Raining in Macondo

The rain that falls on Macondo for years following the massacre functions in multiple ways both physically and symbolically in the chapters that follow this carnage. In a physical sense water cleanses, it erases but it also rots things and causes decay, it is constantly moving, yet is simultaneously transfixing, petrifying due to its rhythm, essential to life even though too much of it drowns, causes death, it is a background white noise that fills silence. In the novel it causes the characters to neglect their duties and put things off: “’I’m only waiting for the rain to stop in order to die,’” says Ursula (320). Or as Aureliano Segundo puts it, “’It’s impossible to do anything now…it can’t rain for the rest of our lives,’” (323). The rain causes the town to fall in a malaise that causes negligence with regards to household care and personal wellbeing. The banana plant stays closed until the rain stops. Physically, rain has the capability of eliminating objects with power and immediacy but also the ability to dull them down slowly over years.

The various functions of ‘rain’ serve a dual purpose as symbolically relevant to Marquez’ greater interests in the novel. In the post-massacre Macondo rain serves in a sense as a symbol for the tragedy that has taken place—it mimics tears. Water is cyclical in motion—precipitation, infiltration, evaporation, repeat. This property connects back to Marquez’ point that time moves circularly, intricately repeating itself, but is never exactly the same as it once was. The common saying, ‘It’s never the same river twice’ is applicable. The seemingly never-ending rant that Fernanda goes on from page 323 to page 325 has the same relentlessness as the rain falling around the disintegrating house and it causes decay in her relationship with the other characters, particularly Aureliano Segundo.

Rain also connects to another important theme in Marquez novel—the theme of ‘solitude’ or ‘silence’. Rain serves as a deterrent to go outside, as a noise that deafens surrounding sound in the same way that the military’s persecution deters people from investigating or talking about the deterioration of Macondo. Rain is an important agent for Marquez I believe because it functions as a point of growth, of movement, of deterioration and of death. In this way I believe Marquez metaphor captures the stages of movement in time and in the town of Macondo as the novel progresses.