Book: 100 Years of Solitude

#1: Timed Writing-60 Points

Karlin Stansbury

S. Webster

Advanced English 2

02/13/23

In retrospect, the reader often discovers that the first chapter of a novel or the opening scene of
a drama introduces some of the major themes of the work. Write an essay about the opening
scene of a drama or the first chapter of a novel in which you explain how it functions in this
way.

The Hidden Buendia Life

For the majority of my life, I have believed that motifs and themes of literature were just the

interpretations of the reader; that the author had no deeper intention behind their work other than just

creating an entertaining story or informative recollection. Compared to my work ethic, it was impossible

to create a piece of literature with such purpose and precision. However, this book changed that forever.

Gabriel García Márquez does a beautiful job of intricately stringing together, motifs and themes over the

hundred period of the Buendia’s crazy mystical lives. Especially in the first chapter of 100 Years of

Solitude, which is littered with themes, motifs, and foreshadowing that you won’t recognize without a

second read.

A huge chunk of the novel is dedicated to the complex and sometimes confusing aspects of a

conservative liberal war that takes over Macondo due to its cause, Aureliano 1 as I call him, or Colonel

Aureliano Buendia as everyone else knows him. The war and additional politics mentioned throughout

the novel demonstrate a theme of the grisly effects of war. This is foreshadowed in the first sentence of

the first chapter when instead of referring to him as Aureliano, the son of Jose Arcadio Buendia, he is

referred to as Colonel Aureliano Buendia the amazing leader of the liberal revolution, which hasn’t
occurred yet. Later on in the chapter, Jose Arcadio Buendia is introduced to the revolutionary invention of

the magnifying glass, known to me as an aid in reading small text or observing minuscule objects, but to

him, it was a new weapon of mass destruction. Jose Arcadio Buendia’s dark purpose for the invention is

an additional inside look at one of the main themes seen throughout the entirety of the novel.

Fate holds a tight grasp on the direction of this novel, especially through the generations. For

instance, the entire storyline rests on the predictions made by Melquiades hundred years before they

occurred. This theme appears a multitude of times in the first chapter, but the most memorable for me was

the story of the founding of Macondo. Jose Arcadio Buendia and the other founders were originally in

search of the ocean but after a little more than two years of searching and finding nothing they gave up

and founded Macondo. This was a huge chance of fate because as we discover in chapter one, on an

additional expedition, Jose Arcadio Buendia and his men discover a Spanish Galleon right along the path

they took on their previous search, which leads them to the ocean. This is fate because if they had found

the ship on the first go around Macondo would have never been founded and all of the events of this

novel would have never occurred. Furthermore, fate is demonstrated in the foreshadowing of the

Buendia's non-genetic traits, such as interest in science, their recollection of memories not belonging to

them or that didn’t occur, obtaining magical skills, etcetera. However, the most interesting of them all

was their inheritance of the Buendia solidarity.

A massive, and one of the most important motifs throughout this whole novel is solidarity. No

matter where the story took each member of the family ended up, in one way or another, experiencing and

accepting their solitude. This motif is expressed during the first chapter whenever it describes the first

run-in Jose Arcadio Buendia has with solidarity. Jose Arcadio Buendia in an attempt to experiment

locked himself in a room during the months of the rainy season. This is an example of foreshadowing

because multiple family members do the exact same thing including Jose Arcadio Segundo and

Aurelianos, the second to last one, who both lock themselves in Melquiades' old room to decipher his

parchments.
 This book did an amazing job of linking together motifs and themes throughout the novel. In

retrospect, I discovered an implausible amount of foreshadowing of themes and motifs that completely

flew over my head during my first read of the first chapter. And once and for all solidified the belief that

authors write with an incredible amount of purpose, contrary to what I believed in previous years. I hope

and am excited to fully reread this sublime book, and discover a multitude of things Gabriel Garcia

Marquez hid for the second round through.

#2: Culinary Arts- 20 Points

I am baking Pastillas de leche or sweet milk candies. I decided upon making these because it was one of
the few makeable foods mentioned multiple times throughout the novel. In the book, Úrsula begins
making sweet milk candy animals and it becomes a prosperous business. Even in her later years, she
continued making them, and when she no longer physically could she passed down the business to Santa
Sofia de la Piedad. This candy business held an important role in supporting the family even whenever
one of the men would make a poor business decision. My research suggests that this dish is not
traditionally Columbian, however, my imagination allows me to believe that she learned from one of the
various foreigners that she had contact with like one of the Gypsies.

Ingredients:
● 2 cups of sifted powdered milk
● 14 ounces of condensed milk
● ½ cup sifted granulated sugar
Intructions:
● Place the condensed milk in a large mixing bowl.
● Gradually fold in the powdered milk. The texture of the mixture will be similar to dough once all
the powdered milk is completely added.
● Scoop some of the mixture and mold it into cylinders.
● Roll each molded cylindrical mixture on granulated sugar.
● Wrap in paper or cellophane.
https://panlasangpinoy.com/milk-candy-pastillas-de-leche-recipe/

#3: Artistic Free Choice-20 Points

This drawing is supposed to represent Remidos the beauty because in the book she was called
dumb a multitude of times and was said to have a brain of lint. So in my mind, in a more magical
realism way, Remidos the beauty would have a brain of a pomegranate.