The Ogre Day 4 - Symbols, Red & White & Twins

Quotations that Contribute to my Explanations at the bottom of this page:

1. “For the first time in his life, Tiffauges had departed from the absolute secrecy he had always maintained about his joys and fears and discoveries – he did tell the old man about inversion both malign and benign, saturation, phoria and the heroes that embodied it,” (p. 301).

“Whoever sins by symbols will be punished by symbols! Tiffauges, you are a reader of signs – I could see it, and you have proved it to me. You think that in Germany you have found the country of pure essences, where everything that passes is symbol, everything that happens is parable. And you are right. Besides, a man marked by destiny is inevitably bound to finish up in Germany, just as a moth flying around in the dark always ends by finding the light that intoxicates and kills it. But you have much to learn – Up to now you have discovered signs on things, like the letters and figures one reads on a milestone. That is only the weak form of symbolic existence,”(p.302).

“Signs are strong, it is they that brought you here. Signs are irritable, and the symbol thwarted becomes a diabol. From a center of light and concord it becomes a power of darkness and division,”(p. 302).

“You still have to learn the height of this mechanism of symbols – the combination of those three figures in one, which is synonymous with the apocalypse. For there is a terrifying moment when the sign no longer accepts being carried by a creature as a standard is carried by a soldier. It acquires autonomy, it escapes from the thing symbolized, and – this is what is frightening – it takes over that thing!”(p. 302-303).

“When the symbol devours the thing symbolized, when the cross-bearer becomes the crucified, when a malign inversion overthrows phoria, then the end of the world is at hand,”(p. 303).

“Symbol, no longer ballasted by anything, becomes master of heaven. It proliferates, insinuates itself everywhere, and shatters into a thousand meaning that don’t mean anything anymore,”(p.303).

“You say you love Prussia, Monsieur Tiffauges, because signs shine with incomparable brightness in its hyperborean light. But you don’t yet see what this awful proliferation of symbols leads to. In the sign-saturated sky a storm is gathering which will be violent as an apocalypse, and which will engulf us all! (p. 305 – 306).

2. “Mirror Twins,” Red & White color Imagery

“Twins carry the despiritualization of the flesh further. It is no longer a matter of contradictory tumult in which souls neutralize one another. The two bodies really have only one concept between them with which to clothe themselves in intelligence and fill themselves with spirit,”(p.287).

“So they develop with calm indecency, exhibiting their creamy complexion, their pink down…”(p, 287).

“But when I saw what he did with them – that red flag with a big white circle inscribed with a crooked cross I suspected the worst. For that tottering spider, turning around on itself and threatening everything that comes into with its hooked class, is a blatant antithesis of the cross of Malta, radiant with serenity and the desire for peace! (p. 303).

“Don’t these red shapes and white ground remind you of something Tiffauges? Said the old man, pursuing his own thought. ‘What would you say if I made you a knight attached to my house, with a coat of arms alluding to mine…it was you, wasn’t it who recruited these boys?” “Armorial bearings of an Ogre…eating children”

“He gave them their insignia: two swords of red cloth sewn on the left side of their white habit…The three red swords on the white ground recalled the two swords of the Knights of the Sword plus the one sword of the Teutonic Knights.

EXPLANATIONS

All of these themes are tied together in the malign inversion of “signs.” It is in these pages that we see Tiffauges becoming so enwrapped in “symbols” that he is blinded by their true meaning. He does not realize this because – he is overjoyed by the fact that he is permitted to examine, hold, and recruit children constantly. Although – he is unaware that he is collecting these children to be killed. Tiffauges is used to children being afraid of him, so when the young boy screams and kicks at Tiffauges, telling him to “call off the dogs!” Tiffauges is unfazed….unable to call off the dogs if he tried, capturing Lothar Wuenstroth, and the mirror-twins which are a symbol within itself.

The pyramid that the boys make represents the Three Swords of Kaltenborn – This uniting of red and white in the form of a trilogy, is the ultimate joy for Tiffauges. The officer jokingly offers to make Tiffauges “armorial bearings,” (something to carry) but fit for an Ogre who eats children.

This also ties into the way children are increasingly described like food: The creamy complexion of the twins & Lothar’s “mauve pools of his eyes….pudding-basin cut,”(p. 309)

The red and white a strong symbol of blood, innocence – the “massacre of innocence,”(p.284).

The way that the Swastika was described was akin to a “a cross that fell victim to malign-inversion, laced with black death, hooks, venomous pursuits of a spider. This is a perfect example of what the Frenchman was referring to when he talked about the danger of signs when the become autonomous – Tiffauges was not reading into the blatant signs that he was killing the children that he loved so much. The Nazis symbolize the perversion of humanity in the pursuit of power, where the “cross-bearer becomes the crucified.” This malign inversion and devastating discovery of symbols brings out the truly sinister side of Tiffauges.

Also, Tiffauges is disillusioned in his love for Prussia and Germany - the French man illustrates how he is going to fall to the "intoxicating light that kills those who are drawn to it," and how "whoever sins by symbols will be punished by them!" This quote I thought was especially important -- Tiffauges is being punished because he has lived his life in symbols - he put his faith in all of the signs that he was only able to read at surface-level, unaware of the atrocities he was helping Hitler commit -- even against his beloved children, the only source of joy in his life.

The Ogre Day 2 - Theme 2: Sounds / bells

2. Senses: Sounds trigger actions

Throughout the Ogre, there have been “bells” and other sounds that trigger good or bad actions. (Bells are mostly indicative of bad things). For example:

-The bells that trigger punishment for students at St. Christopher’s; he dreads ringing the bell for fear of “colophus” from his teachers.

- Jovial children laughing and running around in the playground is his favorite –he records these sounds. (P. 95 – 96)

****The “bells” in Mme. Greignot’s voice when she speaks...Abel doesn’t like her at all, and she ends up testifying against him/likening him to Wiedemann as he is beheaded. (p. 111, 115, 117, 118 & 168).

***Sensual experience when Abel attends Wiedemann’s beheading; as though it is his own death, extreme sights and sounds arise from this scene. (p. 121).

-War in Germany is “audiovisual signs” (p.136)

-Terrifying scream of Martine when she is raped

“A flight of herons crossed the sky, their wings beating gently; a bell scattered its disjointed, mournful music into the wind. Tiffauges felt a strong bond uniting him to the place. To being with – and perhaps for a long time – he was its prisoner and it was his duty to serve it with his whole body,”

3. I also notices a few other themes to be interesting, especially the fact that, because Abel was always rejected from society – he is not afraid of what is to come at Nazi Germany, since he has always been on his own. This is good because he is able to adapt more easily, but it is also a sign of his innate “malice” that will contribute to his actions.

Irony: Feels the most freedom as a prisoner in Nazi Germany. (He is in a “forced” society) P. 162

Pigeons: “Sign bearers,” his “children,” – which he ends up eating, as Ogres do. Also, the pigeon is able to transcend the Germans when he flies away, just as Abel is not afraid or suffering, unlike the other officers. (P.153 & 154).

War/Chaos – Abel has flourished in this chaotic, disorderly environment – the restrictions of society are removed. He is even seen as a superior being because of his immense body (p. 160) also, he is offered a medal of honor from Col. Puyjalon, and vs. when he was in school he knew he would never win a medal.

*Similarly, he was extremely calm when he was accused of raping the little girl. Despite all the chaos and disorder he “couldn’t sleep because of happiness.”

*This also conflicts with the execution of Wiedemann, who was a murdered being killed – (possessor & possessed perversion) BUT Abel was not glad that justice was served; instead he was disoriented and badly effected by his execution (as Wiedemann is a part of Abel).

Injustice- Comments on the justice system that is unfair and provokes judgments/stereotypes to be considered in court cases, thus, justice is impossible.

Animalistic: Abel is content and happiest when with his pigeons in solitude. He is able to hold them in his hand, POSESS them. But, he becomes more like a beast in this way – less human. Just as war is more animalistic and primitive than modern society.

The Ogre Day 2 - Theme 1: Photography

1. Photography for Abel

Abel uses photography to create some happiness and joy that he has complete control over in his life. Snapping photographs and developing the film yield thematic ideas such as; “Godlike power,” inversion, sexual power, predatory power and the ultimate goal of being “the possessor and the possessed.”

Sexual power – Abel is unable to satisfy sexually because of his ambiguous sexual nature and underdevelopment. His camera is described in a manner that it is in essence his “genitalia,” as photographing these children and enjoying their jovial happiness, he indulges sexually (or as close to sexual indulgence as he will ever be).

“So on this fine sunny first of May, having breakfasted gaily and briefly, I set out on image-hunting, my camera lovingly stowed in its genital position...A waterman worked away furiously at the pump of a barge, and at each effort a yellow ejaculation streamed out at the waterline,”(pps. 104-5).

Predatory power – In taking photographs, Abel is “ensnaring” his prey without them knowing, and he also “kills” the person in the still frame of immobility.

“Telescopic lenses that enable one to operate from a distance, without any contact with the subject, kill what is most moving about taking pictures: the slight suffering that is experiences, together and from opposite poles, by the person who knows he is being photographed and by the person who knows he is known to be committing a predatory act, to be hijacking an image,”(P. 112).

Godlike power/Inversion- Abel has utter control over the “fate” of these images – he can manipulate them in any way he pleases, enlarge them, invert them, just as God has manipulated his life and existence.

“But it is from the enlargement of the image, and the possibilities this offers of inversion, that the most singular powers of the photographer derive. For it is not merely a matter of metamorphosis from black to white and vice versa…through photography, wild infinity becomes domesticated,” (p. 109).

Happiness/lost “Eden” – These photographs are the closest that Abel will get to “possessing” love/happiness. Society rejects his love of children and his appearance that set him apart as an outcast, so this is the lost paradise of old-Adam that he wished to return to, where he could be happy.

“I shall always love these images, bright and deep as lakes, into which I dive with abandon on certain lonely evenings. In them is life, smiling, pump, on offer, imprisoned in the magic paper, a last survival of slavery, that lost paradise I have not ceased to mourn,”(p.104)

“Photography promotes a reality into the plane of dream; it metamorphoses a real object into its own myth. This lens is the narrow gate through which the elect, those called to become gods and heroes possessed, make their secret entry into my inner Pantheon,”(p. 104).

Malign Inversion/possessor-possessed- Old-Adam was both “possessor and possessed,” in his hermaphroditic state. With photographs, Abel is “full/satiated” (hunger) with these photographs of children and the power he has over them. But when he has his mug shot taken, it is ironic because it’s perversion of how he wants to be possessed (malign inversion).

“Then I was photographed in full face and in profile – I, the stealer of images! Absurd and malign inversion!” (p. 124).

The Ogre Day 1 - "Rewriting Adam & Eve"

Question 5: Abel’s “rewriting” of Adam & Eve Myth:

Abel is fascinated with sexuality and his own sexuality cannot be confined to merely homosexual or heterosexual. In this way, Abel’s illustration of the originally hermaphroditic Adam is the primal sexual state that he wishes to encapsulate. Abel is a social outcast, and this sexual fluidity disables him from living happily with Rachel, and homosexual tendencies would make him even more monstrous, unable to reproduce. The "Edenic-Adam," prior to Eve, is the closest embodiment of the ogre’s sexual experiences; he sees the old-Adam’s solidarity and potency as the ultimate.

“One cannot escape the more or less conscious fascination of the old Adam, armed with all his reproductive apparatus, having to lie down, perhaps incapable of walking, certainly of working, a constant prey to amorous transports of unimaginable perfection, in which he was both possessor and possessed, except – who knows? – During the periods when he was pregnant by himself. And then what must our fabulous ancestor have been like, man-cum-woman become cum-child into the bargain, like one of those nests of dolls that fit one inside the other!”(P.17)

Abel’s latter description of our “fabulous ancestor” is crude, but the comparison drawn between hermaphroditic Adam and Russian Nesting Dolls is poignant. Just like the nesting dolls, Abel has many layers to him; he is a complicated compilation of experiences and beliefs as an outcast of society. The fact that Abel rejects society makes the multitude of layers to be even more dense and complicated, as his ideas and fascinations are much different from ours as a part of society.

Abel desires to be happy in an Eden of potent solitude, as the old-Adam had lived, before the fall of man. Abel rewrites the Biblical fall of man to be the breaking of original Adam into three “unfortunates.”

“For if there is a fall of man in Genesis, it is not in the episode of the apple: on the contrary, the acquisition of knowledge of good and evil is a step upward. No, the fall consists in the breaking into three of the original Adam, letting fall woman and child from man, and thus creating three unfortunates: the child, eternal orphan; woman, solitary and afraid and always in search of a protector; and man, light and alert, but like a king stripped of all his attributes and made to work at degrading tasks,”(p. 17).

These three unfortunates are unable to exist in complete solitary happiness, each lacks important qualities that the other possesses, however; one cannot be happy with the burden of all of these qualities in solitude. God made Eve in removing all of the sexual parts of Adam, as hermaphroditic sexual parts were too “cumbersome” for one person. Abel rejects marriage, as an attempt to reunite what was disassociated by God, “Let no man join what God has put asunder!”(p. 17).

Abel’s rewriting and rejection of marriage is pessimistic, undoubtedly rooted in his own discontent and unusual nature. God divided Adam because all the necessary hermaphroditic parts rendered him immovable and miserable; in separating these parts the need for another person (namely, female) was created in order for reproduction. The child is the product of these natural needs and actions, yet all three are unhappy because of traits that the other has, and they are without. Woman is fertile and capable of birthing children while men are unable to become pregnant, conversely, women are afraid and in need of a protector whilst men are able to protect themselves. This tit-for-tat perpetuates desires, discontent and need.

The Ogre Day 1 - "Signs"

Question 5: “All is sign”

The word “sign” is mentioned many times within this first section of the novel. Each time the word appears, it is as though Tournier urges readers to take notice, delve beneath surface image:

· “All is sign. But only a piercing light or shriek will penetrate our blunted sight and hearing. Ever since my years of initiation at St. Christopher’s, I’ve always been aware of hieroglyphs written across my path and a confused murmur of words in my ear,” (p. 5).

· “His [Nestor’s] life’s rhythm was the trilogy ingestion-digestion-defecation, and these three operations were surround by general respect. But this was only Nestor’s visible face. His hidden face, which only I suspected, was signs, the deciphering of signs. This was the main business in his life- this and the absolute despotism he wielded over all of St. Christopher’s,” (p. 20-21).

· “From the prie-dieu you could see, standing out distinctly against the white wall, a garish picture of Christ wearing the crown of thorns and being struck in the face by a soldier. The reading of signs – the great business of my life – was still so unknown to me that I didn’t think of making the obvious parallel. Now I know that any human face, however vile, becomes the face of Christ when it is struck,”(p. 26).

· “But one day Christopher saw the king making the sign of the cross over his face after someone had spoken of the Devil in his presence. When Christopher asked why he did this, the king replied, “Whenever I hear the Devil spoken of, I use this sign lest he obtain power over me and harm me,”(p. 39).

· “A playground is an enclosed space that allows enough play for play – a blank page for games to be written on like signs that have to be deciphered. But the density of the atmosphere is inversely proportional to the space that encloses it. If the walls closed in, the writing would be more crowded together. Would it be more legible? We might just arrive at the phenomenon of condensation. But of what? Perhaps aquarium, or better still the dormitories, might give the answer,”(p. 43-44).

Abel has named himself and Nestor to be of the business of “deciphering signs.” Both Abel and Nestor are socially outcast, “monsters” because of their inadequate physical beauty and appearance. However, Nestor has power despite his social inadequacy; this power is ascertained through “papers” which are commonly linked with “signs.” Papers in The Ogre, enhanced my understanding of the significance of “signs,” and why it was Nestor & Abel’s job to decipher them. The human soul is made of papers, according to Abel, and the society without papers (his story of the man who burned down all the papers in government offices) is completely animalistic. Many people think that “possessing” paper is the most important thing in life, but Nestor understands that “It isn’t the paper itself that matters, it’s what’s written on it and who wrote it,”(p 20). This connects back to deciphering “signs."

(A) In the first quote, sign is represented in the form of sensory experience (to hear & see) and also as hieroglyphic symbols.

*Boys at the school were constantly tattooing each other, Abel’s “AT” tattoo leads to his torturous punishment

*To hear & see only provide superficial understanding, we cannot rely on these senses to decipher “signs” that help us follow our destiny and better understand ourselves & society.

(B) In the second, Nestor’s true nature is revealed as a decipher of signs, this is only revealed to Abel.

*Abel & Nestor are both “monsters/ogres” outcast from society because of their ugliness; society is superficial and lacks a deep understanding of true nature.

*Abel is akin to Nestor in his ability to decipher the “hidden face” that lies beyond the “visible face.”

*Despite social disregard, Nestor and Abel possess truth & reason = power.

© The third & fourth quotes address religion; represented in the sign of the cross and the face of Christ (all people assume this face when they are hit).

*Idea that many people are religious for the purpose of image; if the king really believed in the ultimate power of God as the basis of his life, he would not be afraid at the mention of the devil.

*Signs are deceptive, false fronts

*Signs can give the illusion of power, even when there is no real substance.

(D) The final quote address the conflicting atmospheres of the carefree playground which is like a blank page for signs to be written on vs. the constricting hierarchy of St. Christopher’s,

*Free will, joy, childhood imagination are the “papers” (substance) of life and truth. The manifestation of cultural ideals are here.

*Children in playground are impressionable, blank slates, before they succumb to the relentless forces of society & hierarchy that limit these “papers” so critical in life.

100 Years of Solitude Chap 16-20 Question 2: Ursula as a Doll, & the Color Red

1. Ursula the doll & the color red

a. Ursula’s ultimate demise begins with the floods that cause leeches to cover her back and suck the blood out of her body. I feel as though this represents the ultimate power of nature, even over people like Ursula who promote virtue and reason in society – humanity is a product of nature, and nature can bring an end to humanity. I feel that modern technology are the “life sucking leeches” that drain Ursula of her viability and bring the rains to wipe out civilization.

b. “Ursula was their most amusing plaything. They looked upon her as a big, broken-down doll that they carried back and forth from one corner to another wrapped in colored clothe with her face painted with soot and annatto,”(p. 327). The leeches and floods made Ursula regress to a doll/infant-like state. This is also a reflection of Macondo’s regression back to nature after the floods wipe out modern technology and memories of culture. I also think that Ursula’s doll form is a continuation of her vitality and “eternal youth,” she is depicted as the plaything of Amaranta Ursula and little Aureliano, the children who were jovial and carefree despite the rains. The rest of Macondo allowed the rain to bring detriment to their happiness and progress in life, Ursula and the children forged through the rain and made the most of what nature dealt them.

c. In her doll-like state, Ursula completely loses her sense of time and reality; her existence reaches the epitome of storytelling and memories of people and the Buendia legacy. In this way, her confusion is akin to the wild imagination of children that affords them freedom and happiness, regardless of external circumstances.

The color red in 100 Years of Solitude:

“…Her [Ursula’s] face wrapped in a red kerchief,”(p. 328).

“…The world lighted up with a crazy crimson sun harsh as brick dust,”(p. 330).

“…Animal skeletons covered with red lilies,”(p.331).

Typically in literature, red is a color that symbolizes bravery, happiness, good luck, energy, heat/fire and blood. This image also provokes pain, sacrifice, passion and anger. Ursula is depicted as wearing a red kerchief because she is the blood of Buendia family that tries to hold the family together. Ursula is also full of vitality and energy, as red symbolizes. Red sun and red lilies in the aftermath of the flood symbolize the sacrifice, pain, and anger that the floods have caused Macondo. Red is an important color in the aftermath of the flood and the end of Ursula’s life.

100 Years of Solitude Chap 16 - 20 Question 1: The Floods

1. Nearly five years of rain in Macondo wipes away the legacy of the Buendia family along with all the modern technology that become central to society.

a. The floods cause:

(1) Uprooting/complete elimination of the banana groves & memory of massacre

(2) Ursula is weakened on the verge of insanity after leeches suck the life our of her body,

(3) Sadness and madness result for characters like Aureliano Segundo, who has lost his lust for life and appetite for Petra’s fertility. Fernanda grieves her misfortune in life & lashes out in anger towards her husband, only wanting to die.

(4) The trains jump their tracks, cutting of communication with modern society & technology outside Macondo.

(5) Progress is halted, life and society in Macondo is stagnated, and everyone is waiting for the rain to stop so that they can die. “Something will be done when it clears,” –Aureliano Segundo

(6) Prosperity is destroyed when the bountiful livestock of Petra and Aureliano Segundo is drowned to death.

(7) Erases all memory of civilization, “was a bog of rotting roots,”(p. 331).

b. The floods in Macondo are similar to the flood that God imposed to rid the world of wicked people during the time of Noah. Similarly, Macondo is completely stripped of the people, technology, and legacy that defined society and the Buendia family. Perhaps the floods were caused because of the disillusionment that resulted from Macondo’s obsession with modern technology. Ursula is the root that maintains the memory and virtue of family for the Buendia family, but the destructive floods bring Macondo back to a time of primitive culture that lacks technology. Perhaps the technology that Macondo worshipped in the form of Mr. Brown’s banana company instigated the devastation in Macondo, because this obsession with modern technology replaced the core values that nature and family bring to society.

c. The floods humble Macondo, where people have forgotten the importance and power that nature wields above all things. Humans are a part of nature, time, age, and natural disasters are part of our reality in nature. The importance of time is discarded in 100 Years of Solitude, and characters like Aureliano Segundo who is obsessed with lust and fertility of Petra, suffer because of the futile things they idolize. Aureliano Segundo has a moment of realization during the floods as he looks at himself and Petra lying in bed, as reflected by mirrors on the ceiling. “Saw Petra Cortés’s spinal column like a row of spools strung together along a cluster of withered nerves, and he saw that she was right, not because of the times but because of themselves, who were no longer up to those things,” (p. 322). The power of nature is realized through the devastating floods, age is also a factor for the society of Macondo who is powerless (despite modern technology) under Mother Nature.

100 Years of Solitude Chap 11-15 Part 3a: Fernanda vs. Ursula

->Fernanda closes the open doors of the Buendia households & halts Ursula’s candy shop production; Ursula’s matriarch power is being compromised because Fernanda takes advantage of every moment where Ursula shows her true age and fragility. Because Fernanda poses such a threat to the loving matriarch, it is instinctual to DISLIKE Fernanda and regards her as a force that counteracts the ultimate nature.

“As long as Ursula had full use of her faculties some of the old customs survived and the life of her family kept some quality of her impulsiveness, but when she lost her sight and the weight of her years relegated her to a corner, the circle of rigidity, begun by Fernanda from the moment she arrived finally closed completely and no one but she determined the destiny of the family,”(p. 211).

è In conclusion, I feel that the “circle of rigidity” being imposed by Fernanda could represent the industrialization and man-made ideologies of society that are imposed on nature. Nature is represented by the original “Eden” that was Macondo, until it was infiltrated by external forces and ideologies that tried to impose structure, futile causes like war, material goods, and technology upon the innocent, pure, natural Eden of Macondo.

è Furthermore, the “circle of rigidity” is an interesting image because, the Buendia family is incestuous and circularly shaped, as one family member pursues the other in a rigid circle. This introverted family is stuck, destined for ruin, unable to escape the rigid circle of nature & destiny. All of these images and ideals tie in with one another.

100 Years of Solitude Chap 11-15 Part 3: Ursula & Transformation in Macondo

TRANSFORMATION: Macondo is uprooted through the establishment of ORDER within society, which upsets the NATURAL CHAOS of Macondo.

Ursula is the ultimate matriarch, she is wise and focused on her family, and she is also concerned with the cultural upheaval Fernanda pursues through the introduction of organized religion and class structure.

Change in Macondo is signaled with the railroad tracks, and then reinforced by the new home technology in chapter 10. “All that remained at that time of Jose Arcadio Buendia’s ancient village were the dusty almond trees, destined to resist the most arduous of circumstances, and the river of clear water whose prehistoric stones had been pulverized by the frantic hammers of Jose Arcadio Segundo when he set about opening the channel in order to establish a boat line,”(p. 193). Depicts the fall of Eden and industrial impacts that society and people impose on nature.

Ursula eludes to the story of Jose Arcadio Segundo and his attempt to overpower nature: “Set about the awesome task of breaking stones, digging canals, clearing away rapids, and even harnessing waterfalls. ‘I know all of this by hear,’ Ursula would shout. ‘It’s as if time had turned around and we were back at the beginning,”(p. 193). Time is only evident in the destruction of nature as Macondo continues to develop as a society.

Ursula yearns to go back to the beginning of time in Macondo, without silly material things, back to the basics. “Dear Lord,’ she begged, ‘make us poor again the way we were when we founded this town so that you will not collect for this squandering in the other life,”(p. 192). She is wise enough to realize the futile value placed on material goods, which distract and disillusion her children’s abilities to see what is truly important in life.

Although Ursula wishes to go back in time, she is timeless herself. She has defied nature and time by living well and far beyond the lifetime nature usually allows. “Although she was already a hundred years old and on the point of going blind from cataracts, she still had her physical dynamism, her integrity of character, and her mental balance in tact. No one would be better able than she to shape the virtuous man who would restore the prestige of the family, a man who would never have heard talk of war, fighting cocks, bad women, or wild undertakings, four calamities that, according to what Ursula thought, had determined the downfall of their line. ‘This one will be a priest,’ she promised solemnly. ‘And if God gives me life he’ll be Pope someday,”(p. 188-189). She is central to the family and represents the traditional values that keep families in tact and cultures alive. She is wise beyond any man, and foresees the consequences of organized religion and hierarchal society on Macondo.

Ursula maintains her superstitious mentality, and is always worried for the sake of her children as a result of their foolish actions. “She’s got you so bewitched that one of these days I’m going to see you twisting around with colic and with a toad in your belly,” (p. 190).

Ursula is the ultimate matriarch; she relies on nature, instincts, and the value of family to maintain her critical role and promote harmony within the chaotic family. She understands her role in the universe as merely a part of nature, but she can only help those willing to heed her warning and wise insight.

100 Years of Solitude Chap 11-15 Part 1b. Petra represents NATURE vs. Fernanda represents SOCIETY & its shallow aritificiality

a. FERNANDA is an external force of change, hierarchy, and societal trends that smother the vitality and chaos of Macondo: PETRA REPRESENTS FERTILITY & NATURE; FERNANDA REPRESENTS FICTION & SOCIETAL HIERARCHY.

Nature/Fertility of Petra: * “…but an influence of Petra Cortes, his concubine, whose love had the virtue of exasperating nature,”(p. 189).

* “At first Aureliano Segundo did not notice the alarming proportions of the proliferations…it was a delirious prosperity that even made him laugh, and she could not help doing crazy things to release his good humor,”(p. 191)

* “She had made a man out of him. While he was still a child she had drawn him out of Melquiades’ room, his head full of fantastic ideas and lacking any contact with reality, and she had given him a place in the world. Nature had made him reserved and withdrawn, with tendencies toward solitary meditation, and she had molded an opposite character in him, one that was vital, expansive, open, and she had injected him with a joy for living and a pleasure in spending and celebrating until she had converted him, inside and out, into the man she had dreamed of for herself since adolescence,”(p. 203).

* “Don’t worry,’ she told them. ‘Queens run errands for me, the only candle that will make him come is always lighted,”(p. 204).

è Ultimately, Petra represents the untouchable force and fertility of MOTHER NATURE. She is unrelenting to class status or social structure enforced by Fernanda and the church, society is a mere manifestation of man, powerless and aritificial to the force of nature.

è Fernanda & Aureliano Segundo were both born with similar tendencies for solitude and shyness – the difference being that Aureliano was influenced by mother nature in the form of Petra, and destiny chose a path for Aureliano that led to fulfillment and happiness beyond what his demeanor foretold – Fernanda was trapped in disillusioned solitude, without the external forces of nature as an influence in her direction and happiness in life. Since she has no knowledge of what holds true value in life, she tries to compensate by pursuing the traditions of her family and religion – both of which are powerless to the ultimate force of nature, superior and benevolent.

100 Years of Solitude Chap 11-15 Part 1a. Fernanda as an Influence

1. FERNANDA

a. FERNANDA is frigid, lost, dark, sheltered and alone; she is secluded in a gloomy city where she never heard news about current events in the world except for through melancholy piano lessons.

b. FERNANDA grows up with her mother constantly reassuring her that she is very rich, powerful and will become Queen someday. Her mother is sickly and stays in bed all the time, weaving funeral wreaths and telling fantastic stories of the past. Fernanda was raised to believe in the delusions of her mother that are similar to those of Don Quixote and Sancho;

“We are immensely rich and powerful, ‘ she told her. ‘One day you will be a queen.’ She believed it, even though they were sitting at the long table with a linen tablecloth and silver service to have a cup of watered chocolate and a sweet bun. Until the day of her wedding she dreamed about a legendary kingdom, in spite of the fact that her father, Don Fernando, had to mortgage the house in order to buy her trousseau. It was not innocence or delusions of grandeur. That was how they had brought her up,”(page 206). Fernanda is immersed in a fantasy world of knights in shining armor and castles not by choice, but by birth. She was not allowed any exposure to the outside world and was extremely impressionable in this way. She was not exposed to reality until she was sent to Macondo. “In one single day, with a brutal slap, life threw on top of her the whole weight of reality that her parents had kept hidden from her for many years,”(page 207). This is the danger of living through fiction and basing your reality and existence within a world of fiction, however, Fernanda was not in control of this disillusioned existence that was manifested and perpetuated by her parents.

c. FERNANDA is a strong woman despite her ignorance and consequent despair; she stands up for her TRADITIONAL beliefs & honor. She is not exciting in bed, but she is not OK with Fernando sleeping with Petra, even when he pleads that it yields fertile animals she warns; “…he should not be surprised by death in his concubine’s bed,”(page 210).

d. FERNANDA imposes her traditions & religion on the Buendia household, which threaten Ursula’s position as matron of the home. *Imposed rules on when people could eat, and required food must be eaten in the dining room with a linen tablecloth, silver candlesticks and table service. *Reciting the rosary before dinner *Aloe branch & bread loaf over Buendia door are replaced by Sacred Heart Jesus *Built life-size saints with glass eyes in the children’s rooms *Jose Arcadio sent to seminary *No fun presents anymore, dead Don Fernandes sent in coffin instead

100 Years of Solitude Chap 11-15 Part 2: Col. Aureliano Buendia & Chaos

2. CHAOS of Col. Aureliano Buendia: He warns the Buendia family that they are becoming “people of quality, fighting to install a King” (p. 212) fervently rejects hierarchy established by Fernanda’s beliefs.

-> CONVERSELY, Fernanda feels threatened by the disorder of Col. Buendia, his coffee, crazy workshop and frayed blanket were not examples of the way she wanted things to be. But she did not dare go against the “loose piece in the family machinery,” because: “She was sure that the old colonel was an animal who had been tamed by the years and by disappointment and who, in a burst of senile rebellion, was quite capable of uprooting the foundations of the house,”(page 212).

->Chaos of Col. Buendia is emphasized when his seventeen sons arrive at the house and wreak havoc all over Macondo. “The three days that they stayed in the house, to the satisfaction of Ursula and the scandal of Fernanda, were like a state of war,”(page 215). Col. Aureliano Buendia lived most of his life in a state of war and chaos, he understands the futility of war at the end of his career and the value of his lost sons gnaw at his conscience. Col. Buendia is amused by the wildness of his sons, who transform a celebratory jubilee into a crazed, violent war.

-> “They smashed half of the dishes, they destroyed the rosebushes as they chased a bull they were trying to hog-tie, they killed the hens by shooting at them, they made Amaranta dance the sad waltzes of Pietro Crespi, they got Remedios the Beauty to put on a pair of men’s pants and climb a greased pole, and in the dining room they turned loose a pig daubed with lard, which prostrated Fernanda, but no one regretted the destruction because the house shook with a healthy earthquake,”(page 216). When the boys left, Aureliano gave each one of them a gold fish. Evidence of Col. Buendia’s transformation and newfound purpose in life.

-> Col. Buendia’s rowdy sons are “more amused than devout,”(p. 217) as Christians, were unable to scrub the ash crosses off of their foreheads. This mark distinguishes the boys from the rest of the family, and I feel represents the excitement and disorder at the root of Macondo. The boys are wild, untamed, passionate and violent, just like nature is. Their visit is treasured by all of the Buendia family, except for Fernanda, the evil external influence.

100 Years of Solitude Chap 6-10 Ques 2: Perception of Death According to Jose Arcadio

2. Perception of death.

Jose Arcadio reflects on his life as he awaits his fate with the firing squad. This moment of reflection gives Arcadio a crystallized perspective of what is truly important in life and what true value life holds in the face of death. Arcadio thought about his mother and her love for his father, his unnamed daughter, his unborn child and the woman he loved.

“In the shattered schoolhouse where for the first time he had felt the security of power, a few feet from the room where he had come to know the uncertainty of love, Arcadio found the formality of death ridiculous. Death really did not matter to him but life did, and therefore the sensation he felt when they gave their decision was not a feeling of fear but of nostalgia,”(Page 119).

In the past, Jose Arcadio had been tormented by a fear of dying, but in the face of death his fears melted and his desire for time to spend and a life to live with the people who matter the most made him ache with yearning. Despite his reflections, Arcadio is certain to tell his wife to name their child Ursula, after his mother. This reflected the “inward thinking” of the family which continues even as it brings the family to death. – Even as he faces the firing squad next to corpses, he is frustrated that he forgot to tell his wife to name a baby girl Remedios. “Then all accumulated in the rip of a claw, he felt again all the terror that had tormented him in his life,”(page 120).

Death is feared during life, then life is treasured more in the threat of death, but instinctual fear consumes the body when battling death in the final hours.

100 Years of Solitude Chap 6-10 Ques 1: Futility of War Evident in Dehumanization of Col. Aureliano Buendia

**My responses did not appear on the blog last week. So I have reposted them today.

1. War is futile, this is reflected by the dehumanization and ultimate demise of Col. Aureliano Buendia through his war efforts. Chapter 6 opens with an entire page listing all of Col. Buendia’s miraculous victories over death, war honors and responsibilities bestowed on Buendia as a Colonel, as well as how little recognition Buendia earned in his lifetime. “Colonel Aureliano Buendia organized thirty-two armed uprisings and he lost them all. He had seventeen male children…they were exterminated one after the other on a single night before the oldest one had reached the age of thirty-five,”(page 103). Despite the continued ramblings that describe foiled assassination attempts on his life, his reputable legacy and dignity that prevented him from accepting a lifetime pension in order to pursue his gold fishes – all the fighting and war was futile, he gained nothing from his experience except agony at the realization that his purpose in life was for a violent, futile cause. The only thing left to commemorate his achievements was a street named after him in Macondo, but no one would ever know all Col. Buendia endured in the name of war. Col Buendia sinks into succumbs to his despair and becomes engulfed by sadness and a feeling of futility that his life of war has brought.

“Little by little, however, and as the war became more intense and widespread, his image was fading away into a universe of unreality. The characteristics of his speech were more and more uncertain, and they came together and combined to form words that were gradually losing all meaning,”(page 161).

His fleeting war fever opened up sadness and a new purpose for war, “He was never a greater soldier than at that time. The certainty that he was finally fighting for his own liberation and not for abstract ideals, for slogans that politicians could twist left and right according the circumstances, filled him with an ardent enthusiasm,”(page 170).