Protection in 100 Years

            This family is incredibly hard to keep track of, the cyclical nature of the story is highlighted by the constant repetition of names, such as José Arcadio or Aureliano, with only a slight difference to tell them apart. I have to keep reminding myself that José Arcadio Buendía and José Arcadio are not the same. The time line of the book can be slightly off putting, and I have to keep backtracking to figure out the actual setting. I definitely preferred the set-up of My Name is Red.

             Along with the names being the same throughout the work so far, the family shares a love of protecting others, even in ways that come off as disturbing.      The importance placed on protecting others is a shared trait but one that is not utilized in the same manner by each person. Each type works for the select character, for example I believe that such a trait is what leads Aureliano into war and thereby becoming Colonel Aureliano Buendía.

            The obsession with saving others is apparent from the very beginning when it is mentioned, in an extremely nonchalant way, that José Arcadio Buendía was able to make it so no-one ever died in Macondo. This is brought up a few times, and even placed in a bad light when Buendía complains to his wife that “A person does not belong to a place until there is someone dead in the ground” (13). While he seemed to be annoyed by this fact, it becomes a bragging point later on in the work.

            This brings up the books focus on death, and what it means to die or to live. Amaranta’s form of protection is in the form of death, she believes she must save Rebeca from marriage. Rebeca was adopted into Ursula’s family, which I consider to be Ursula’s style of protection, a motherly style, though it is a fierce type; it is not as destructive as Amaranta. The style of her “protective nature” ends in the death of Remedios (86).  

            Aureliano showed his protective nature when he planned on marrying the girl who was being forced into prostitution (51). This book gives quite a few graphic details during the novel, the lines “sixty-three men had passed through the room that night”, the fascination with the size of the men’s genitals, and the description of Remedios’s entry into puberty, while such lines may be trying to come across as brutally honest and real, I felt as if they were forced. The author may have wanted the readers to squirm, which occurred but it also detracted from the story as a whole.

            While Aureliano does seem to care about the people he wants to protect there is an odd tone to it, it may be that this is a set up for his later actions, for now I am not so sure. Yet I can see that his sense of keeping others safe, such as keeping the Moscote family safe from those trying to end the Conservative regime, even though he himself connected more with the Liberals (99). He is driven into action after a woman is killed, which fits in well within his brand of protectiveness.