Genesis Rewritten

The Genesis references we talked about in class in relation to the way the beginning of the novel describes Macondo got me thinking about how exactly the book treats the figures of the serpent, Adam, and Eve and how knowledge (and technology) eventually become the downfall of the people of Macondo. In "rewriting" the chapter of Genesis that deals with the fall of Adam and Eve, I realized that in Macondo, Jose Arcadio Buendia would be comparable to Eve, an interesting twist on the Bible's portrayal of woman committing the first sin. Instead of a woman catalyzing the downfall of Macondo, it is a man--and the founder of the town at that.

I used this website to help me follow the tale of Adam and Eve, and of course, adapted Marquez's story to fit the story in Genesis. 

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+2%3A4-3%3A24&version=NIV 

Genesis, Book 3

The Fall

3 Now the gypsies were more crafty than any people who had ever visited Macondo before. As they went around town demonstrating the connective power of their magical metal ingots, one named Melquiades said to Ursula, “Do you want to buy some for yourself in exchange for some of your livestock?”

² Ursula said to Melquiades, “We may invite you into our town to show us your wares, but we need our livestock to survive, or we will die.”

⁴ “You will not certainly die,” Melquiades said to Ursula. ⁵ “For I know that when you buy the ingots, your eyes will be opened to the outside world, and you will be the most powerful woman in Macondo.”

⁶ When the woman's husband, Jose Arcadio Buendia, saw that the metal ingots were pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for finding gold, he took some and gave Melquiades a mule and a pair of goats. He told his wife, who was with him, that it would help them discover gold and become rich. ⁷ He now had knowledge of the outside world. He went off in search for gold, only to find an old suit of armor with a skeleton inside.

⁸ One day, the gypsies returned, and Jose Arcadio Buendia traded the metal ingots and three of his wife's colonial coins for a magnifying glass. He burned himself and almost set their house on fire in attempts to prove its power as a weapon. Ursula wept and asked why he had traded her coins for a glass that could be used for nothing. 

¹⁰ He answered, “When Melquiades returns, I will trade it for something that can be used. One day, I will discover something new for Macondo."

¹¹ And she said, “Who told you that Macondo was not already good enough? Have you been listening to Melquiades's tales of the greatness of the outside world?”

¹² Jose Arcadio Buendia said, “The gypsies that came to town—they told me he has great powers and news of the world. I have to discover it for myself.”

Years passed, and Jose Arcadio Buendia became more and more distant from his family and more and more engrossed in his alchemic experiments in his lab. He began to speak Latin to himself and rejected the LORD God. 

¹³ Then Ursula said to her husband, “What is this you have done?”

Jose Arcadio Buendia said, “Melquiades offered me an opportunity, and I took it.”

¹⁴ So Ursula said to her husband of Melquiades, “Because you have done this,

“Cursed is he among all other traders of this earth!
He will travel the world 

   with Death at his heels.

He will contract pellagra in Persia,

   scurvy in the Malayan archipelago,

   leprosy in Alexandria, beriberi in Japan, 

   and bubonic plague in Madagascar.

He will experience an earthquake in Sicily

  and a shipwreck in the Strait of Magellan."

¹⁶ To her wicked husband, she said, “Because you listened to Melquiades and traded away our things about which I commanded you, ‘You must not give these away,’

“Cursed is the ground of Macondo because of you;
    through painful toil you will eat food from it
    all the days of your life.
¹⁸ A plague of insomnia will ravish the people of our town

   and drive mad and helpless our neighbors.
¹⁹ More outsiders will come to our village 

   bringing money and technology and sin.

Innocents will die at the hands of foreign gunfire,

  and their deaths will be forgotten by all. 

And you will eat your food by someone else's hand

until you return to the ground,
    since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
    and to dust you will return.”

²² And Ursula said, “This man, my husband, has been cursed with knowledge. He must not be allowed to bring his insanity into my house again.” ²³ So Ursula banished him from the streets of Macondo, which he had been built. ²⁴ After she drove him out, she tied him to a chestnut tree to live out the rest of his days and prevent further damage by his hand to her town of Macondo.