If I Were Going to Write an Essay Topic

If I were going to write an essay I'd probably pick biblical themes/symbols. I think these symbols are important to the novel especially because religion is important to many of the characters (like Ursula and Fernanda in particular), to the culture of Macondo and the culture of the region it represents. I'd write about Macondo as Eden with Jose Arcadio (I) as Adam like we mentioned in class. In the beginning it all seems pretty ideal in the beginning especially with that line about the world "being so recent it was necessary to point" which goes back to Adam naming everything. Also Jose Arcadio is similar to Adam again when his search for knowledge ends in his eventual madness with him tied to a tree. The next point might be Amaranta's virginity and her connection to the Virgin. When death visits and speaks to her near the end of her life when she's sewing her shroud, Death comes to her in the form of a woman in blue and white (Mary's colors) and I think this is probably a symbol for Mary and fate. On her deathbed Amaranta says she has nothing to confess which may be because she feels sort of vindicated by the specter of Death that visited her which would maybe hint at some intervention by the Virgin herself. The third biblical theme might be the allusions to the bible through out the book. The years of rain are similar to Noah and at one point I think one of the characters said something about it felt during the rains as if he 'married Noah's wife' (I think it was Aureliano Segundo...) Anyway another allusion was made about Aureliano (Meme's kid) when Fernanda told everybody in the house that he was found in a basket floating down the river. Finally I think Remedios the Beauty's ascension is pretty important symbolically. I think the reaction Fernanda and Jose Arcadio (the one who was supposed to be the Pope but turned out to be kind of a creep) is pretty important to note. Those who, who claim to be the most pious in the entire family, are the only two that resent the ascension (maybe out of secret jealousy); Fernanda is indigent that she took her sheets with her to Heaven and her son, the one who was supposed to be Pope, even tried to use his priestly powers to ask that she be sent back to earth at one point. What's kind of ironic is that the characters most closely connected to organized religion seem to be less religious than the ones who don't go to Church like Jose Arcadio (I) for example (with the exception being Ursula.) This is a much longer post than I thought it was going to be....