Sunday, September 11, 2016

View on the Indigenous

Marquez shows the view that the Europeans had on the indigenous Latin Americans through the characters of Visitacion, her brother, and Rebeca. Rebeca is described as eating earth and white wash. While we talked about in class that this could represent how she is natural and wants to keep the true culture of the land, it could have other meaning as well. Her eating of earth and whitewash is very abnormal, and I think it could show how the Europeans viewed the indigenous as lesser and not quite as advanced. Another example is how the people of Macondo put the blame for the insomia plague on the indigenous.  Marquez also uses the insomnia plague, where people not only lose sleep but lose memory, to show the loss of the identity of the Latin American people. If you lose your memory, you lose your sense of identity, similar to the Latin American's loss of independent culture.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I definitely agree that Rebeca is supposed to represent the natives and what the Europeans thought of them. She is associated with nature and the earth, just like the natives. Although I do not know for sure, I doubt that the natives ate straight dirt. However, this is what Rebeca prefers. Perhaps Marquez wrote about an extreme native practice to make it clear to readers that the Europeans thought the natives were gross. I also agree that Rebeca is supposed to help keep the memories of the native culture alive. It is the natives' way of standing up to the Europeans' oppression.