One Hundred Years of Solitude: A story of a city as a metaphor for human life

Through his writing, Gabriel Garcia Marquez has proven to the entire world that a simple, ordinary life can be turned into a glorious story. One Hundred Years of Solitude, Marquez's greatest work, evokes in the reader feelings of pleasure mixed with disquietude, leaving him puzzled about the story's true meaning. The fictional town Macondo around which the story revolves, is a metaphor for human existence, just as our life is part sweet and part bitter. Marquez's book ends with bitterness, leaving the reader asking himself, whether the story is really joyful and happy or sad and depressing. Marquez's book, can be reread and reinterpreted many times in the search for the answer to the above question, and it is this quality of his writing that makes One Hundred Years of Solitude a remarkable work of literature.

As his characters struggle and overcome difficulties, Marquez gives us plenty of reasons to experience pleasure. We are uplifted when reading about the resolve of Macondo's founders when establishing their city, as they accomplish the American Dream of self-governance and self-reliance. We share the dream the city founders have, of achieving our goals regardless of what happens to us. Seeing that they succeed in their efforts is inspiring, as we realize that the world in which we can achieve our dreams when all odds are against us exists. There is nothing that brings greater glory to the Lord than man's ability to overcome difficulties. Buendia family, whose story is described in One Hundred Years of Solitude, has not only improve the living conditions for itself but has founded a city that will exist as proof of their achievement. We can relate to the history of the Buendia's as well as the city itself, they are both human in nature, filled with passion and happiness of success.

Yet, nature loves harmony and for everything good that occurs, sooner of later the characters in the novel are hit with an event that brings them bitterness and misfortune. Some of the things that happen to the town's people are so grotesque that they appear nothing else but real to us. A mother's first son runs away with gypsies, her second son starts thirty two wars and looses all of them, her third son becomes a brutal tyrant that rules using terror. In the mean time, her husband slowly descends into insanity, first attempting to convert lead into gold, later wanting to wage "solar warfare", and finally ending up tied to a chestnut tree. The town is plagued by insomnia. A banana company murders over three thousand workers. Children with pig tails are born. The list goes on, providing the reader with plenty of reasons to question Macondo's happiness and the worthiness of establishing the city in the first place. Marquez's book exposes us to all the cruelties and disappointments of life. Figuring out the author's true message isn't easy, as the entire book consists of a mixture of contradictory feelings.

"For there is no second chance on the face of the Earth for a race condemned to a one hundred years of solitude," writes Marquez in the sentence ending the book. One Hundred Years of Solitude, is a story of life, a metaphor of the human existence on Earth, the interpretation of the book is therefore determined by our interpretation of life itself. In the end, Macondo is ruined, the Buendia family is no more, and the only thing that is left is a memory. How is it different than the life of a person? What besides a memory of what we have done will remain? Should we not put up a fight throughout our lives against the difficulties we face, just because there will be nothing but a memory of what we have done? Marquez hits the nail on the head, when he says, "for there is no second chance..." Should his thought be completed with, "...so the only thing we should do is try",? That answer is yours.

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