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 Nature had made him reserved and withdrawn, with tendencies toward solitary meditation, and she had molded an opposite character in him, one that was vital, expansive, open, and she had injected him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.