Some Implications of Yellow and Gold in García Márquez's "One Hundred Years of

Solitude": Color Symbolism, Onomastics, and Anti-Idyll

Author(s): John Carson Pettey
Source: Revista Hispánica Moderna , Jun., 2000, Año 53, No. 1 (Jun., 2000), pp. 162-178
Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/30203613

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 SOME IMPLICATIONS OF YELLOW AND GOLD

IN GARCIA MARQUEZ'S ONE HUNDRED YEARS

OF SOLITUDE: COLOR SYMBOLISM,
ONOMASTICS, AND ANTI-IDYLL

THERE has been much critical work done over the past three decades on the
symbolic aspects of Garcia M~irquez's magnum opus, and the end result of the
links made between the narrative and its symbols have added greatly to our
understanding of just how unique a novel it is. Its uniqueness does not exclude
those elements appropriated from the larger tradition, since, as the earliest
reviews were quick to note, nothing could be farther from the case (Martinez
35). Rather it derives from a singularity of narrative purpose going beyond that
of many contemporaries: the hideous and ominous pig's tail resembles the spi-
rals in the story itself. The exactitude of temporal designations or of seemingly
trivial details adds magic to its realism; and the often humorous depiction of
horrible events mitigates its immediate effect, while still enhancing the novel's
overall impact. Naturally, different aspects of this novel remain prominent in
the minds of different readers. What struck this reader so often about One

Hundred Years of Solitude was something which at first seemed mundane but has
become increasingly significant with each new reading - that is, the use of col-
or symbolism and its contribution to the larger picture being painted. What
follows contains numerous examples cited, elements counted, and percentages
recorded, as I attempt to substantiate those contributions. Such qualifications
should not, however, imply in any sense a purely positivistic, scientific
approach to literature, since that would gainsay the effort and its concommi-
tant goal. Suffice it to say, the prevalence of the colors yellow and gold needs a
detailed interpretation, while the methods used here are intended to provide a
better understanding of certain thematic, narrative, and literary historical
nuances in this now classic ovel.

I. COLOR SYMBOLISM

Before the colors yellow and gold can be analyzed and justified as symbols,
their prevalence vis-a-vis other colors must be indicated. The combined total
for the sixteen other colors or metals directly mentioned in the novel numbers
245 instances or an average of 15.31 citations for each color or metal. The
highest combination of any two colors - black and silver - equals 79, but one
would be hard pressed to see how the traditional color for mourning (and the
suits of lawyers) could have a meaningful or symbolic connection with the pre-
cious metal silver. One might combine red, with its indirect references to
blood, and orange, since several times the color orange is associated with
death, as with Ursula's own (349) or Amaranta Ursula's irresistible anxiety

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 SOME IMPLICATIONS OF YELLOW AND GOLD IN GARCIA MARQUEZ 163

toward sexuality's little death (403). Nonetheless, as a secondary color, orange

has as much right to be claimed by yellow as by red. Regardless, the point here
is quite simply that there exists in direct references no single pair of colors
which possesses the same high frequency as that for yellow/gold (for all tabula-
tions, see "Appendix I"). 1
Many of the direct references to yellow and gold occur in memorable
scenes or phrases that rhythmically punctuate the novel through their repeti-
tions. Most readers will remember the rain of "little yellow flowers" (144) that
occasioned the death of the founder of Macondo, Jos6 Arcadio Buendia, as
well as the fashioning of"little golden fishes" with which his son, Colonel Aure-
liano Buendia, occupied both his adolescence and years of retirement from his
legendary, but less than successful military career (66). These specific bits of
ornamental metalwork make up the bulk of direct references to gold. There
are also those images of "yellow butterflies" following Mauricio Babilonia, the
proletarian lover of Meme. Those same insects pursue her into a solitude
imposed by her overbearingly class-conscious mother, Fernanda. Indeed, one
of the saddest scenes in the whole novel must be that of the pregnant Meme
lying on a bed, watching the last of those doomed symbols of metamorphosis
being lacerated to death by a rotating ceiling fan (301; 416). Also, there is the
first plague to befall Macondo which is described by, among other animals,
"tender yellow ponies of insomnia" (46).
As for further things golden, one recalls the frantic searches for that elusive
metal throughout the novel: Jos6 Arcadio Buendia's fruitless alchemistic stud-
ies, the initial product of which is a yellowish glob stuck to the bottom of one
of Ursula's pans, which his namesake compares to "Mierda de perro" (113).
Not to mention Aureliano Segundo's manic digging for his the great-grand-
mother's, Ursula's, buried gold coins; they would later be discovered, emanat-
ing a luminous "yellow" light from underneath the house's foundation, by the
last Jos6 Arcadio. And, then, there is Fernanda's gold-plated chamberpot, fash-
ioned in order to transport a quotidian discharge she seems to feel is as odor-
less as the precious metal (or so her avowed enemy, Amaranta, would have us
believe). Unfortunately, very little has been done about the scatological con-
nections between gold and excrement, especially with respect to the fetishism
suggested by Marx and Freud - something which Jouset comments upon with
reference to Ursula's vulgar comparison above: "Hay que tomar tambi6n en
cuenta las tradiciones culturales que asimilan el oro a un excremento de la
tierra y al valor econ6mico del metal que se vincula con su poder de corrup-
ci6n" (114, n. 30). That the number of gold bricks Colonel Aureliano Buendia
received from the treasurer of the revolution (181-182) and that of the cham-
berpots Fernanda had made for visiting schoolgirls (266) are the same, 72, fur-
ther underscores the novel's association of these substances with the human

condition. Also, one only need remind oneself that the superintendent of the

1 The number of pages for the Jouset edition of the novel constitutes admittedly an
estimate (460), whereby the numerous footnotes, occasional photographs, and blank
pages have been excluded. General citations for the novel are taken from the transla-
tion by Rabassa, those in Spanish from the Jouset edition. Whenever both are given, the
English will be given first and separated from the Spanish by a semicolon.

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164 JOHN CARSON PETTEY RHM, LIII (2000)

banana enterprise is Mr. Brown, 2 who, though a minor

M~irquez needs to describe exploitation in colonial Ame
the filth it creates" (Vargas Llosa, "Amadio" 60).
The number of direct references to these two related
hold of the mind on subsequent readings. In fact, this
might seem to many an almost Buendfan obsession by
novel and recording every instance when the word
appeared, including their adjectival variations. The res
for yellow and 86 for gold, totaling 115 times or about
for both the English translation and the Spanish origin
erences were tallied, the indirect references needed to be included for the
sake of completeness.
Since alchemy plays such a large role in the connection of Macondo's
founder with Melqufades, the gypsy prophet of the familial history, it was
understandable that many indirect references to gold would have something
to do with that arcane pseudo-science. Thus, phrases describing and sub-
stances employed directly in alchemy were tabulated - terms such as the
"philosopher's stone" or the "philosopher's egg" (32); Zosimus, the Greek
alchemist from the third century A.D. (7); the "alembic of Mary the Jew" (7);
and Arnoldo of Villanova, the thirteenth-century polymath and promoter of
metallic transformation (405).
But there were other references that drew attention to themselves, even if
they did not seem so "golden" at first glance. These deal with history or litera-
ture. For example, Sir Francis Drake, the pirate, who in the novel is remem-
bered in the second chapter for his sixteenth-century assault upon Riohacha
(19). What is not mentioned, but what clearly should be considered, is the
name of the ship which played such an integral part in his adventures, the
Golden Hind. And innocent enough sounding appellation, one which will point
to the bordello run by Pilar Tenera, El Nifio de Oro, in the final two chapters.
Actually, another English adventurer of that period is also mentioned: Sir Wal-
ter Raleigh, though his expedition of 1595 in the Orinoco river basin, his
search for the legendary El Dorado, has been overlooked by scholars (Jouset
143, n. 54). That city of gold would also, then, connect tye rusted armor
unearthed by Melqufades's magnet and the silvan Spanish galleon discovered
by Jos6 Arcadio Buendia on his own anabasis at the end of the first chapter.
Each of these "golden" items and names relates the history of early European
imperialism prior to the founding of Macondo.
As for the golden literary historical references, one finds the names of such
writers as Horace (408), Ovid (405), and Seneca (405), all of whom belonged
to the golden age of Roman literature, even if Seneca the Younger has been
recognized as a critic of that period (Duff 361-62). Unfortunately, Garcia
Mirquez does not stipulate which Seneca Aureliano and his friends read as
children. The Spanish siglo de oro has always provided Garcia M~rquez with
names for his characters, and Cien anios de soledad is no exception. Fernanda's
lineage probably carries references to two eminent figures of that period: Lope

2 Mr. Brown is from Prattville, Alabama - an anus mundi of sorts. Interestingly

enough, the nickname of Alabama is the Yellowhammer State.

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 SOME IMPLICATIONS OF YELLOW AND GOLD IN GARCIA MAiRQUEZ 165

de Vega y Carpio and Luis de G6ngora y Argote (Griffith 88). The combination
of these venerable names only creates the allusion of superiority with a charac-
ter, whose posturing infuriates and by turns is thoroughly ridiculed by those
around her. There is, then, nothing truly golden about her behavior whatsoev-
er, as her daughter Meme could readily attest to.
Some of the chemicals used in alchemistic experiments have a yellowish
color - for example, orpiment (7), aqua regia (41), and brimstone (7), the last
one being but another term for sulphur and the probable source for Ursula's
remark that the first failed experiment had "the smell of the devil" (7) ["el
olor del demonio" (86) ]. The physical properties of these chemicals led to oth-
ers: twice there is mention of a wartime assassination attempt on Colonel Aure-
liano Buendfa by means of strychnine (106) or nox vomica (138), a substance
yellow in color. In another instance, when questioned by the nuns visiting
from Meme's school as to what she is adding to a soup, Amaranta offers a curt,
but caustic word: "Arsenic" (266), whose most common form has a yellowish
tint. The Proto-Indo-European root for arsenic is *ghel-, "to shine," which is
perhaps derived from certain yellow metals and minerals used in prehistorical
culture.

But it is not just poisons that have this coloration; there are also medicinal
chemicals and preparations that recur in the novel with a similar hue to them:
castor oil, that odious, old-time panacea and purgative with its pale yellow, or
even bilious, color (7); and mustard plasters, a common remedy applied by
Amaranta and Pilar Tenera, as well as one with ominous consequences for
Meme, who is falsely convinced of their pungent power as a contraceptive
(295). These homey anodynes led me, then, to botanicals, which are truly
plentiful in the novel. The most obvious one being bananas, a variety of which
is mentioned early on as part of Ursula's garden ("plhitano" [83]), but becomes
more dominant after the "innovent yellow train" (228) conveys the imperialist
gringos and their banana company to Macondo. Bananas become, in essence,
the modern economic equivalent of the gold that lured the conquistadors.
Like the little fishes for direct gold references, the banana company holds the
lion's share of indirect yellow ones, developing in the latter chapter's into a
form of leitmotif. It passes from an economic entity through a geographical
location and finally to a temporal designation. The last, then, takes on an iron-
ic narratorial tone in such phrases as "los buenos tiempos de la compafifa
bananera" (482). Besides bananas one encounters monkshood (46) or arnica
(29), acacias (40), almond trees (40) with their tan or yellowish brown fruits,
and the "yellow rose" presented to Remedios the Beauty by an admirer blind
to her diminished mental capacities (201-202).
Finally, there is the category of "yellowish" foods like guava jelly - the
fruit's rind (29), rhubarb - in its cooked form (43), or the pineapple topping
the Virginia ham that Meme learns to eat during her unsuccessful American-
ization in the gringos' compound (280). Even Melqufades's parchments give
rise to a culinary simile of being "made out of some dry material that crumpled
like puff paste" (73) - something which anyone who enjoys baking can recog-
nize as golden brown when baked. Suffering tremendously from a hangover,
Meme drinks "caldo de pollo" which as "un elixir de resurrecci6n" is clearly
more valuable to her at that excruciating moment than gold. The phrase

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166 JOHN CARSON PETTEY RHM, LIII (2000)

"elixir of resurrection," of course, contains oblique

alchemical traditions as well (Dobbs 69-71). Other alime
into play with the role of hospitality: the lemonade San
guests (187) and its alcoholic counterpart, the champag
and Petra Cotes liberally pour (194). Indeed, his prod
with champagne for his prepubescent pals who swim "lik
a sky gildes [un cielo dorado (506)] with fragrant bubbl
imbibing, one should not forget its natural aftermath
which Colonel Aureliano Buendia does demonstrably in
his father's workshop (263), which is known by then as
The totals for such indirect references are 195 times
gold, totaling 282 times or one indirect reference on ne
total pages. Once these are added to the previous sums f
yellow and gold, one arrives at 397 times or ninety-four
eighty-six percent in Spanish. Here repetitions should
since the principle of repetition supplies an essent
Mirquez's narrative style. Indeed, Vargas Llosa has analy
repetition in this novel as "un procedimiento 'encantato
tional reality is brought closer to its supernatural, or "
Mdrquez 605). Yellow and gold references are but a
dynamic narrative technique.
Once these tabulations were completed, certain quest
color symbolism might relate to the characters - that is
obvious questions: 1. Do all major characters have a con
(2) colors? and 2. What about the minor characters? A s
yellow or gold or both colors can be found in "Appendi
is no minor character of consequence to the narrative,
ter that does not have some connection to the yellow/g
the novel. Some of these connections may at first appe
must remember that their use is a subtle, if not often h
lies the mark of a skilled writer. Garcia M~irquez has n
gold on this epic canvass; rather he has highlighted his
and actions with touches of those colors.

II. ONOMASTICS

Even more connections to gold can be made by an examination of certain

characters' names, in terms of what etymology and onomastics can reveal. For
example, there are 22 different (counting the seventeen illegitimate sons of
Colonel Aureliano Buendia) characters with the name Aureliano, which is, of
course, derived from the Latin aurum, "gold." Some critics have wished to see
in that name resonances of imperial Rome, specifically either one of two
emperors: Lucius Domitius Aurelianus, who reconquered much of the lost
empire in the third century A.D.; or the Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius
(Jones 120; Miller 68). Despite these grand allusions, the etymon itself has far
greater significance for the novel's thematics. That gold could be interpreted
as alchemical themes throughout the work, either as actual gold, a source of

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 SOME IMPLICATIONS OF YELLOW AND GOLD IN GARCiA MARQUEZ 167

economic wealth, or as the intelletual gold to be excavated from Melqufades's

encoded, yellowed manuscripts. Indeed, all of these aspects come together in
the figure of the bastard Aureliano Babilonia, the final adult male Buendia,
who as "a hermetic man" (338) successfully deciphers the Sanskrit into Castil-
lan verses.

The name Aureliano appears in the text - not surprisingly - a great m

times: 755. The ratio of name to pages is, then: ca. 1.79 per page in the E
and ca. 1.64 per page in the Spanish. Once added to the others above: 11
ca. 2.73 per page in English and ca. 2.50 per page in the Spanish. As one
see, such ratios indicate just how much light, even glittering light, these com
nations of instances give to each page of the text.
Besides this rather obvious etymological association of a name and g
there are other character names deserving attention for the allusions
raise. Santa Sofia de Piedad, the hard-working and long-suffering outsid
the family, has been characterized as a "saint" and a "martyr" (Ludmer
while the more conspicuous connection has been overlooked - namely,
Sophia in Istanbul. The major art historical importance of that Byz
church was the use of supportive pendentives, whose effect Procopius o
sarea described thus: 'Yet it seems not to rest upon solid masonry, but to
the space with its golden dome suspended from Heaven" (21). Ironically
qualities were not inherited by her three children, Remedios the Beauty
Arcadio Segundo, and Aureliano Segundo, all of whom ultimately lack
tain "wisdom" and piety.
Similarly, Rebeca, the dirt-eating, virgin orphan who will eventually m
Jose Arcadio (the first son) in an act of open incest has often been relat
her namesake in Genesis, but without an important descriptive feature.
we first meet Rebecca at the well in Genesis 24, she offers her future hu
Isaac, and his camels water. For that act of generosity, Isaac in turn giv
virginal Rebecca golden earrings and two bracelets of gold (Gen. 24:22)
motivate her brother, Laban, to bring Isaac into his home. Rebeca of th
dreams of a man with a gold button at his collar (46) and like her B
counterpart fades into obscurity (after Gen. 27). The novel's Rebeca wi
be rescued from oblivion in order to underscore her second important
tion, her rivalry with the first daughter of the Buendia family, Amaran
which began with their attraction for blonde Pietro Crespi.
Amaranta's connection with the yellow/gold scheme may appear
attenuated due to its subtlety. But her position in this expanded sy
frame rests with her major characteristic and one which she will overcome w
the approach of death - namely, her "concentrated bitterness" (254) ("
concentrada amargura" [368]). This attribute is completely misinterpre
her mother, the aged, blind, and growing ever crazier Ursula, 3 but it is
ally recognized by everyone ("como todo el mundo crefa") and the narra

STo stave off her blindness, Ursula treats herself in vain with yellow and gold
dies by ingesting "marrow syrup" and daubbing her eyes with "honey" (251), th
of these possibly contributing to the sweetness of her comments about Amarant
ranta's major characteristic may, indeed, have been inherited from her mother
had once also possessed an "ancient bitterness" towards Melqufades's alchemy (5

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168 JOHN CARSON PETITEY RHM, LIII (2000)

the "gall of her bitterness" (255). The formulation "la m

ra" (368) is of etymological interest since it connects in t
"yellow": "hiel" derives from the same Proto-Indo-Europe
word yellow and gold (*ghel-), which like the Spanish am
connection with bitter (amargo). Both Spanish words co
amarus, "bitter" (Corominas 46). Joset asserts an unnec
her name with bitterness [amargura], but despite th
sounds it is not etymologically valid (121, n. 50). Simila
weeping shepherdess in Virgil's first eclogue, Amarylli
close to the root for bitter, but the flower named for he
no yellow petals or leaves.
Bitter clearly is the path taken by the Buendfa family
from its pristine beginnings to a more civilized state: th
not complete until the first death, that of Melqufades, c
in the replacing of the sweet-smelling, yellow-forwered
streets with almond trees by Jos6 Arcadio Buendia (40)
this replanting as a move from the symbolic, acacias, to
(Joset 127, n. 9), but there may be a slight problem with
practical in the sense that they provide shade. Yet, as of
mentioned in this book (no less than 10 times) and as d
tions of many varieties of foods consumed by the inhabi
one would think that someone would have eaten a nut at
is never the case. Thus, these shade trees are quite prob
prunus dulcis amarus, the poisonous variety. Both Pietr
Gerineldo Mairquez are connected with the bittersweet a
the bitter Amaranta: the latter finds his solitude in the
almond trees (168), while the former commits suicide b
and thrusting them into a solution of benzoin, a resin w
grance (113). As already mentioned, the last of the seve
shot by the police as they come "from among the almon
half-brother, Aurelio Triste (nomen est omen), who red
home (223), an act later initiating the narratorial comm
ta's bitterness.

If gold, then, represents fruitless searches for ephemeral wealth or equally

fleeting glipses of self-knowledge, then yellow is, in part at least, the color of
bitterness, a bitterness resulting from failed love. We can almost sense it in
Petra Cotes's "yellow eyes" as Aureliano Segundo returns to his wife Fernanda
(263), or in those of the young man who suffers "lamentable demoralization"
after offering Remedios the Beauty a solitary, yellow rose (201-202). But bitter-
ness is not always attended by love, as seen by the arrival of the gringos and
their banana company: "The innocent yellow train that was to bring so many
ambiguities and certainties, so many pleasant and unpleasant moments, so
many changes, calamities, and feelings of nostalgia to Macondo" (228). For
clearly the advent of the banana company, the so-called "banana plague"
(236), spells the true beginning of the end for both the Buendfa and their
town.

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 SOME IMPIICATIONS OF YELLOW AND GOLD IN GARCIA MARQUEZ 169

III. ANTI-IDYLL

That town, Macondo, derives its name from a real banana plantation near
Garcia Mirquez's hometown of Aracataca (Minta 144). Much has been made
of its pristine state at the time of its founding, ab ovo as it were, as symbolized
by the enormous river stones, those "prehistoric eggs" (1). It represents then
the idea of the New World as "arcadia-utopia-paraiso" found in the writings
of the earliest Spanish explorers (Michael Palencia-Roth 76); moreover, that
unravaged condition is exemplified in the name of its founder, Jos6 Arcadio
Buendfa (Palencia-Roth 74). Arcadia, of course, has a long literary tradition
associated with the literary attitude and genre of the pastoral, as well as a cer-
tain nostalgia for a lost "golden age" of peaceful existence (Jones 120). Thus,
the name Arcadio can also be connected to the novel's color symbolism: it
appears in the names of five different characters some 474 times, or ca. 1.12
times per page in the English and ca. 1.03 times per page in the Spanish.
When added to the other names and references, direct and indirect, to the
yellow/gold scheme, one has a total of 1616 instances, or ca. 3.83 per page in
the English and ca. 3.51 per page in the Spanish. Again, although Garcia
Mirquez has used this coloration extensively, he does not overdo it. It is always
present (on the average), but never to the point of distraction for the reader.
The name Arcadio harkens back to that semi-mountainous region of the
Peloponnesus, west of wealthy Corinth and north of bellicose Sparta. One crit-
ic views the connection with the ancient Arcadia and Macondo as a combina-
tion of "the myth of the 'edad de oro' and the act of establishing a human set-
tlement" (Simms 142). Clearly, the name of the founder has led to such an
assertion, even if that "natural man" (Simms 113) is a most unnatural of char-
acters. The eponym for the ancient Greek region belongs to the legendary
king, Arkas (or Arktos), whose name provides another interesting etymological
twist for the novel:

Arkas/Arktos < Greek ark(t)6s = "bear"

< Sanskrit rksha = "bear" < rk = "to growl, to grumble"
Latin variant = ursus, earlier urcsus = "bear" (Wissowa 2759).4

The Sanskrit verbal radical is useful for the characterization of the mater fami-
lias, Ursula Iguarin, who "never speaks; she shouts" (Glifton 16). An example
of this quality can be seen as the bewildered Ursula, the only "positively heroic
figure.., depicted without humor or irony" (Bell-Villada 42-43), lets loose a
rather unheroic word to summarize her longing for a repressed past and her
concerns about an uncertain and uncontrollable future for her family: "Cara-
jo!" (370). For Ursula paradise has been lost.

4 The initial "r" in the two Sanskrit words should be understood to represent a
vocalic resonant, thus the Greek "a" and the Latin "u." This etymon even has a reflex in
Hittite, hartka, which seems to mean "wild animal," although it could have also stood
specifically for "bear."

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170 JOHN CARSON PETTEY RHM, LIII (2000)

Nonetheless, an Edenic quality of Macondo at the

been attributed to the description that "[T]he world wa
things lacked names" (1), which later parallels Jose Ar
tagging of objects to ward off the plague of forgetting
insomnia (48). Both instances recall Adam's "naming of
in Genesis 2:19. And some critics have seen in the Buen
the original fall from grace (Carrillo 80-82). But, even if
porates and plays with motifs from the Old Testament,
on making too much of such comparisons: in the Gard
to care for the plants, while after his expulsion he has
his punishment (Gen. 3:19), while in One Hundred Years
of Macondo does neither. Instead, all domestic and economic endeavors are in
the hands of Ursula, thereby allowing her husband (and her sons) time to pur-
sue their strange contemplative dreams with leisure.
This Arcadia for men requires one to turn to another literary tradition for
its source - namely, the pastoral. In a monograph on Theocritus, David M.
Halperin has outlined those aspects that constitute the broader literary atti-
tude of the pastoral, as opposed to the original lyrical genre of the boukolikos:

1. Pastoral is the name commonly given to literature about or pertain-

ing to herdsmen and their activities in a country setting; these activities
are conventionally assumed to be three in number: caring for the animals
under their charge, singing or playing musical instruments, and making
love.

2. Pastoral achieves significance by oppositions, by the set of contrasts,

expressed or implied, which the values embodied in its world create with
other ways of life. The most traditional contrast is between the little world
of natural simplicity and the great world of civilization, power, statecraft,
ordered society, established codes of behavior, and artifice in general.
3. A different kind of contrast equally intimate to pastoral's manner of
representation is that between a confused or conflict-ridden reality and
the artistic depiction of it as comprehensible, meaningful, and harmo-
nious.

4. A work which satisfies the requirements of any two of the three pre-
ceding points has fulfilled the necessary and sufficient conditions of the
pastoral. (70-71)

Halperin supples a thoroughly pragmatic, readily employable definition whose

value consists in its flexibility and breadth. Thus, he would probably be sympa-
thetic to the work of Andrew V. Ettin, who found pastoral elements even in the
closing chapters of Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms (125-126).
The pastoral's common preoccupation with "making love" is a prevalent
activity in the Buendia family, even to excess for some male characters, as well
as causing Ursula much worry about the possibility of incest - e. g., Jos6 Arca-
dio's marriage to Rebeca. "Singing and playing instruments" together stand for
making poetry in general and love poetry specifically. This aspect could be
found in Colonel Aureliano Buendfa's lonesome love lyrics to the irretrievable
Remedios Moscote. Finally, there is the issue of "herdsmen" and their activi-

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 SOME IMPLICATIONS OF YELLOW AND GOLD IN GARCIA MARQUEZ 171

ties. In order to purchase Melqufades's magnet, Jos6 Arcadio Buendfa must

trade "his mule and a pair of goats," animals on which Ursula "relied... to
increase their poor domestic holding" (2). Domestic animals recur throughout
the family's history, culminating in their prodigious fecundity under the super-
vision of Aureliano Segundo and his sexually potent concubine, Petra Cotes, a
woman with "ojos amarillos y almendrados" (301), whose very presence pro-
moted breeding (195). Among these domestic animals are always pigs: many
critics have viewed the character of Eumaios, the Odysseus's swineherd on
Ithaca, as representing an early epic reflex of the pastoral (Halperin 120-122).
There is, however, another variant of animal husbandry important to this fami-
ly: Ursula's cottage industry, the "promising business in candy animals," consist-
ing in part of "little roosters and fish" (40) and serving an oblique counterpart
to the gold trinkets made by her husband. These businesses have nothing of
the Edenic in it; indeed, animal husbandry does not enter into the Torah until
after the fall - namely, with Abel, whose offering of sheep will provide the
source for the first conflict between family members, leading to the first death
in the Bible (Gen. 4:2-8).
As she is about to die, Ursula - in a burst of nostalgic hope - wishes she
could "repeat the miracle of the little candy animals" (343), an activity which
had to be stopped because of Fernanda's supposedly civilized attitude (217).
The latter's act, then, leads us to the second and third points of Halperin's def-
inition: conflicts between the small natural world and the "great world"; the
oppositions of the harmonious and the "conflict-ridden." Although she repre-
sents the spiritual anchor in the Arcadian desires, it is Ursula who at the close
of the second chapter finds the way to the great world missed by her husband,
the dreamer. In the next chapter, Melqufades returns to Macondo to "take
refuge in that corner of the world which had still not been discovered by
death" (50); ironically, his own death, the first in Macondo's history, interrupts
the town's "newfound harmony" (72). After him come many deaths, as death
becomes a part of Arcadia - that is to say, as the motif "Et in Arcadia ego"
spreads (as in two famous paintings by Poussin). Later that little hold on the
Arcadian world of the past is completely loosened by the arrival of the gringos
and colonial capitalism of the banana company (ch. 12).
While Ursula fights in vain to hold on to her envisioned pureness of an ear-
lier time, the males in the family follow a modern tradition of the pastoral -
namely, the escape from the conflicts of the great world in leisure, in contem-
plative activities. This tradition has proponents in classical Spanish literature,
ranging from the mystical poet Fray Luis de Le6n to Lope de Vega's own Arca-
dia and G6ngora's Soledades (Poggioli 188-193). One sees the contemplative
life already earlier on with the pater familias and his son, Colonel Aureliano
Buendia, both of whom retreat from the world into their workshop, to make
gold and fashion golden fishes, respectively. Later, after the massacre of the
striking banana plantation workers, Jose Arcadio Segundo pulls out of his
socially active role and delves into hidden treasure of Melquiades's parch-
ments, 5 a practice he also encourages his grandnephew, Aureliano Babilonia,

5 The Hindu tradition of history is also cyclical and contains its own concept of a
"golden age" in the Krita Yuga of the kalpa, as discussed in the Vishnu Purana. See The
Hindu Tradition, ed. Ainslie T. Embree (New York: Modern Library, 1966), 220-223.

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172 JOHN CARSON PETTEY RHM, LIII (2000)

to pursue. Again, interestingly enough, both these la

related to Fernanda, whose maiden name probably
Spanish Golden Age (331). Structurally, this aspect of
dition, along with the golden names of the male char
lelism connecting the first generations with the last
might well be seen as satisfying Halperin's fourth com
The conflict between a simple, natural world and t
becomes most apparent in the novel's last three chap
first the prodigal and profligate Jose Arcadio and lat
Ursula, both of whom bring with them the final corrupti
pean decadence. The interconnection of Macondo's
adult Buendia is expressly stated in the opening sente
events that would deal Macondo its fatal blow were ju
when they brought Meme Buenadia's son home" (298)
brother and his sexually reawakened sister both suff
killed by the objects of his pedophilic desires; she succ
his nephew, resulting in her death and a child with a
rains that followed the "great banana strike" (ch. 16) l
utter decay. The Buendfa house reflects that change, a
ants, invade it. The Macondo presented in these final c
harmonious natural setting that was sensed, if not bei
first generations of the Buendfas. The town reverts i
back to nature: the family's decadence is mirrored in
the natural and the unnatural become fused.

Macondo thus ends as an anti-idyll or an anti-pastoral. Yet, in its demise

Macondo presents still further connections with the golden age of Arcadia,
even if only in the negative. The new "zoological brothel" frequented by Aure-
liano Babilonia and his companions, El Nifio de Oro, provides a marvelous illus
tration of moral decadence and natural degradation: a turtle with "a gilded
shell who dove in a small artificial ocean" - something that seems to be straigh
out of Huysmans's A rebours, the "big white dog" which was a pederast; and th
"crocodiles as fat as pigs" (400). Moreover, the name of this bordello has an
ironic connotation for the last born Buendfa, especially when one contrasts it
with the "golden child" ofVirgil's fourth Eclogue.

tu modo nascenti puero, quo ferrea primum

desinet ac toto suget gens aurea mundo,
casta faue Lucina...

[O chaste Lucina, look with blessing on the boy

Whose birth will end the iron race at last and raise
A golden through the world...] (56)

Garcia Mgirquez's child is the harbinger not of a new "golden age," but rather
the crashing down of an older one. The red ants that threaten the house will
eventually come to kill this monster-child and drag off his carcass - thus, the
irony of the golden age's unrepeatability in the echo ofJosi Arcadio Buendfa's
phrase "per omnia secula seculorum" (55) in the narrative account on how to kill

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 SOME IMPLICATIONS OF YELLOW AND GOLD IN GARCIA MAiRQUEZ 173

vermin (394). Incest brings the narrative full circle, as Ursula's ultimate fear is
realized, while Aureliano's search for solace in Melqufades's parchments closes
with the final retribution of the natural world, a Biblical whirlwind. Ovid
recounts in his Metamorphosis Heracules's rescue of Arcadia from the boar that
was ravaging it (Bk. IX, 208). For the Buendfas there can be no such deus ex
machina and no salvation. Macondo's "golden age" probably never really exist-
ed except in the minds of the Buendfas, and striving to recover it through
their irrepressible, "supreme vice" of nostalgia (Williamson 58) only under-
scores the permanence of their solitude and doom.

IV. CONCLUSION

In One Hundred Years of Solitude, the yellow/gold color symbolism has a vari-
ety of functions. First, it embodies the central narrative principle of repetition
so fundamental to the thematics, while not oppressing the reader. Indeed, once
one adds the disguised yellow/golf names of Macondo and repeated presence
of yellow and gold reaches an astounding number: 2187 instances or 5.18 per
page in the English translation and 4.75 in the Spanish. In essence, that would
constitute an average of once every fifty or sixty words - that is to say, hard to
ignore, but by no means distracting. Secondly, it helps to connect both major
and minor characters with certain themes: the search for economic and intel-
lectual wealth, as well as the hopeless consequences of an Arcadian solitude in
the modern world. Moreover, and perhaps most important of all, these colors
serve to align Garcia Mirquez's novel with the ancient and early modern liter-
ary tradition of the pastoral, although with a thoroughly twentieth-century
slant. Despite the obviousness of his color symbolism, there still remains a
remarkable narrative subtlety to Garcia Mirquez's use of yellow and gold. Not
everyone must perceive this symbolism to understand the novel; yet once it has
been seen, this work's cohesive narrative style becomes all the more apparent.

JOHN CARSON PETTEY

APPENDIX I

COLOR SYMBOLISM

A. Instances of descriptive color other than yellow/gold

Black = 41 Copper = 14 Aluminium = 3

Silver = 38 Orange = 12 Tin = 2
White = 31 Pink = 9 Brown = 2
Red = 28 Purple = 9 Gray = 1
Blue = 23 Zinc = 6
Green = 22 Lead = 4

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174 JOHN CARSON PETTEY RHM, LIII (2000)
silver: including "silversmith"/"silverwork"
red: indirect references to "blood"/"bloody" = 61 times
orange: most often as the fruit itself
brown: not including Mr. Jack Brown of banana company

Total: 245 for 16 different colors or metals = 15.31 per color/metal

B. Yellow and Gold

Instances per page (Eng) per page (Span)

[rounded up] [rounded up]
Direct References of Yellow: 29 0.07 0.06
Direct References of Gold: 86 0.20 0.19
Total of Direct References: 115 0.27 0.25
Average = 57.5 instances

Indirect References to Yellow: 199 0.45 0.42

Indirect References to Gold: 87 0.21 0.19
Total of Indirect References: 286 0.67 0.61
Average = 141 instances

Total of Dir./Indir. Refs.: 401 0.94 0.86

Instances of Name Aureliano: 755 1.79 1.64

Total of Y/G + Aurel.: 1156 2.73 2.50

Instances of Name Arcadio: 474 1.12 1.03

Total Y/G + Aurel. + Arc.: 1630 3.83 3.51

Instances of Name Ursula: 396 0.94 0.82

Instances of Name Macondo: 161 0.38 0.35

Overall Total of Yellow/Gold

References + Onomastics: 2187 5.18 4.75

APPENDIX II

SELECTED CONNECTIONS OF COLOR SYMBOLISM WITH CHARACTERS (ENGLISH/SPANI

A. Minor Characters

1. Pietro Crespi: blond hair (62/152); his suicide with "benzoin" (113/210).

2. Arcadio: uses palm oil soap (74/167); gold tassels on saber (107/203).
3. Remedios Moscote: her bed-wetting and its cure (82/175).

4. AurelianoJosd: "blond fuzz" for his mustache (145/246).

5. 17 Aurelianos: the first one to appear is blond (155/257); their extermination by

the "hired assassins with machetes" for the banana company (244-246/356-359); last

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 SOME IMPLICATIONS OF YELLOW AND GOLD IN GARCIA MARQUEZ 175

one, Aureliano Amador, shot by two policemen who come "from among the almond
trees" (380-381/509).

6. Colonel Gerineldo Mdrquez: finds his "solitude" in the crystal water on the almond
trees, after being rejected by Amaranta (168/271); his coffin is covered with a canopy
of banana leaves (325/444).

7. Santa Sofia de la Piedad: lemonade (187/293); futile attempt to rid the porch of
"little yellow flowers" (365/491); given "fourteen little gold fishes" before she leaves
Macondo forever (366/492).

8. Mauricio Babilonia: working for as an apprentice mechanic for the banana compa-
ny (290/405-406) "yellow butterflies" (292/407, repeated).

9. Mr. Herbert (banana company): has "topaz eyes" (231/341); examining banana
like a diamond (232/341-342).

10. Mr. Jack Brown: arrives on the "innocent yellow train" (232/342); banana com-
pany superintendent (307/424); torrential rains that accompany his decision to remove
the banana company from Macondo (315/433).
11. Gaston (husband of Amaranta Ursula): wears a straw boater (386/515); his fami-
ly's palm oil business in the Belgian Congo (389/518).

12. Nigromanta: cooks "chicken-head soup" (390/520); meets Aureliano Babilonia

under the almond trees (392/521).

B. Major Characters

1. Josi Arcadio Buendia: desire to extract gold from the earth with a magnet (2/80);
finding armor of a sixteenth-century conquistador (2/80); alchemy (5-8/84-89; repeat-
ed); discovering the Spanish galleon (12/94); planted almond trees in place of "aca-
cias" (40/127); rain of yellow flowers at his death (144/245).

2. Ursula Iguardn: growing plantains in the garden (4/83); her great-great-grand-

mother frightened by Sir Francis Drake's (Golden Hind) assault (19/102); gold pieces
inherited from her father (23-24/107); pure gold stuffed in gourds under bed
(151/253; 198/306); gold coins in plaster statue of St. Joseph (248/361).

3. Melquiades: alchemy (7/86, repeated); fellow gypsy acrobats with "gold-capped

teeth" (17/99); yellow flowers on his false teeth (73/165); his parchments compared to
puffpaste (73/165).
4. Jost Arcadio (first son): receives arnica compresses from Pilar Tenera (29/114);
no understanding of "philosopher's egg" (32/117); eats raw eggs (93/187); corpse pre-
pared with lemon and cumin seeds (136/236).

5. ColonelAureliano Buendia: "little golden fishes" (66/158, repeated); coloring note-

books with "round suns with yellow rays" (77/170); strychnine or in assassination
attempt (106/202; 138/239); roll of yellowish paper containing his love poems to
Remedios (178/283); 72 gold bricks as the treasury of the revolution (182/287);
attempted suicide through mark on chest with iodine (182-183/288-289); urinating
under chestnut tree (263/377).

6. Amaranta: treats her father with mustard plasters (109/206); album of postcards
(with Pietro Crespi) "with vignettes of hearts pierced with arrows and golden ribbons
(110/208); for Jose Arcadio Segundo's confirmation she engraves his name in gilt let-

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 176 JOHN CARSON PETIEY RHM, LIII (2000)

ters on a candle (191/298); says "Arsenic" to the visiting

(266/380).

7. Rebeca: dream with a man who has a gold button at h

hair described as "yellow threads" (223/334); hair describe
["hebras amarillentas"]).

8. Pilar Tenera: arnica compresses for Jos6 Arcadio (29/

Meme (295/410); running the bordello The Golden Child
gilded shell (400/532).

9. Remedios the Beauty: receives a yellow rose (201-202/3

instead of blood out of the crushed skull of man who falls to his death because of her
(239/350).

10. Aureliano Segundo: champagne (194/302, repeated); crosses a yellow plain in

search of Fernanda (213/322); consumes bananas during eating contest (261-262/375-
376); searches for Ursula's hidden gold (348/471).

11. Fernanda: golden chamberpot (214/323; 330/449); "delicate calendar with

golden keys" (214/323); gold crow at fiesta (272/387); Golden Age familial names
(331/450); "a yellowed ermine cape" (369/496); "crown of gilded cardboard" (369/
496); chamberpot only gold plated (376/504).

12. Petra Cotes: possesses yellow and almond-shaped eyes (193/301); champagne
(194/302, repeated); gilded mirrors (333/452); canopy with golden threads (338/459).

13. Josi Arcadio Segundo: foreman at the banana company (258/372); leader of the
great strike of banana workers (302-305/424-427); lies among the corpses of shot strik-
ers - treated like rejected bananas (312/430).

14. Meme: chicken broth as hangover cure (276/390); eats pineapple on Virginia
ham as attempted Americanization (280/394); gets mustard plasters from Pilar Tenera
as contraceptives (295-297/410-412); watching the last of the yellow butterflies
(301/416); thinking of Mauricio Babilonia in the "yellow streams of light from the
stained glass" (302/417).

15. Josi Arcadio (the last): "solid gold ring with a round sunflower opal" (371/498);
shabby bathrobe with "golden dragons on it" (373-501); slippers with yellow tassels
(373/501); discovers Ursula's gold (377/506); fills pool with champagne (378/506).
16. Aureliano Babilonia: studies the philosopher's stone (361/487); studying "yel-
lowed sheets" (377/505); "hermetic man" (388/518); Seneca and Ovid (405/538);
Arnoldo of Villanova, the alchemist (405/538); Horace (408/541); sexual use for peach
jam (with Amaranta Ursula) (411/545); reads the gold and yellow imagery in the family
history at the very close of the novel (421-422/557-559).

17. Amaranta Ursula: topaz rings (382/511); brings canaries home with her (383-
385/511-513); "peachlike stomach" (411/545); peach jam (411/545).

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 SOME IMPLICATIONS OF YELLOW AND GOLD IN GARCiA MARQUEZ 177

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