Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novel One Hundred Years of Solitude has often been alluded to as a work of magical realism with many intertexual references. Magical realism can be defined as literature usually characterized by elements of the fantastic woven into the story with a deadpan sense of presentation. This is evident in many instances throughout the novel. Also, there are many intertexts within the work. Such outside sources that Marquez uses are The Bible and the style of the ancient Greeks, mainly the tragedians.
Wendy Faris best describes magical realism in that she believes that if a piece of fiction is truly magical realism it must have five primary characteristics. The first characteristic is that, “The text contains an ‘irreducible element’ of magic, something we cannot explain according to the laws of the universe as we know them” (Faris 167).
This is evident throughout the book. Such examples from the text are the scene in which Jose Arcadio Buendia was murdered and blood ran through the streets to Ursula’s house. Garcia Marquez writes, “A trickle of blood came out under the door, crossed the living room, went out into the street, continued on in a straight line across the uneven terraces, went down steps and climbed up curbs…” (Marquez 144).
As the reader we know that this is physically impossible for blood to travel and climb up objects. Another example is Remedios’ ascension into heaven. Marquez writes, “Amaranta felt a mysterious trembling in the lace on her petticoats and she tried to grasp the sheet so that she would not fall down at the instant in which Remedios the Beauty began to rise” (Marquez 255).
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The second characteristic deals with descriptive details that create a realistic world out of the phenomenal (Faris 169).
There are also many instances in the novel that this occurs. The reader is able to see this when Marquez writes about Melquiades’ manuscripts. The writings are detailed and there is a sense that these manuscripts actually exist. Another example is the town of Macondo itself. We, as the reader feel as if we could live there. Marquez produces this feeling through the use of descriptive, detailed and long sentences.
The third characteristic of magical realism evident in the novel is that, “the reader may hesitate between two contradictory understandings of events—hence experiences some unsettling doubts” (Faris 171).
There are two excellent examples of this in the text. The first is the use of names of characters. We have many different characters with the same names. For example, Jose Arcadio, Aureliano, and Remedios are all used more than once. This confusion makes the reader question this technique by Marquez. The reader could either interpret it as just history lineage, which is the passing of names down to younger generations. The reader may also come to see this as Marquez giving similar names to characters that have similar characteristics.
A second example of this characteristic of magical realism is, again, the trickle of blood to Ursula from Jose Arcadio’s wound. The reader of the story could see this scene as just an element of magical realism, mentioned earlier. Another interpretation could be that Marquez wanted to show that Jose Arcadio had such a strong connection with his mother that when she saw the blood she instantly knew what happened.
Faris states that the fourth characteristic of magical realism is in the text, “We experience the closeness or near merging of two realms, two worlds” (Faris 172).
The obvious example in the text would have to be the town of Macondo melded into our own personal world. Marquez creates this microcosm that touches everyone in some way. The town is not perfect. There are civil wars, insomnia plagues, adultery, murder, and much more controversy that happens in our everyday lives. He also does this through, again, the use of long descriptive sentences leaving out no detail.
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The last characteristic of magical realism that a work must have is the sense of time, space and identity. The element of time is spelled out directly in the title; One Hundred Years of Solitude. Also there is a period in the book that it rains and it lasts for many years to the point at which the houses are flooded. The room of Melquiades looks as if it has not been subject to time at all because it stays in perfect order for a portion of the novel. There is an overall sense that Garcia Marquez plays with the notion of time and his novel covers an unreasonable amount of it.
After discovering its significance as a piece of magical realism, it is important to talk about the intertexts within One Hundred Years of Solitude. The Bible has to be the major contributor to Marquez’s work. There are many elements that both works of literature share including incestual tendencies of some characters, unrealistic life spans according to today’s medical standards, and the novel follows a Biblical pattern of creation resulting in an apocalypse.
The incest that took place in One Hundred Years of Solitude started right at the beginning of everything. Ursula and Jose Arcadio Buendia were cousins and their families interbred over centuries. Jose Arcadio married his sister Rebeca. They were not sister and brother by blood but still they lived as sister and brother growing up. This also evident in the Bible many times and was actually done on purpose in most cases to keep the money in the family. For example, if a brother and sister of a family wanted to get married they were encouraged because then the family did not have to pay a dowry to the opposing family. In the book of Genesis we see that Racheal and Leah are sisters to Jacob but they are also his wives. Also, in the same book Milcah was a niece and a wife to Nahor and Sarah was a half sister and a wife to Abraham.
Another trait that both works share is long life spans of characters. We know that by the time covered in the novel that Ursula is well past one hundred years old. In the Bible, particularly in Genesis and Exodus, people lived to right about Ursula’s age. In Genesis 23:1, it says, “Sarah lived one hundred twenty-seven years; this was the length of Sarah’s life.” Also, in Genesis 50:22, it says, “So Joseph remained in Egypt, he and his father’s household; and Joseph lived one hundred ten years,” and again in Exodus chapter six, verses sixteen through twenty it states some more characters with extremely long life spans.
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Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a novelist, short story writer, journalist, critic, and screenwriter, has had international recognition for many years. He is included among the group of South American writers who rose to prominence during the 1960 s, a time often referred to as the boom of Latin American Literature. In his short stories and novels, Leaf Storm, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Chronicle of a ...
One Hundred Years of Solitude also follows a biblical pattern starting with the
creation of Macondo, very similar to that of the creation story in Genesis. All through the book we see allusions to biblical events such as the ascension of the Virgin Mother or even the resurrection of Jesus Christ comparable to that of the rising up of Remedios the Beauty. The plagues that exist in Exodus while the Egyptians enslaved the Israelites are comparable to the plagues that exist in Marquez’s novel, including the insomnia plague and the plague of rain are the two that are most obvious. At the end of the novel, an apocalypse occurs, or a revelation to an ending by the encryption of the manuscripts of Melquiades. A hurricane wipes Macondo off the face of the Earth. It is not included in the list in Revelation of the Bible but it is probably a localizing effect of Marquez to put it in perspective of Columbia, his native country.
Also, a style in which Marquez seems to borrow from is the Greek and Roman tragedians. This is evident with element of hubris, or excessive pride, in Marquez’s novel. His characters, mainly Colonel Aureliano Buendia, retain this stubborn pride that they won’t concede until it’s too late. Take for example the civil war in the area of Macondo. It went on for over three decades and it got to the point that they forgot what the cause they were fighting for was. The Colonel upheld his stance in the Liberal Party until there was no other way than to concede the fight. His pride caused him to live a large portion of his life in his own solitude.
Another theme that Marquez alludes to is, again, the idea of incest. Many of the Greek gods and goddesses were borne out of incest. According to the genealogy in The Iliad by Homer, Hera was Zeus’ daughter but she ends up trying to seduce him so that he will not notice the battle between the Akahians and the Trojans. This sort of carefree action between gods and goddesses are considered normal practice. There is evidence also of an oedipal type complex on page 30 when Jose Arcadio sees the head of Ursula, his mother, on Pilar Ternera, the woman he is making love to. This is obviously a reference to the three plays dealing with Oedipus; Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone.
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One Hundred Years of Solitude is indeed a tool of magical realism according to Faris’ five characteristics and it truly defines the theory. The novels’ intertexts include The Bible and Greek mythology and tragedy and they are tightly woven by Marquez to become one with his literature and make the piece a great story to read and be involved in. We see The Bible in the novel in many different ways including the art of the story, actual references to events, and character similarities. Marquez borrows the act of incest from ancient Greek literature and mythology.
Works Cited
Access Bible, The. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Fitzgerald, Robert. Translator Homer. The Iliad. Garden City, NY: Anchor Press, 1975.
Garcia Marquez, Gabriel. One Hundred Years of Solitude. New York: Harper Perennial, 1998.
Zamora, Louis Parkinson and Wendy Faris. Magical Realism: Theory, History,Community. Durham: Duke University Press, 1995.
