You must post 2 times before Thursday, April 22nd. Your first post should be in response to one of the prompts below. The second time you post, it must be in response to or in reaction to the post of another student.
1. One Hundred Years of Solitude is seeped in symbolism, allegory, hyperbole and parable. (These literary terms are defined below.) Why do you think Gabriel Garcia Marquez chooses to write his narrative in this way? Choose an aspect of the novel that makes use of one of the aforementioned literary devices then attempt to give meaning to it.
Symbolism: a word or phrase referring to a concrete object, scene, or action which also has some further significance associated with it
Allegory: a story or visual image with a second distinct meaning partially hidden behind its literal or visible meaning. The principal technique of allegory is personification. In written narrative, allegory involves a continuous parallel between two or more levels of meaning in the story. An allegory may be conceived as a metaphor that is extended into a structured system.
Hyperbole: Exaggeration for the sake of emphasis
Parable: A brief tale intended to be understood as an allegory illustrating some moral or lesson.
2. Choose a particular character to evaluate. Determine whether the character traits you have noted are ultimately positive or negative, or both. Explain your reasoning. For example Jose Arcadio Buendia: He is inventive and spends many hours alone on his alchemy experiments trying to discover already known science. This is ultimately negative, because he isolates himself from his family and eventually goes mad.
3. Identify elements of the story that you find particularly confusing, interesting, or worthy of discussion. Pose your own questions. Include portions of the text that you feel contribute to your questions/your point. Cite page numbers.
1. Symbolism in any literary work of art only serves one purpose, and thats to bridge the gap between the tangible world and the intangible world, a gap between idea and reality. Marquez chooses to write his narrative using symbolism for these reasons, as does every other author of any work employing symbolism. Symbols communicate messages that simple words can't, making any symbolic work dig beneath the surface. In this novel, Marquez employs symbolism in the use of the railroad in the story. The railroad is a sign of the modern word, showing how the arrival of the future is a bad thing for Macondo. When the train comes and brings the modern world with it, it leads to a lower quality of life.
ReplyDelete2.Remidios: She's the underaged wife of the colonel, and she makes everyone happy. but in making everyone happy, she dies of a possible miscarriage.
3. Personally, I think this book kind of sucks. Sure it's symbolic, but when reading it it feels like the symbolism is forced and it doesn't seem natural or it doesnt flow very well with the rest of the story, if that even makes sense.
4. dude Pay it Forward is a pretty good movie, its decently symbolic, we're watching it in christian lifestyles. movies i recommend (abridged):
-American Beauty
-Children of Men
-V for Vendetta
-the Men Who Stare at Goats
-A Time to Kill
-Watchmen
-Law Abiding Citizen
Movies i don't recommend (abridged):
-Avatar
-2012
Amaranta is a very odd girl. She was once jealous of Rebeca for Pietro Crespi loving Rebeca instead of her, and then when Rebeca was out of the picture he wanted Amaranta and she didnt want him back. She is a very jealous, and odd girl. I dont feel she knows how to deal with a love affair and to be in a relationship. Her jealously is getting in the way. I think this is negative because it will be hard for her to ever fall in love or to ever have a relationship with someone. She had two possible lovers and she let both of them go. I feel she is very stubborn and that will get her no where. So therefore it is a very negative situation.
ReplyDeleteI find Jose Arcadio Buendia the most interesting. He is the founder of macondo, and is an explorer, which makes me think he is an adventerous type. He becomes insane, but really isn't, because the language he is speaking is just latin. i think he really has a high sense of intelligence that is above everyone else, but no one knows it.
ReplyDeleteI find it very confusing that so many characters have the name Aureliano. This is so confusing when so many people have this name or a name similar to it, and it just makes it difficult to completely grasp a character.
ReplyDeleteUrsula is the main caretaker in the family, she takes in children and grandchildren that are not hers. I mean, she is willingly taking in children such as Rebeca, Arcadio, and Aureliano Jose. What I don't understand is how she is alive, she cares for her great grandchildren yet in the book she is really active and doesnt sound like she has aged that much. Ursula has traits that are positive because she always wants whats right for people like baptizing her son's claimed to be 17 sons.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Justin, that Remedios is an underaged girl who has not reached puberty yet marries a man who is old enough to be her father. She tries to make everyone happy and in the end she dies of a fatal death. She even adopted a son that wasn't even her son but her husband's son with another woman. In this society that wouldn't happen as easily as it happens often in this book.
ReplyDeletePilar is one of those girls who needs to be with someone all the time. She has slept with many different men throughout the book. She had a son with Colonel Aureliano Buendia and with Jose Arcadio. I would say that Pilar's characteristics are negative because if she can't be with just one man, I don't know how she will find a husband to spend the rest of her life with.
ReplyDeleteLike Jacob said, Jose Arcadio Buendia is kind of the main guy in the book. At first, I thought he was crazy, but once I realized that he was speaking Latin, I didn't think that way anymore.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with Teresa. Ursula is a very strong woman. She takes children in who are not even hers. She just wants the best for everyone she knows.
I agree with Teresa in her agreement with me
ReplyDeleteI also agree with becca. i think that the reason for Pilar's whore-dom is because she has or had something missing from her life as a child and now she's overcompensating for that lack of whatever she didnt have. She probably felt neglected by her parents as a child and needs to find multiple men to show her love, either that or she has extremely low self esteem and she needs a bunch of men to do the nasty with so that she feels wanted. i don't agree, however, with the fact that this character trait can be labeled as negative or positive. Sure, in our cultural ideals sleeping with one man is the norm, but cultural ideals aren't all encompassing and they are defined on a case by case basis. I would not bring myself to decide that its negative based on my moral background, but for all i know about Pilar is that the outcome of her action may be positive. She's simply depolarizing herself, as in shes taking the lack of one thing and making sure that shortage doesn't exist. It's a general human characteristic, its just like eating food when we're hungry, so in the long run the outcome of Pilar's actions can only be defined by her happiness with herself. If she's comfortable with her life, then her promiscuity is positive, if not its negative, it all depends on perspective and point of view.
ReplyDeleteI think that Arcadio Buendia is a negative character. Although he found Macondo he may have hurt his family because their community is so far behind from the world. I also think that he is crazy even though the language that he is speaking is Latin. Some people say that he is adventurous but i don't fell that he is just because he wanted to move and founded this place called Macondo. Arcadio Buendia is also very greedy due to the fact that he stole things from his wife such as coins so he could buy things to find gold.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Becca about Pilar. I find her very weird because she is sleeping with all of these men. Don't these guys know that they are all sleeping with the same girl? I also agree that she is a negative character because of the things that she does.
ReplyDeletefernanda del carpio... i think she is not very intelligent since Aureliano Segundo was sleeping with his concubine Petra Cotes and he tends to go back to her multiple times. Aureliano Segundo is dirt, Fernanda should kick him to the curb.
ReplyDeleteI think that Pilar is a negative character in the book. She is the towns prostitute i think? and she sleeps around with everyone. I think that is a very negative characteristic. Also i think that Amaranta is a negative character in the book. She basically led Pietro Crespi on and then when he finally proposed, she denied him and he committed suicide. She is just very confusing to me.
ReplyDeletei agree with Becca because pilar shows alot of negativity when it comes to settling down with one person. She ruins rlationships of people by sleeping around with their spouses. She should stop sleeping around with so many guys and maybe settle down and get married so her reputation wouldnt be so negative.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Tay on the fact that Amaranta messes with Pietro. He finally gives her the chance after Rebeca is gone, and she says no. She doesnt know what she wants and it leads to her love killing himself. It just didnt make sense to me that she finally got what she wanted and then she threw it all away.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you taylor. She has a bad reputation around town and i think that every guy thinks that they can get with her whenever and if she maybe settled down and found a guy she wanted to marry people wouldnt think so low of her. She should for sure settle down.
ReplyDeletei agree with all the people about pilar. she's a ho
ReplyDeleteI think that Jose Arcadio Buendia is the most interesting for many reasons. First, he is the founder of the town of Macondo. Even though people think he's crazy and speaking a made up language when they find out he's really speaking latin that truly shows how smart he really is and I think he knows a lot more than the average person does, but everyone is just under estimating him.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Jimmy about Pilar. She has very negative characteristics. She has had a son with two different guys and I think that's wrong. She shouldn't be sleeping around with different men, she should find one man to marry and be happy and have children with not several men. This is why people think she's so negative she needs to stop ruining her and other people's relationship and find one unmarried man that she can settle down with, marry and spend the rest of her life with.
ReplyDeleteI think the the author uses these literary devices to make the reader think about what they are reading and not just read words on the page. the use of symbols and allegory make this book harder to understand and leaves its meaning open for interpertation.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with jimmy about jose arcadio buendia because if the city of macondo would have stayed behind the rest of the world and undiscovered it could have continued to be like and eden. JAB wasnt negative he was just naive and ignorant to the rest of the worlds happenings
ReplyDeleteUrsula assumes the role as the head of the family. She can be controlling, but she keeps order within the house. She also deals with her family coming and going as the years go by and she doesn't lose her energy or willingness to take care of everyone. I think this is positive because she is the only one willing to maintain a normal household and protect everyone while chaos takes place within their family.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Taylor about Amaranta because she is really stubborn. She just makes the whole situation extremely confusing and screws herself over. I think she is really stupid and she causes destruction for their community.
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