You must post 2 times before next Monday, April 11th. Your first post should be submitted by Friday, April 8th. It is to 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.
Arcadio is an evil and controlling dictator. He was put in charge of Macondo when his brother, Col. Aureliano left and Arcadio took his new leadership to a whole new level. This is ultimately negative because his family is ashamed of him and turns against him and he eventually is killed.
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ReplyDeleteArcadio is a man with a love of power. Once he was left in charge of the town, he immediately began to exert his power. He would make as many as four decrees in a day ordering the public to do as he wished. He even went to the extreme of shooting people who mocked or disagreed with him. He is a negative character because of his thirst for power which causes him to do evil things.
ReplyDeleteAmaranta: She is moody and bitter, especially towards men. When Pietro Crespi finally falls in love with her & proposes she says no. When Colonel Gerineldo Marquez purues her and proclaims his deep love for her, she rejects him. And when her nephew Aureliano Jose becomes infatuated with her she tells him that it would be wrong to be together& they would make armadillos.
ReplyDeleteHer traits are negative because she doesn't know what she wants in life therefore she can't see when a good thing comes a long... such as Colonel Gerineldo Marquez.
Colonel Aureliano is kind of a creep. He doesn't like girls until he falls in love with an eight year old girl. He marries her after she reaches puberty, but she dies when she's pregnant. His way of grieving is to join a bloody revolution and leave his little nephew in charge of the town. Then he has 17 boys who are all killed at a young age. Overall, I would say he is negative because his decisions led to the deaths of many people.
ReplyDeleteAlthough Jose Arcadio buendia does isolate himself from his family its probably for the better, he is more likely to go mad with his family than when he is by himself. Also one of his inventions could help Macondo in the future. So in conclusion, leave him alone and let him invent.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Megan because the town had already been tried to take over by the Magistrate. The town did not like how the Magistrate was changing things, so when Arcadio took over trying to change things the town became angry. Arcadio had extreme and cruel ways to dictate. This caused his family to become ashamed. When he was killed I don't think too many people were upset to see his ruling go.
ReplyDeleteIn the beginning of the story Jose Arcadio was just a boy who was experiencing new things. After he learned that Pilar was pregnant by him he got scared, had a one night stand with a gypsy girl, and left. He was gone for many years and when he came back he was completely different. He was no longer a boy, but a huge man with all sorts of tattoos. In the end this is negative because he only broke his family more apart when he and Rebeca decided to marry.
ReplyDeleteI think Amaranta is sloppy. She gets mad at Pietro because he liked another girl and now loves Amaranta. He proposes and she says no. I think this is a symbol of jealousy.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.flickr.com/photos/boju/2249937084/
ReplyDeleteThis sculpture is an image of how I imagine Amarant's burned hand.
P. 110 tells about how she is burning her hand as a reminder of the pain that she caused within her family. She lives with the guilt of killing the guy that she was always in love with, but she was too stubborn to accept his proposal.
This is another example of how love ruins relationships and causes problems in this book.
this...is ...busy work....
ReplyDeleteI agree with Megan because the Magistrate had already tried to take over the town. The Magistrate was changing things that the town did not like, so when Arcadio took over trying to change things the town became angry. Arcadio had extreme and cruel ways to dictate. This caused his family to become ashamed. When he was killed I don't think too many people were upset to see his ruling go.
ReplyDeleteI agree with vacco, even though i can see why Amaranta doesn't want to be sloppy seconds, it doesn't make sense because she was in love with Pietro but then denies him, if she is that desperate she would have said yes
ReplyDeleteI agree with Griselda.
ReplyDeleteJose Arcadio is a character that has caused a lot of tension in the family ever since he married Rebecca.
Even though they weren't full siblings, it still portrays incest.
I agree that he is an overall negative character because of him getting a woman pregnant, then abandoning her and running off with another woman, and then finally marrying someone who grew up in his family as a sister....what is wrong with this guy?
I agree with david because Arcadio was a crazy man but is trying to find a new way of life.
ReplyDeleteAmaranta has a negative effect on the towm because she tries to distupt the marrige between rebecca and pietro. And after she gets what she wanted, pietro, she leads him on and gets revenge by saying no to his proposal. Causeing pietro to go into dispare and cut his wrists and die.
ReplyDeleteThe character of Rebeca intrigues me, she came out of no where, and starting calling shots. She said she was in the family, and they listened. She wanted Pietro, and was going to get him before Amaranta. Yet than she saw dat hot piece of meat Jose Arcadio and got dat. Shes a wierdo who eats dirt and carries bones, but shes a ginuwine shotcaller. This can be negative to the family, because it will cause arguments and such within the family. I look up to her tho bro
ReplyDeleteJake
Click Clack I Think They Hear Us Coming
I agree with Sarah about Amaranta. She only brings pain and misery. She desperately wanted to break the engagement between Pietro and Rebeca and she even said she wanted to poison her. When Remedios died she felt responsible because she had wished something bad to happen and I don't know if she accidentally poisoned her? Later when Pietro asks her to marry him she says no and he kills himself. Thats two deaths she feels responsible for.
ReplyDeleteelements of the book that i don't really understand are how they keep on throwing weird characters in the story and all they do is just screw up the whole families relationships. I guess that is what makes it somewhat interesting but at the same time it is just very odd. i don't really get the whole plot of the story if there even is one. it's just confusing and hard to follow but is somewhat interesting.
ReplyDeleteI don't like how Arcadio rules the town as a dictator. i also agree that amaranta just brings pain to the family. I think it stinks how Arcadio dies right before his children are born and how he asks the names of the children right before getting shot.
ReplyDeleteI agree with N. Vacco because Amaranta should not have acted like she did to Pietro. I'm glad that she's going to suffer a while, considering she is the one that caused his death.
ReplyDeleteI think that it was clever of Pilar to pay Sofia to get with Arcadio instead of having to do it herself. She thought outside of the box, even when she felt pressured into feeling like she should have relations with Arcadio
ReplyDeleteAmaranta is full of love but is indecisive and destructive. She falls in love with Pietro but after losing him to Rebeca she becomes mad and tries to destroy the two's marriage. After Rebeca choses Jose Arcadio, and Pietro comes running back to her, she is still unsatisfied and refuses his hand in marriage. This causes Pietro to commit suicide and the whole family is saddened. Amaranta feels really bad after this and burns her hand as her own punishment.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Griselda, I think it was very selfish for Jose Arcadio to leave the family for so many years and then to come back and marry Rebeca which only tore apart the family even more.
ReplyDeleteI don't get why Rebeca would want to kill JA. They were in love and it seemed like they were always happy together. I don't like how they made they personified blood to make it walk or travel that whole distance to Ursula.
ReplyDeleteJose Arcadio Buendia goes insane and is convinced that the same day is repeating itself over and over again. Since now he is tied to a tree, and the family members find out that he is going to die, he now is let back inside. He is indifferent of coming back inside the house and ends up going backoutside. I find this negative traits because he is isolated from his family
ReplyDeleteI agree with Logan Derby's statement. Colonel Aurreliano is sort of creepy. He doesn't love girls or want anything to do with them expect for a young girl who is raised as his sister. His actions lead to the deaths of many so his character has a very negative effect on his family and community.
ReplyDeleteI agree with my cousin Vinny, Amaranta has tended to lead men on, and that cannot be a positive trait. She has been indecisive and it has led the men to become depressed. Pietro kills himself. I'm a little surprised Vinny likes Colonel Gerineldo Marquez so much :/, I'm more of a Pietro fan.
ReplyDeleteJake
Click Clack I Think They Hear Us Coming
I think that Amaranta has both negative and positive traits. The way she is very flirty with the boys and and leads them on is a negative trait but i think that she is a friendly girl and i think that by turning Pietro down she showed a good sense of character. She knows that she was his second choice and i agree with what she did, obviously if Pietro loved her she would have been his first choice.
ReplyDeleteIn response to Mac's post, i agree. I think that having all the distant characters in the book makes it somewhat confusing. I also don't really understand the plot either... just a bunch of random stories about the Buendia family history? I do, however, think that the magic realism does keep this book interesting.
I think that someone in the Buendia family shot Mauricio in his spinal cord. I do not believe that he was stealing their chickens. This book is starting to lose me because there is too much random stuff going on.
ReplyDeleteThis book is boring they need make the book more interesting i dont care whats going on, and whats happening to the characters. They need to introduce a wise cracking midget.
ReplyDelete