Thursday, April 30, 2015

100 Years in Review

100 Years of Solitude Breakdown:

  • Themes
    • Time
    • Memory
    • Magical realism (not really a theme but you know what I mean)
    • Language
    • Influence of Western culture 
    • Names
  • Symbols
    • Banana company
    • Gold fishes
    • Pianola
    • Railroad
    • Amaranta's shroud
    • Parchments
  • Quotes
    • Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice. (p. 1).
    • … the city of mirrors (or mirages) would be wiped out by the wind and exiled from the memory of men at the precise moment when Aureliano Babilonia would finish deciphering the parchments, and that everything written on them was unrepeatable since time immemorial and forever more, because races condemned to one hundred years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth.



    Chances are that if you don't remember what these points mean, then you should probably review them. There are really good plot and theme summaries on Youtube. The quotes I have provided are the first and last lines of the book. Both contain multiple themes and symbols that might be useful in an AP essay.

    1 comment:

    Unknown said...

    Additional Quotes:

    "Colonel Aureliano Buendía was weary of the uncertainty, of the vicious circle of that eternal war that always found him in the same place, but always older, wearier, even more in the position of not knowing why, or how, or even when. […] Alone, abandoned by his premonitions, fleeing the chill that was to accompany him until death, he sought a last refuge in Macondo in the warmth of his oldest memories."

    "José Arcadio Buendía would spend the day walking through the house. "Incredible things are happening in the world," he said to Úrsula. "Right there across the river there are all kinds of magical instruments while we keep on living like donkeys."

    "Úrsula suddenly realized that the house had become full of people, that her children were on the point of marrying and having children, and that they would be obliged to scatter for lack of space. Then she took out the money she had accumulated over long years of hard labor, made some arrangements with her customers, and undertook the enlargement of the house"