Early on in reading One Hundred Years of Solitude, I realized that the book featured a healthy mix of fiction and non-fiction. I found this stylistic approach to be unlike any other book I have ever read and quickly found myself enjoying the process of attempting to distinguish between fact, fiction, or some mix of the two. "Is Macondo a real city," "Were the gypsies real people," "Was there actually a war in Colombia between the Liberals and the Conservatives?" These were some of the many questions I asked myself, and, with the aid of the internet, arriving at an answer was quite simple. When I reached the section of the novel about the Banana Company Massacre, I didn't even have to reach out to Google to discover if this tragedy was real: there was absolutely no way public officials would mow down thousands of innocent citizens. I read through the rest of the novel shocked that Marquez could even conjure up such a terrible image but relieved that such a terrible event never actually unfolded. Right? Wrong.
Within the first week of English class, I quickly discovered that the Banana Massacre was, in fact, completely real; the simple mentioning of it in the Marquez reading prompted me to do so some more outside research on it. What I discovered was completely tragic: in 1928 in Cienaga, Colombia, workers of the United Fruit Company, fed up with their awful working conditions, went on strike. The strike eventually got so out of hand that army personnel were sent in to take care of the strikers-- only they did a little more than "take care" of them. Although the actual number of casualties remains unknown, it is estimated that somewhere from 47 to 2,000 people were murdered in cold blood by machine guns.
Discovering that this tragedy actually took place was absolutely shocking. Writing this, I am still appalled by the complete brutality displayed by the Colombian Government and the United Fruit Company.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_Massacre
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_Massacre
2 comments:
The seamless mix of fiction and nonfiction in 100 Years of Solitude that you mentioned is one of my favorite parts. The style of magic surrealism always keeps you questioning and really blurs the lines between what is real and what isn't, and the banana company massacre is one of the best examples of that. The number of people killed and the huge coverup seemed to be another exaggerated element of Marquez plugged into his story, but the fact that it is real makes it so much more terrifying. You start to realize why so many people simply accepted the coverup with no questions asked, because something so radicle is hard to believe in. But, it has been proven time and time again that imperialism can lead to radicle violence, and American imperialism is no exception. Magical realism pushes us to look deeper into our "normal" reality and forces us to consider things that might be outside our norm as possible. If something we believed to be fiction is actually real, such as the banana massacre, is there a possibility that some of the other elements of Marquez's story that seemed absurd and exaggerated actually have some truth to it? This style of writing combined with including real life events in the novel makes us give deeper analyzation and though to 100 Years of Solitude and its definition of "reality".
When I read One Hundred Years of Solitude, I was fully aware of the horrible past of Latin America and the terrible treatment received from rich and powerful companies from nation's like the United States. I am surprised Bennett that you have never heard of things like the banana massacre occurring in poor counties like Columbia. All over the world, militaries and gangs have executed anyone who disagreed with them or tried to bring about a change. Before modern times, these instances of violence would have never been known by citizens back in the United States. News traveled very slowly back then and also media outlets were much smaller. Also, less people were involved in what choices their government was making behind their backs. Sadly, many of the things Marquez writes about was in fact true, but you are right in that we will never know what exactly happened and how many people were killed, which is very depressing and makes me feel bad about our nation's past.
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