When I was on Instagram last night, I came across this picture of a man who lived in the middle of a mountain range. His wife had recently died because of their isolated location from society and far proximity from a hospital. The man, as shown below, cut through the mountain range with hard work and lots of time so that no one else would die in his village because of their location. This reminds me of Jose Arcadio Buendia doing whatever it takes to provide for his family in Macondo. JAB settled in Macondo because it was best for his family, and I know that he would have done the same thing that this man did to better provide for his family. The isolated location of this man's village also reminds me of Macondo itself. It is also important to note that this man is probably very dedicated to medical research, like JAB was dedicated to new inventions, because his wife had died due to the lack of medical help available to her. This man was truly dedicated to his people's wellbeing, just as the Buendias were in Macondo.
4 comments:
I appreciate this post, but JAB did not settle in Macondo with the intention that it "was best for his family." He picked everything up and took his family with him because he was trying to escape his past. The guilt of killing Prudencio Aguilar haunted him and he wanted to let his soul rest in peace. When he did get to Maconodo he did try to provide for his family, but he became so obsessed with acquiring more knowledge that he ended up being in a state of solitude and distancing himself from his family in the end. In a way he was kind of selfish because he ignored his family and obsessed over the inventions. Outside influences corrupted Macondo--one could argue that these outside factors were due to its demise (ex: if Melquides never visited the community, then the parchments would have never been introduced). So it can also be argued that JAB was not dedicated to the people's well-being since it led to their destruction.
I really see both sides of this. I think Jaclyn is correct to say that Jose Arcadio Buendia is concerned with people's well-being. However, I don't know if he is necessarily just focused on his family. In fact, he is probably more concerned with the well being of the physical village, and not people at all. As Abbey points out, he is completely distracted by this obsession with knowledge. I would like to suggest that he's obsessed with this knowledge in order to bring prosperity and modernization to the village, and not necessarily to people (especially his family) in particular. He even at one point wants to pick up and relocate Macondo in order to be closer to the modern world. This is definitely not in the "best interest" of his family. And so, through this process, he does sort of abandon his family, but is also looking out for the well-being of Macondo's future.
I think one could even argue that Ursula was more concerned with the family’s wellbeing. Throughout the novel, Ursula manages maintain the entire house (re-doing it multiple times), she cooks and cleans, provides for the family through her candy business, all while taking care of all of the children in the house. She was also the most moral and logical in the family, and often offered her advice to those in the family who needed it. Her sole concern was keeping the family grounded.
I was actually on iFunny the other day and I saw this picture again. Remembering your post, I decided to come back and comment on it and contrast it with Medea. Something bad happened to Manjhi, so he put his hard work and determination to do something that would benefit the society as a whole. His actions were selfless and positive results came from them. When something bad happened to Medea, on the other hand, she is selfish and is only interested in hurting Jason. She devotes her time to coming up with the perfect plan that will harm her former husband most and she has to kill her children, and the princess and the princess's father to do this. Crazy! People have the same desire to work towards something they really want, but their motives and what drives this desire are sometimes so different, as seen in this example, that it makes one really think about human nature.
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