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.