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Review by Robin Fiorello
One Hundred Years Of Solitude
A family's struggle through a tumultuous century
Some of the most striking occurrences in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novel One Hundred Years of Solitude are the sexual relationships. Marquez deals with all of the issues in lives of the Buendia family in a very honest, realistic and matter of fact way and their sexual live are no exception. On one level, the reader is able to identify with the familiar and all too common soap-opera like instances, while at the same time, the literary development of these relationships is important to the novel’s growth and realism. The plot is passionate with out being melodramatic, simple yet filled with graphic honesty.
The book begins with a description of Jose Arcadio Buendia’s strong personality, zest for adventure and relationship with his wife, Ursula. It is explained that because Jose Arcadio and Ursula are distantly related, she has a fear that their children will have pig’s tails like that of one of her cousins whose parents had been related. Ursula promptly refuses to have sex with her husband because of this fear and what seems like a ludicrous incident, turns into a violent affair in which her husband ends up murdering Prudencio Aguilar because of an insensitive remark on the latter’s part. Jose Arcadio Buendia then demands verbally and physically, that his wife stop her incessant worrying and have sex with him. This incident sets the sexual tone of the book as bizarre, yet unusually honest.
Ursula and Jose Arcadio Buendia end up having children who are perfectly normal in all physical ways; and who end up carrying on the family tradition of unusual physical relationships, To begin with, Aureliano Buendia falls in love with seven year old Remedios Moscote the first time he sees her. Even in Remedios' presence, Aureliano, a grown man, cannot control his emotions "Aureliano could not answer (her) because he was seized with a sudden attack of asthma. He wanted to stay beside that lily skin forever, beside that voice that called him ‘sir’ with every question, showing him the same respect she showed her father." It is fairly obvious from this passage that Aureliano doesn't have a desire for a typical man/woman relationship. Instead of regarding this behavior as unusual or unhealthy, the child’s family is surprised, yet grateful to be able to marry off one of their daughters. Thus, as soon as Remedios reaches puberty (about nine years old) Aureliano marries her. In our society, the idea of an adult having sex with a nine year old is seen as immoral and completely unacceptable, yet in the reality of One Hundred Years of Solitude, it is treated as a normal marriage.
In yet another bizarre event, Aureliano’s older brother, Jose Arcadio, runs away with the Gypsies only to return to Macondo as a rough powerful and barbaric man. Jose Arcadio falls in love and marries Rebeca who was raised as a Buendia, but is not truly related to him. This relationship would seem fairly normal if the reader did not already know that Rebeca was engaged to Pietro Crespi and had been for several years. Rebeca breaks her vows to Crespi and sleeps with Jose Arcadio even before they were married. "Only Rebeca succumbed to the first impact, The day she saw him (Jose Arcadio) pass by her bedroom she thought Pietro Crespi was a sugary dandy next to that protomale whose volcanic breathing could be heard all over the house ... Rebeca lost control of herself. She went back to eating earth and whitewash, and she sucked her fingers with so much anxiety that she developed a callus on her thumb." Rebeca loses all sense of her love for Pietro Crespi and devotes herself to the man who grew up like a brother to her.
The other character introduced at the beginning of the book who has an odd sexual life is Amaranta. The daughter of Jose Arcadio Buendia and Ursula, Amaranta grows up with Rebeca as her sister and the closest person of her age in the family. A rivalry is created between Amaranta and Rebeca when Pietro Crespi comes to Macondo and installs a pianola in the Buendia household. Both Amaranta and Rebeca fall in love with Crespi and vie for his attention. Crespi on the other hand, only has eyes for Rebeca and this creates a serious problem between the girls.
For many years, Rebeca and Crespi court each other and plan to marry, and Amaranta makes a sincere vow to never let the two marry. So deep is Amaranta’s conviction, that she is willing to even kill Rebeca to keep the two from ever being happy. Unlike most of the other relationships in the novel, this one seems as if it could happen in our society. The typical jealousy and immature attitude could easily exist on one of our day-time soap-operas. We can recognize this scenario as plausible, but that still does not make it acceptable or healthy.
The extremes that Amaranta is willing to grow through in this relationship are signs of a mentally unbalanced mind. Even after Rebeca deserts Crespi and he turns his attention towards Amaranta, she cannot accept his love or let go of her bitterness towards Rebeca. Amaranta leads Crespi on for a long period of time and then refuses him flatly, setting her life long precedent of being alone. After the entire incident with Pietro Crespi, Amaranta’s relationships get even more bizarre as she ends up having an almost sexual relationship with the nephew that she raised like her own child. Aureliano Jose Segundo comes back from war with the specific desire to marry Amaranta.
The narrator explains how Aureliano Jose spent his entire time in war consumed with thoughts of his aunt and even deserted the army to be with her. Amaranta knows of his intent and even when he comes into her room at night, she does not resist with sincerity. She will not have sex with him, but Amaranta allows a physical relationship go on for a long period of time until Aureliano Jose makes the mistake of letting up for a while and Amaranta barrs her door to him forever. This is yet again, an unusual experience for Amaranta. She desires a man but won’t let herself get involved with one. She needs the love that is offered to her but something inside of her makes her hold back. Again, this incestuous relationship that would be totally unacceptable in our society, but in the novel, it is treated with honesty that makes it seem reasonably acceptable. In yet another incident, General Gerinaldo Marquez falls in love with Amaranta and asks her to marry him. The General treats Amaranta with the love and respect of a person truly in love, and Amaranta reciprocates the attention, but she will not marry him. It seems that nothing can break down the walls of Amaranta’s self-imposed solitude,
Since One Hundred Years Of Solitude was published in 1967, it is obvious that Gabriel Garcia Marquez intended that the novel appeal to a modern audience. He introduces the characters of the Buendia family as a people with whom we are supposed to travel through one hundred year of life. Marquez gives us sexual relationships as one common ground to base our impression on. In our world of child abuse, prostitution, sexually transmitted diseases, rape etc..., we are able to see the strange sexual relationships depicted in this novel as no more bizarre than what we see going on around us. The development of the character’s sexual relationships is an important tool that leads to better understanding of the individual’s lives and experiences while at the same time giving the reader a familiar background common to all human experience.
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