Anneli Xie
Prof. Yu Jin Ko
ENG 103: Writers of Color Across the Globe
2017/10/12
Prof. Yu Jin Ko
ENG 103: Writers of Color Across the Globe
2017/10/12
tags:
#literature+film
#wellesley
Rewriting History: Anti-Colonial Sentiments in One Hundred Years of Solitude
The opening passage of a novel often proves critical, not only because it determines whether the reader keeps reading, but because it also often prepares them for what is to come. The opening passage of Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) is no exception. Not only does it introduce the novel’s main characters, setting, and themes, but through the non-linear narrative that García Márquez chooses to employ, it also serves as an eloquent response to the consequences of colonialism in Latin America that are to follow the novel until its end; García Márquez continuously rewriting the history of the past in order to reject colonial narratives.
The shattered narrative that Gárcia Márquez chooses to employ is introduced in the very first sentence of the novel: “Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.” (García Márquez, 1) Although the opening line is narrated in a mundane and straight-forward manner, it seems paradoxical since it confuses the reader’s sense of time. By making Colonel Aureliano Buendía’s future act of remembering into something that has already taken place, Gárcia Márquez blends connections between the past, the present, and the future, undermining the conventional notion of linear time that came and spread with European colonialism. One might therefore argue that the non-linear narrative is used to confuse the reader and put them in the shoes of the colonized, forcing them to relearn the way a story might be told and hold multiple perspectives in mind while reading.
The image of the village of Macondo as a blank canvas suggests the possibility to reform and reshape history and mirrors the quest and conquering that comes with colonialism. The world is introduced as “so recent that many things lacked names,” with “polished stones, which were white and enormous, like prehistoric eggs.” (1) By juxtaposing words like “recent” with “prehistoric,” Gárcia Márquez paints an unfamiliarity of time that we can recognize, yet not quite fully understand; of a world without language yet with inventions. It is not quite reality, but perhaps tangential to it. Regressing to prehistoric times, Gárcia Márquez reveals to the reader that he will rewrite history — much like the colonizers rewrote his. Doing so, he has the power of the novel to reinvent the past in a manner detached from the colonial enterprise. Along these lines, the “discover[y of] ice” also becomes important as the world of magic blends with the reader’s logical reality, raising an important comment on the subjectivity of history. To “discover ice” would be impossible since ice is a natural phenomenon; yet the discovery is stated in the novel as a fact, emphasizing that history is often tinted by the memories of those who record it, and written by those who have the privilege of naming it. In One Hundred Years of Solitude, it is the colonized rather than the colonizers; a reinvention of history by the people of Macondo instead of the people outside of it.
Blending past and present, myth and reality, Gabriel Gárcia Márquez presents a reinvented world through the unconventional narrative of One Hundred Years of Solitude. A novel of multiple layers and circular time perplexing to the reader, it serves as a reminder that perhaps life works in the same way; as an array of realities exhibiting themselves in a fluid sense of time — and that our confused reactions as readers can be mirrored to the post-colonial reaction of an entire people.
García Márquez, Gabriel. One hundred years of solitude. Penguin Books, 1972.
The shattered narrative that Gárcia Márquez chooses to employ is introduced in the very first sentence of the novel: “Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.” (García Márquez, 1) Although the opening line is narrated in a mundane and straight-forward manner, it seems paradoxical since it confuses the reader’s sense of time. By making Colonel Aureliano Buendía’s future act of remembering into something that has already taken place, Gárcia Márquez blends connections between the past, the present, and the future, undermining the conventional notion of linear time that came and spread with European colonialism. One might therefore argue that the non-linear narrative is used to confuse the reader and put them in the shoes of the colonized, forcing them to relearn the way a story might be told and hold multiple perspectives in mind while reading.
The image of the village of Macondo as a blank canvas suggests the possibility to reform and reshape history and mirrors the quest and conquering that comes with colonialism. The world is introduced as “so recent that many things lacked names,” with “polished stones, which were white and enormous, like prehistoric eggs.” (1) By juxtaposing words like “recent” with “prehistoric,” Gárcia Márquez paints an unfamiliarity of time that we can recognize, yet not quite fully understand; of a world without language yet with inventions. It is not quite reality, but perhaps tangential to it. Regressing to prehistoric times, Gárcia Márquez reveals to the reader that he will rewrite history — much like the colonizers rewrote his. Doing so, he has the power of the novel to reinvent the past in a manner detached from the colonial enterprise. Along these lines, the “discover[y of] ice” also becomes important as the world of magic blends with the reader’s logical reality, raising an important comment on the subjectivity of history. To “discover ice” would be impossible since ice is a natural phenomenon; yet the discovery is stated in the novel as a fact, emphasizing that history is often tinted by the memories of those who record it, and written by those who have the privilege of naming it. In One Hundred Years of Solitude, it is the colonized rather than the colonizers; a reinvention of history by the people of Macondo instead of the people outside of it.
Blending past and present, myth and reality, Gabriel Gárcia Márquez presents a reinvented world through the unconventional narrative of One Hundred Years of Solitude. A novel of multiple layers and circular time perplexing to the reader, it serves as a reminder that perhaps life works in the same way; as an array of realities exhibiting themselves in a fluid sense of time — and that our confused reactions as readers can be mirrored to the post-colonial reaction of an entire people.