without even going through the process of going to Heaven after dying like our knowledge of religion leads us to believe. “Amaranta felt a mysterious trembling in the lace on her petticoats and she tried to grasp the sheet so that she would not fall down at the instant in which Remedios the Beauty began to rise” (Marquez 236). The novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude, has many objects and characters that may be considered symbols. Some of the symbols are easier to explain while some are very vague with many ways that they may be interrupted. The way in which Marquez uses different objects and characters to represent a deeper meaning within the novel