Preview

World Literature Paper 2

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1444 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
World Literature Paper 2
World Literature Paper

The Use of Symbolism and Irony on the cyclical nature of the Buendía family history in One Hundred Years of Solitude

Throughout all works of world literature, certain passages will have exceptional meaning to the plot progression of the novel. This key passage essentially provides insight upon the overall theme of that work through characterization, symbolism, and imagery. In Gabriel García Márquez 's novel One Hundred Years of Solitude, the passage selected for interpretation uses the literary techniques of archetype, foreshadow, and symbolism to inform characterization. The concept of consanguineous love relationships is also reinforced in this part alongside with the suggestion of the necessity of outside authority on a family. These concepts enlighten the characterization of each and every one of the characters presented and provide insight on the cyclical nature of the Buendía family history.

Passage selected from One Hundred Years of Solitude:

“Years later on his deathbed Aureliano Segundo would remember the rainy afternoon in June when he went into the bedroom to meet his first son. Even though the child was languid and weepy, with no mark of a Buendía, he did not have to think twice about naming him.”

"We 'll call him José Arcadio," he said.” (181)

“Fernanda del Carpio, the beautiful woman that had married Aureliano Segundo the year before, agreed. On the other hand, Úrsula could not conceal a vague feeling of doubt. Throughout the lengthy history of the family the persistent replication of names had made her depict some conclusions that seemed to be clear. While the Aurelianos were withdrawn, with lucid minds, the José Arcadios were rash and enterprising, but they were marked with a tragic sign. The only cases that were impractical to classify were those of José Arcadio Segundo and Aureliano Segundo. They were so identical and so mischievous all through childhood that not even Santa Sofía de



Cited: Garcia, Marquez Gabriel, and Gregory Rabassa. "Chapter 10." One Hundred Years of Solitude. New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2006. 181-82. Print.

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Better Essays

    Antonio’s childhood through a life changing journey. Also, Ultima, the “ curandera” who helped his…

    • 2056 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    A public spectacle occurs when the performance of the strange autopsy for Santiago Nasar is in the hands of the village priest, who is carless about Santiago’s body, in the novel “Chronicle of a Death Foretold”. In the story Santiago is killed by the Vicario brothers, Pedro and Pablo. Before Santiago was murdered he was being accused of sleeping with Angela, and taking her virginity. This created a lot of hell and embarrassment for Santiago throughout the town, and caused people to have zero respect for him.…

    • 895 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Edition (2004). Literary Reference Center. John F. Moss/Palmer Memorial Lib., Texarkana, TX. 24 March 2010 <http://web.ebscohost.com.dbproxy.tamut.edu/lrc/search?vid=8&hid=102&sid=45cca199-58f7-49d0-9ae8-bdcdfd361c1b%40sessionmgr114>.…

    • 1073 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    World History Paper

    • 313 Words
    • 1 Page

    Cyrus launched Persia’s imperial venture, and his conquests laid the foundation for the first Persian Empire. In 585 B.C.E. Cyrus became king of the Persian tribes and in 553 B.C.E. he initiated a rebellion against his median overlord, and he succeeded after 3 years. By 548 B.C.E. he had all of Iran under his control and in 546 B.C.E. he conquered the powerful kingdom of Lydia in Anatolia. Between 545 B.C.E. and 539 B.C.E he campaigned in central Asia and Bactria and in 539 B.C.E., after a quick campaign, he seized Babylonia, and their vassal states immediately recognized Cyrus as their lord. Within a period of 20 years, Cyrus went from a minor regional king to the ruler of an empire that stretched from India to the border of Egypt. Cyrus managed to expand the empire by using the wealth and resources he had attained after conquering Lydia to extend Persian authority to new lands and build the earliest set of vast imperial states of classical times.…

    • 313 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Best Essays

    One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez tells the story of the town of Macondo, sticky with nostalgia, and the Buendia family who lived out those very years of solitude. Gabo’s work is written in a style known as magical realism, in which elements of the magical and the mundane are interwoven seamlessly, making it impossible to determine where reality ends and the extraordinary begins. The story is set in an otherwise ordinary world, with familiar historical and cultural realities, although events which occur are not always explained by universal laws or familiar logic. The story was originally written in Spanish, and has since been translated into thirty-seven languages. However, as any origins or bloodlines are important- it is equally as important to note that the birthplace of this masterpiece is Latin America. Much of the magical and resonant elements come to a climax at the end of the book. As the last chapters surge into our hearts, we are presented with the line that both summarizes the story itself, and the extraordinary magic and mysticism that is artfully omnipresent within its pages. In reference to the Buendia legacy it reads, “The first of the line is tied to a tree and the last is being eaten by ants.” (Marquez) At the moment we read this, we realize that Aureliano Babilonia’s son, who is bloated and still damp with the dew of birth, is being carried away by all the ants in the world. Aureliano Babilonia, the last remaining Buendia’s, is reading the manuscript of the gypsy, Melquiades, the most significant character in the novel outside of the Buendia family, who wrote the prophecy of the family one hundred years before in Sanskrit, his mother tongue. He leads us to the demise of Macondo, as it blows away in torrents of dust and whirlwinds of longing, and as the…

    • 2409 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Good Essays

    history paper

    • 455 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In Bush v. Gore (2000), a divided Supreme Court ruled that the state of Florida's court-ordered manual recount of vote ballots in the 2000 presidential election was unconstitutional. The case proved to be the climax of the contentious presidential race between Vice President Al Gore and Texas Governor George W. Bush. The outcome of the election hinged on Florida, where Governor Bush led Vice President Gore by about 1,800 votes the morning after Election Day. Because the returns were so close, Florida law called for an automatic machine recount of ballots. The recount resulted in a dramatic tightening of the race, leaving Bush with a bare 327-vote lead out of almost 6 million ballots cast. With the race so close, Florida law allowed Gore the option of "manual vote recounts" in the counties of his choosing. Gore opted for manual recounts in four counties with widespread complaints of voting machine malfunction: Broward, Miami-Dade, Volusia, and Palm Beach. However, Florida law also required that the state's election results be certified by the Secretary of State, Katherine Harris, within seven days of the election (by November 14, 2000). Three of the four counties, frantically laboring through the tedious manual recount, were unable to complete the process by the deadline. On November 14, however, a Florida circuit court ruled that while Secretary Harris must respect the deadline, she could legally amend the certified results, at her own discretion, to reflect any late returns from the outstanding counties. Harris promptly announced that she would entertain late returns only if their tardiness was justified by each county in writing by 2 p.m. the following day (November 15). The three outstanding counties-Miami-Dade, Palm Beach, and Broward-immediately sent an explanation for the delay. Secretary Harris, however, rejected their explanations and announced that the final Florida vote count would be announced Saturday,…

    • 455 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    history paper

    • 3820 Words
    • 9 Pages

    The greatest battle in our nation’s history was the Civil War. The Civil war was a very complicated war but most people just say that the North won just because they were better. Well that’s not all the accurate. The Confederacy lost this was because of a few disadvantages not because they were inferior to the Union. This Disadvantages were, the Confederacy had little time to prepare for a war of such importance, the troops of the south found themselves losing faith and fighting for a lost cause, a lack of leadership by their President, Jefferson Davis, innovations of weapons making easier for anyone to be accurate, lack of competent generals for the Confederacy, the Confederacies lack of an infrastructure, and the losing the battle of Gettysburg. There are more things but these played a major role in the outcome of the great Civil War.…

    • 3820 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    In "One Hundred Years of Solitude", one largely recognizable theme that Gabriel García Márquez presents is the role of religion. García Márquez repeatedly ridicules the extreme value Latin American culture has placed in organized religion. He also depicts the negative effects the outside religion, and technology, had on Latin American traditional culture.…

    • 689 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    History Paper

    • 8420 Words
    • 34 Pages

    |2. Which of the following was not an effect of the Industrial Revolution? |happy, healthy, well-paid work force could be more productive |…

    • 8420 Words
    • 34 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    speak louder

    • 405 Words
    • 2 Pages

    We use names simply as a way to organize and differentiate people. However, in Two Words by Isabel Allende, names symbolize more than individuality and instead represent power, strength, and courage. Allende uses names to convey a message and even in the first sentence she shows us an example, "She went by the name of Belisa Crepusculario, not because she had been baptized with that name or given it by her mother, but because she herself had searched until she found the poetry of 'beauty' and 'twilight' and cloaked herself in it." The imagery of poetry, beauty and twilight in this passage presents Belisa Crepusculario as magical, independent and most strongly illustrates the importance of Belisa Crepusculario as a person.…

    • 405 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    His boyhood days were filled more by nature than by man. The trees and the vines were like living creature to him. Six mornings each week, he went to a grade school, then high school. He felt oppressed and lost, but he had other distractions, he developed a passion for drawing and painting. But his pride and glory was a huge drawing of the entire procession of the Nobob’s ceremony. With increasing frequency, he began to skip classes and go out to the garden. It was at night before going to bed that his real joy came. Story telling is an important institution and a great art in India. All this had become his actual school, and his formal education suffered correspondingly. The results of his exams were failed. Then he returned to Bhaunagar.…

    • 966 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Picaresque Novels

    • 4316 Words
    • 18 Pages

    Progress and development of character do not take place. The central figure starts as a picaro and ends as a picaro. When change occurs, as it sometimes does, it is external, brought about by the picaro’s falling heir to a fortune or by marrying money;…

    • 4316 Words
    • 18 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    History and Literature

    • 417 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Critically examine the reasons why the federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland came to an end in 1963?…

    • 417 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    El Filibusterismo Summary

    • 737 Words
    • 3 Pages

    On the occasion of the wedding of Paulita Gomez and Juanito Pelaez, he gives a wedding gift to them a beautiful lamp. Only he and his confidential associates, Basilio (Sisa’s son who joined his revolutionary cause), know that when the…

    • 737 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    world literature

    • 827 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Meat is animal flesh that is eaten as food. Humans are omnivorous, and have hunted and killed animals for meat since prehistoric times.…

    • 827 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics