Saturday, September 8, 2018
"Groundhog Day" and "One Hundred Years of Solitude"
Aureliano Buendia makes gold fish and melts the down, only to make more again. This is a pointless cycle; he has lost his sense of purpose and belonging in life. Jose Arcadio Buendia thought he was living the same day over and over. These instances remind me of the movie "Groundhog Day". However, the character in "Groundhog Day" tries to escape his cycle. The characters in "One Hundred Years of Solitude" isolate themselves and retreat into their destructive cycles; they are destroyed by them and fail to escape. Everyday, the character in "Groundhog Day" tried new techniques and learns from his mistakes. The Buendia family, however, does not learn from past mistakes or from their family history. Marquez included this in his book intentionally; he wanted to emphasize the importance of keeping history in mind as well as highlight the dangers of forgetting it. Ursula is the only one who keeps the family history in mind; she is the one who often fights against tyranny and repeated mistakes. When she is gone, the family is destroyed by the build up of repeated mistakes.
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2 comments:
We also see other cycles of history forgotten in the novel besides the Colonel Aureliano making his goldfish. One of which would be the idea that incest would bring about a child born with a pigs tail. From the very beginning of the novel, we see the members of the Buendia family concerned with this extra limb, specifically Ursula. It isn't until Ursula has died that the pigs tail actually comes true. The family has seemed to forget a major concern that was a major part of the history of the Buendia lineage.
While a pigs tail is no disaster it still brings to mind the saying, "If you forget history, you are destined to repeat it." The family never had a child with a pigs tail (until the child between Aureliano and his aunt) but it is the concern that influences their decisions, and it is the concern that makes the child "appear" normal (no one was normal in the book). Once that concern disappears the birth defect occurs.
This concept brings to mind the invasion of Russia by Germany. Napolian, leader of Germany, had decided that his troops needed to invade Russia, and the citizens of western Russia burned everything and invaded. With the winter coming and very little supplies, the troops continued on until it they could not go any farther and eventually turned around, losing a significant portion of the army. Many years later Hitler, during WW2, decides to do the same thing. He has forgotten the history of his own country and he paid the price.
There is a big difference between a tail of a pig and invasion of the largest country on earth, but parallels can be drawn none the less.
Natalia, your insight on the correlation of the goldfish to the pointless repetitive aspect of life is accurate but in my opinion some of this repetitiveness isn’t pointless. Actually, I believe is the very basis of what holds our lives as successes together. You know they say, practice makes perfect. I believe that the only way you can learn from things is to try and try again until you perfect it. Take ceramics for example. You may try to throw a bowl, but there’s a lot that god into it. There’s centering the Clay, dropping the hole, coning it, expanding the hole, pulling the cylinder, and stretching the clay to your desired shape. And it may take a variety of different times for a variety of different people. I, a novice might take an hour to make one, where as Mrs. Thomas, an expert might take 15 minutes. Those kind of repetitive processes that an only improve by practice are the foundation of life. And I don’t think they’re pointless
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