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
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