OHYOS - open discussion
Share your insights, thoughts, observations, and reading journal ideas here:)
posted by erdecker @ 10:00 AM
22 comments
JM AP English Government
A resource for John Marshall's Advanced Placement English and Government class. Woo-hoo!
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
About Me
- Name: erdecker
- Location: Lanesboro, Minnesota, United States
Enchanted April at Roc Rep Jan 2016 (Sound Design). Donnybrook's Dilemma Murder Mystery Jan 10 (Donnybrook actor). Valentine's Murder Mystery at Plummer House Feb 13 (actor). Ole and Lena in Love at Rochester Sons of Norway March 19 (Director).
22 Comments:
future predictions. . . cyclical nature of novel. . . .
How many times have we foreshadowed (from the past, looking foward) Colonel Aureliano Buendia's firing squad?
In a century someone named Big Mama will have a big funeral. . .
I think Big Mama is Pilar Ternera. Because she's a hooker and usually woman who get too old, ugly, and fat become like mother's to young, beautiful prostitutes.
In Japan they call these women mama-san...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mama-san
So I think Pilar will be Big Mama and she has slept with a lot of men and has "touched" many peoples lives. Maybe she will become a very successful business woman in her trade and take her prostitution ring on the road and make it into a "circus". This is my most excellent guess.
Note the similarity of the past, present, and future! There are repetition of names and incestful love going on. With small differences, it seems the novel is constantly back where it was at the start. Unless the Buendia family members make great effort to stop history from repeating itself, things will always be the same and never change for the better.
I find the scope of OHYOS mind boggling, the change from the very secluded little village of Mocando where people were fascinated by ice to where we are now with trains, automobiles, movies, light bulbs, and even banana factories. These elaborate changes in just a few generations and few hundred pages are really amazing but it is how industrialization actually occurred. This vast change in society is blatant contrast in comparison to the Buendias where the people and events inside the family are nearly identical from three or four generations ago but the world is changing around them. This brings up an interesting point that humans and human nature do not change with an ever changing world.
I agree with Sara on the yellow! It must be intentional, just as the cyclic comments are. The typical associations don't really seem to apply (yellow journalism, yellow-bellied, etc), though the idea of peace and cheerfulness makes some sense. JAB and Meme's lover (with the flowers and butterflies) seem to be characters of peace, though hardly cheeriness.
Alyssa
As a representative of the STBF I feel that I have the solemn duty to inform your class of the shortcomings in these comments and the blog it self. After a careful search I have found no reference to the Great American Bison within your blog. The Bison is a magnificent animal which was mistreated and abused during our country's maniacal and egotistical drive to conquer the west, to ignore this is to ignore a travesty that infects our past. I hope that you will see the error in your ways and help to root out this disease of ignorance. If you feel up to the challenge, you can get started by adopting a Bison from the WWF Online Adoption Center. The web address is, https://secure.worldwildlife.org/forms/adoptionCenter_1.cfm?sc=AWE0600ACG00&adoption=google&searchen=google_adopt
Sincerely Henry Tudder of the STBF.
Not only do we get the image of a pig's tail in the novel, but a dragon's tail as well (306) which describes the panic of the crowd during the (real) massacre. Also, the idea of CAB being a historical relic (an idea he resented) is ironically brought back when the soliders that search his workshop want a gold fish because "now they're relics" (311). The subtle reoccurances help support Marquez's theme of the cyclical nature of people.
Has anyone here ever tried some fiesta potatoes from Taco Hutt, its pretty good. Anyway I just want to say that i love how this book is so random. Just random thigns pop out of no where. Like in chapter 13, this lady called "The Elephant" has an eatting contest with Aureliano Segundo. And becuase of the randomness of this book, I don't feel safe in making any predictions. Nonetheless, i will take a shot in the dark, i think that big mama is Meme. hahaha
I can see why one can read this book so many times. There are so many ways you can read it. It can just be taken as a story, almost fairy tale like, or philosophical, or so many other ways. It is hard for me at this point to take away one big idea from the novel. This time reading it (because I plan to read again),I find myself enjoying the language and just absorbing it all in. There is so much to absorb and enjoy that I might wait till the next time I read it to look very carefully at all the small details. There is definitely larger things at work here than just language and story, but at this point,that is what I love about it.
sooo i thought you were putting up a new topic, decker...so i waited. but anyway.
i thought it was interesting how we really don't get too much background on the twins, aureliano segundo and josé arcadio segundo...we really don't ever learn a lot about their childhoods or relationships with each other, like we do with other newly introduced characters. we just have to infer things about their personalities through their names, comparing them to their ancestors. however ursula believes that they switched their names while they were young and confusing everyone, so then we also compare them to the opposite characters.
with aureliano segundo, i see ties with his namesake as well as with the josé arcadios, so i'm not entirely sure i believe that the twins switched their names around. AS is interested in science, but he also likes to have fun (sex, parties) so i can see him either as being an aureliano or a josé arcadio.
sorry, that was really long. i apologize. and decker, if you need a course in pronouncing spanish, let me know. ha!
I would just like to comment that, yes Nhan, I have tried Taco Hut's fiesta potatoes and all I can say it that they were like a wild, rhythmic, delicious fiesta in my mouth.
As for 100 yrs of solitude I initally didn't like the book very much, mostly because I found the genealogy confusing and the lack of a central theme I could see clearly frustrating. But lately as I've read more slowly I have come to enjoy it much more. I particulary like the aspects of magical realism, from the rain of tiny yellow flowers after Jose Arcadio Buendia's death to MeMe's constant swarm of yellow butterflies. I think the magical touches add to the emotion of the various sitations, making it easier to understand with fantastical metaphors. I also love the general figurative language of the book, for example Amaranta is not just engrossed in her memories, but "wrapped up in the eggplant patch of her memories". I think it is a unique style of writing that does a beautiful job of expressing emotion and, most importantly, the solitude of the various characters.
It seems that the bulk of the significance of the book and message of the book is found in the general picture rather than specific instances. Many books have strong symbolism in specific events, objects, etc. However, OHYOS seems to have a lot less of that and a lot more meaning in the general picture and the patterns found woven through the novel.
Oh, and hail to the noble Great American Bison.
I'm with Arpita. If you spend to much time thinking about what the deeper meaning is you will surely become confused. If you just read and let the words soak into your brain you will see into the soul of the book and become more enlightend then if you had relied on an anal analysis of the text. I also found out that the STBF is legit, although it stands for save the black family, not save the bison federation as we were led to believe, you actually can adopt a bison and other animals as well from the WWF.
I think that one area we have long overlooked is how the book connects with history and how it functions as a satire of society. I was glad that we looked at the history book today and connected the fictional massacre with the real life massacre. I wonder if Colonel Aureliano Buendia’s war corresponds with a real war fought in Columbia? Even is it doesn’t, I have a feeling that the Conservatives and the Liberals represented very real groups in Colombian politics, neither of which Marquez approved of. The invasion of the gringos along with the formation of the banana company is very similar to the type of colonization that was going on all over South America about a hundred years ago. I think that Marquez is making some very important points about South American culture and society. Some of them are clear, but I wonder if we are missing some of the less obvious points since we don’t fully understand the context of the book.
I guess I don't understand why all these characters are in solitude to begin with. I mean, life is so hard sometimes and I think most people usually need other people to help them through the bad times. It seems to me that they all choose their solitude, correct me if I'm wrong. CAB seemed to, unless it was because of his inability to love. Amaranta seemed the closest to breaking the Buendia tradition of solitude but she did not end up loving them in the end. JAB seemed to choose his solitude by spending his life experimenting and such, so much that he forgot he had children.
Also, it just makes me sad that they base all their feelings on lust instead of love. Even with their family members. I never get the sense that they truly love, care, and support one another. But then again, I've always been a sucker for a happy ending...something tells me that this story won't end like a fairy tale.....
Cassandra S.
First of all, I was glad to finally se some actual love going on in this story,instead of just lust.. .lust. . lust. It really diasappointed me when Mauricio was shot , although I am still trying to find out the deeper meaning of the yellow butterflies(So if anyone knows. . .they should post it. . . plaease?). I still see the word solitude coming into the story more and more frequently as I read and I think that the story will end in the deepest depthes of solitude that is possible. I have to also add that I like the Sophia character, lthough she is not very interesting, because she seems to have more human emotions and seems to be a character that we can actually realate to a little bit. Anyways. .. I really am enjoying reading this book, and it is definitely one of my favorites this year.
Jessica Steiger
I think it's interesting to watch the transformation of the house in relation with the change in the town and the family. It begins equal and white and then it is enlarged, at happy times it is opened and at mourning times they close it up. Fernanda sees that it is closed. The rains ruin it, yet ursula has so much pride she chooses to restore it before she dies. I think sarahs point is interesting too that is something i noticed how all the main characters tend to know when they will die and cling to one obsession, (if thats the right word?) until the time comes.
Information on the clavichord can be found at
http://www.harpsichord-sd.com/clavichord/why.html
A very nice picture of a clavichord can be found at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clavichord
I'm not sure if I should be trying to make this connection, but in light of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's revolutionary back ground, it's clear that he does not beleive that injustice and seeming cyclical problems should be left alone. So is 100 Years of Solitude a plea to cease this ridiculuous repeating of mistakes? Or am I just imposing my own view on the novel? Although there are no really blatant political and historical references, or anything that directly reports Marquez's stance on the social situations portrayed in the novel, the way that the massacre and other corruptions are portrayed makes it seem like through the lack of emphasis on these occurances, we are supposed to focus more on them or be more outraged because everyone ignores the problems their people face. Yeah, sorry, long tangent.
LOOOOOOOOOOOVVE --- Kirin!
The fact that we don't know if the murdering of the 3000 people in the town square actually happened opens up a can of worms within the story. What else could be figments of the characters imaginations?
Given the number of unlikely occurances, this could ALL be a figment of Malquiades's imagination.
At the end of the novel we see the house and town deteriorating. This brings perhaps the bigest circle of the novel to a close. The start of the novel had nothing in Macondo. And now the area is returning to what it once was. Sorry that this is sooo late. I need to read the calendar.
-Adam Kephart
Post a Comment
<< Home