Comparative analysis of One Hundred Years of Solitude and Don Quixote

¶ … Solitude and Don Quixote

As it is stated in the beginning of Marquez's One hundred Years of Solitude, "the world was so recent that things lacked names, and in order to indicate them it was necessary to point." At the end of the book the author tells us that "Macondo was already a fearful whirlwind of dust and rubble being spun about the wrath of the biblical hurricane..." How do these extreme poles of creation and degeneration relate to the idea that history is not just cyclical but regressive that the author implies through his narrative?

Time as a Regressive Rather than a Cyclical Force in Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude

We as mere mortals have only a limited notion about the concept of time. Explaining patterns within and predicting time itself have thus proved objects of great effort and desire within our culture. Traditional notions have described time as being a cyclical force, which brings different situations in line with a particular repeated pattern. However, Gabriel Garcia Marquez makes his own assertions regarding time as a regressive, rather than cyclical force, in his postmodernist classic One Hundred Years of Solitude.

Marquez posits the idea that history and time itself is regressive, and eventually reverts back to the beginning despite whatever progress will be made during the length of a given period of time. Marquez uses several examples through the physical nature and behaviors of his characters in the different generations of Macondo. One of the oldest characters in the work represents this idea of time as being regressive rather than cyclical. Ursa Iguaran, the head matriarch of the family, lives through most of the generations within the novel. At the time of her death, she is an astounding 120 years old. Yet, in her final years her physical character and form regresses rather than progresses into a typical image of an old woman. Her body shriveled to a mere fraction of her size as an adult. She is then reminiscent of a fetus in her form and shape, showing her physical regression as time continued on. Marquez is thus using the actual live of his characters to portray his message about the true nature of time. Events within the narrative, spurred by the behaviors of Marquez's characters, also attest to the idea of a regressive image of time. In one instance, it seems as though Marquez is representing time as cyclical. When Jose Arcadio dies he is at the same tree his father was tied to. This represents a possibility of time being cyclical, for it returns both father and son to the same tree to die. Yet, this is only a surface view. Jose is not there at the tree pursuing some philosophical endeavor, like his father had before him. Rather he has regressed into a degenerate beggar, far from his original roots as a philosophical thinker, and is urinated on the very tree which witnessed the great struggle and devotion of his father. The philosophical element of the family has actually regressed with the second generation.

Thus, it is clear that Marquez is making a large statement regarding the nature of time as being regressive rather than cyclical. Traditional views have tended o understand the duration of time as a cyclical force, which winds back and around similar events. Marquez acknowledges this idea, but expands on it to show that time regresses back rather than progressing forward to another cyclical point. The various generations of the family present numerous examples of character regression, whether it be through their physical image or their actions and behaviors which lead them to specific circumstances. If Marquez's view of time is true, how will human nature ever truly progress?

Question B

Explain how the progression of time unfolds in One Hundred Years of Solitude. Is it straightforward or not? Is there any particular chronological order that the reader can detect through the story of Mocondo and its people? Moreover, how does time relate to the idea of solitude in this book?

Can the past, present, and future exist all at the same time? Traditional thinking claims that they cannot, and that each aspect of time is completely separate from the others. Past cannot exist simultaneously alongside present or future, and vice versa. This is how traditional Western theory and thought posits the nature of time. However, this is not the nature of time the reader is exposed to in Gabriel Garcia Marquez's work One Hundred Years of Solitude. In this work, Marquez asserts a vision of time that is typically only seen in Eastern traditions. He asserts the possibility of a more fluid nature of time, which allows past, present, and future to interact with each other. Marquez also asserts the idea that time has a delicate relation to solitude, and that a conscious choice of solitude seems to lengthen any given period of time's duration.

In Marquez's work, the progression of time and chronological order of Mocondo and its people goes against traditional Western ideologies. It is not impossible to have a mixed view of time, where there is past, present, and future all at once. The span of the novel is not 100 years. In fact it is much shorter, and only covers the duration of time that it takes to actually get through the narrative itself. Yet, it covers the lives of four generations of one family. This shows that in order for this narrative to be possible, time must be flexible and allow many spans to exist together at the same time. In Marquez's work there are massive time lapses, where there are changes of speeds and complete halts which contradict each other, yet create a perfect blend of synergy within the structure of the narrative itself. There is one instance which portrays such a unique view of time, where past, present, and future are all possible at once. When Remedios Moscote is only very young, Colonel Aureliano from the future meets and falls in love with her. This a bridge between the past and the future, and Marquez is showing that these time frames can interact and exist together rather than completely independent of each other.