Sunday, August 26, 2012
Marriage
At the end of class one day, Ms. King mentioned that the role of sex and all the affairs could be Marquez's way of commenting on the institution of marriage in this book. Could all the affairs also represent how Marquez is once again commenting on human nature in regard to its incapability to sustain a "normal relationship"? In Macondo it is as if no one realizes the true meaning of marriage as they compulsively rush into begin married - like Aureliano Segundo who had decided that he was going to marry Fernada del Carpio when he knew her for what...all about a day? Aureliano Segundo's decision to marry Fernanda ended up in a marriage that hardly existed as Aureliano Segundo was always with Petra Cortes, and Fernada was shunned. This pattern exist throughout the book and makes me wonder if Macondo would be any different if people were not so rash in their decisions to get married for unthought-out reasons such as sexual attraction.
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While reading your post, I kept running through the marriages in the book and trying to find one that was a "normal" marriage. The only one I can think of is Ursula and Jose Arcadio Buendia. My reasoning that it would be considered "normal" is that they married of their own free will despite the opposition of their families. Yes, Jose Arcadio Buendia did rape her the first time they has sex, but their relationship seems the most sacred of the Buendia family. Jose Arcadio Buendia never cheats on his wife and she doesn't cheat on him (which happens in almost every other marriage or engagement in the Buendia family). I also think Jose Arcadio and Rebeca is probably a "normal" couple. Yes, in the eyes of the Buendia family, the two are siblings, but technically they aren't. They marry despite the rejection of the family and are happy together until the death of Jose Arcadio. So I think, in some sense, some of the Buendia marriages are successful and the ones that aren't simply emphasize the fact that the Buendias care incapable of learning from their past mistakes.
I can see your reasoning in considering the marriage between Jose Arcadio Buendia and Ursula "normal", but i disagree because there relationship spirals into a hole. Things in their relationship are odd to start with since as you mentioned they are cousin and he still rapes her to prove that he is capable of having children. But then to further the unnatural relationship they have, Jose Arcadio Buendia begins to neglect Ursula when he becomes so obsessed and isolated in his quest for knowledge - to the extent that he eventually goes insane. From there and on, Ursula is essentially running the family herself. As for the case of Jose Arcadio and Rebecca, their relationship is not "normal either" as they simply marry for sex which leads them to be banished from the rest of the family.
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