One Hundred Years of Solitude

¶ … Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Specifically, it will show how the story juxtaposes real and imagined linear time with circular time. What are the distinct differences between these two worlds (reality and linear time vs. imagination and circular time)? What is learned by placing them together and why does the novel do so? "One Hundred Years of Solitude" is an incredible book that blends together reality, imaginary time, and circular time to create a special and enduring history of a people, their town, and its time.

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE

The novel opens with a flashback, which immediately sets the mood, and announces to the reader that time is going to be an important - even vital part of this novel. The story manages to blend then juxtapose real time, linear time, and circular time in such a way to sometimes confuse the reader, but the outcome is magical and fantastic, and the novel seems real and unreal at the same time. This blending of real and magical is called "magic realism," and Marquez employed it throughout the novel to create the feelings of time and space which flow through the chapters.

In the first few pages, Jose Arcadio Buendia discovers how to time travel and the magical qualities of the novel begin. "When he became an expert in the use and manipulation of his instruments, he conceived a notion of space that allowed him to navigate across unknown seas, to visit uninhabited territories, and to establish relations with splendid beings without having to leave his study" (Marquez 4). The story reads more like myth and legend than mere fiction, and part of that is due to the way Marquez handles time in the novel. The novel follows several generations of the Buendia family, along with the history of the small village of Macondo, from its founding to its eventual abandonment, which all take place over the course of one hundred years.

Without a doubt, as Marquez follows the characters and the town, he uses the recurring theme that time moves in an ever-turning circle, or in other words, history repeats itself. This is one reason why so many characters in the novel have the same or quite similar names. The one hundred year time span frames the novel, and of course, gives it its' title. The history of the town follows a very real and tangible timeline, and could be compared to the history of many small towns which flourish and then fail. Time in the town may be fantastically unreal, but the framework of time surrounding the town is completely believable, and just another way the author weaves real, linear time with imagination and imagined time.

Many juxtaposed events fill the novel, and help give it its fantastic and mythical feeling. For example, Marques says, "it rained for four years, eleven months, and two days" (Marquez 320). Clearly, this is not possible, but in the fantasy world of this novel, anything is possible, and part of that feeling of fantasy relies totally on the seemingly real time which is embedded in circular and linear time. It cannot rain for four years, but in Macondo, time stands still, the residents do not grow old (at first), and anything is possible. In addition, as Marquez is so specific about the time it rained, it becomes more real to the reader, even though it is clearly impossible.

Marquez said he wrote the book with his grandmother's storytelling in mind, and this is one of the reasons the happenings seem so real and yet imagined at the same time.

It was based on the way my grandmother used to tell her stories. She told things that sounded supernatural and fantastic, but she told them with complete naturalness.... I discovered that what I had to do [as a teller of tales] was believe in them myself and write them with the same expression with which my grandmother told them: with a brick face

(Bloom 231).

While the history of the town reflects the linear aspect of time and place, and the lives of the Buendia family represent the circle of time repeating itself, there is another use of time in the novel, and that is the incredible passage of time, and the way the characters look backward and forward through time. Buendia looks backward as the novel opens, and as the novel catches up with his "real" time, it jumps around in time. Just as the first Buendia can travel through time without leaving his study, so the story travels through time with a tongue in cheek look at the events which make up the history and time of Macondo and its residents. Time in all its aberrations is the glue which holds this novel together, and one of the things that makes it so fascinating to read.