Memory and its Significance throughout the Novel

The Last Three Decades: A Time of Heinous Cultural Disasters

The last three decades have become one of the most heinous epochs in the past of the distinctiveness that has long characterized ethnoracial classes, with the time largely defined by heinous cultural disasters. Native peoples have been under constant pressure to reform as a result of the ever-increasing presence of newcomers who reject conventional communities’ sociopolitical and economic traditions. Gabriel Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude is a convincing tale from this era (1967). Although the epic novel is fictitious, it was inspired by America’s history of civilization. The work employs poetic and novelty devices to ensure it is not only a genealogical fiction but also a history and autobiography of many indigenous families in the Americas. The novel’s greatness lies in Márquez’s universal validity of ideas, where he explores the changing dynamics of values through presenting disturbing individual and collective memory of the characters to show how civilization attempts results in cultural genocide. This analytic paper narrows on this subject, where the focus is discussing how the failure of the founders of Macondo to observe the normative traditions becomes a self-destruction button for their lineage.

The Story of Jose Arcadio Buendía and the Doomed Macondo

One Hundred Years of Solitude is a story of José Arcadio Buendía, from the moment he founds Macondo to the 7th generation of his family. The Latin American Boom work narrates the mishaps surrounding the Buendía family, in a settlement where everything seems to be doomed. By employing magical mysticism, Marquez allows the readers to be part of the lived experience until in the end when Macondo is left in ruins after being hit by a hurricane. One Hundred Years of Solitude is a story of a new world, where Jose Arcadio Buendía and Ursula Iguarin are in an incestuous marriage. Driven by guilt, the two elopes from their community and settles in an isolated piece of land, which they rename Macondo. They family keeps on growing with the arrival of immigrants making the life at the village vibrant. While Buendía wants the children to abide by the values of his ancestors, he is faced with the memory of his revolt and wishes to forget. He broke away from the values of his people after the marriage to his first cousin and founded the isolated village, typifying rejection of the established normative structure. Like in the Biblical narrative, the couple is cursed, and his generation must wander away from the original home, physically and mentally, until the day of judgment. Memory loss thus becomes the apocalypse, where the devastation that hit the lineage and the town is inevitable.

The Grevious Problem of Forgetfulness in Macondo

Despite the efforts of the founders to overcome their dark past, their descendants grow up with a forgetfulness that is not absolute. The past continues to threaten the existence of the settlement, with Marquez’s function as a demiurge showing that the inhabitants are relating their fate to their forgetfulness and past. The grievous problem facing Macondo is revealed by the Indian woman, who notes that Rebecca carries insomnia plague, which she suggests that it results in memory lapse. The fearsome plague passes on to the Buendía family and eventually to Macondo as the settlement continues embracing modernism, where they consider sleeping a useless habit. People in the state of vigil lose their childhood memories, forgot their names, and notions. The society loses its identity as people continue sinking in idiocy that has no past (Márquez 4).

The Loss of Memory and Identity

The inhabitants lose their memories, including daily undertaking. The Buendía family perceives their emptiness and memory lapses to enigma and dedicates their lives to finding a solution. He addresses the challenge by writing names and responsibility on papers and sticks them on the objects. Márquez notes that the “sign that he hung on the neck of the cow was…this is a cow. She must be milked in the morning so that she will produce milk, and milk must be boiled to be mixed with coffee (Márquez 4).

Losing the memory marks loss of values that define the self. People forget their identity and what they are supposed to do. They do not only lose memory of their position in the society but also of others. Family and societal links also lose meaning, with Márquez suggesting that ”father was remembered faintly as a dark man who had arrived at the beginning of April and a mother was remembered only as the dark woman who wore a gold ring on her left hand (Márquez 9). Buendía also expresses his concern that the village is doomed because of forgetting God. He puts a sign on the street that ‘God Exists”, just like paper tags that remind him of his responsibilities. Rebecca’s memory loss is also a ’telling image’ of weakening social circle in Macondo. After her husband’s death, she becomes overburdened by the memory, resulting in self-alienation from the mainstream society. She locks herself in the house, where she spends most of her time with the memories of friends rather than their presence. For Rebecca, the nostalgia of a better past prevents her from mingling with the changing world.

The Loss of Values and Identity in Macondo

Besides personal incapacitation, the community also loses its values that defined them. The degradation in meanings is best exemplified by the case of the cow, where the objectification of the animals marks a change from the traditional view. Historically, the cow had a spiritual grounding, where it carried the meaning of the sacredness of life. However, the animal has lost its place in society, with the mundane allegorizing the changing worldview in the community. The loss of memory highlights that the society has erased the normative structure and the identity of greater reality in life. Pilar Ternera represents the dark days, where she drops her divine role of fortune-telling to narrating the past. It highlights the meaninglessness of life, where people could not plan for the future as they did not know who they were. Márquez’s theme of memory and forgetfulness allows the novel to criticize Eurocentric ideas of advancement and modernity. The embodiment of progress is a mere function of an empty form, as the society’s loss of memory results in broken communication and lacking identity and history.

The Cyclic Nature of Forgetfulness and Time

The element of memory loss is also captured by the wholeness of time, where Marquez’s novel does not mention time. The stylistic device allegorizes memory loss, where time can only be deciphered in the presence of memory. Instead, there is a recurrence of events, where several characters highlight or acknowledge the lack of progress. Colonel Aureliano has lost almost all memories, with the recurrence of events highlighting the cyclic nature of his life. He continues to endlessly melt down his artifacts of gold fishes and recreating them. Ursula highlights the static aspect common in memory loss by suggesting that time has turned around and we were back at the beginning (Márquez 4). Jose Arcadio Buendía and Aureliano dialogue in the workshop also highlight the aspect of life never moving from its place, where he acknowledges that he does not see any difference between Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday (Márquez 9). He does not recognize any change in the weather as the air and buzzing of the sun remain unchanged to him. The element of time in building on his theme of forgetfulness helps Marquez in arguing against civilization attempts, with Buendía supporting the illusion of progress created by outsiders.

The Plague of Memory Loss in Macondo

In conclusion, Macondo is faced with the plague of memory loss. The lives of the people of Macondo are characterized by forgetfulness and have to put up signs and records of even simple things. They rely on the materials in partaking responsibility, an element that shows they are sinking into oblivion. The mental degeneration typifies the idea of civilization, which Marquez’s novel concludes that it endangered values that defined the Natives of America. While the contact with the immigrants ought to have resulted in hybrid identity marked by cultural adaptation and innovation diffusion, it led to cultural genocide. The formation of the new settlement, Macondo, allegorizes embracing foreign values and failing to remain true to one’s traditional norms. Marquez likens the approach to memory loss, where notions of time, history, and God all fade away and people become confused. They lead a life full of loneliness, where they are not aware of their identity.

Works Cited

Marquez’s, Gabriel Garcia. One Hundred Years of Solitude. 1st ed. London [etc.]: Penguin Books, 2014. Print.