Blog Posts #4-6

This is a big one folks, let’s talk about the three important things on our minds: the Italian  movie, The Postman, 100 Years of Solitude, and Pablo Neruda (specifically his poems). Let’s start with 100 Years of Solitude, fantastic book, also very sad and depressing so thanks Patrick for the great read and the emotional upset from the ending when the prophecies are coming. In all honesty I was like no, don’t die please. Well enough of the awful commentary, the main thing that resonated with me was when the banana plantation moves in and the workers go on strike because they are angry from the inhumane way they are being treated. Then the unforeseen happens and thousands of them are brutally massacred by the army which sided with the plantation owners. They then dispose of the bodies by dumping them in the sea like they were nothing. After the bodies are dumped that’s when 5 years of ceaseless rain begins, which creates a flood that sends Macondo into its final decline. This also relates to The Postman (Italian movie) when Mario and the others in the crowd are gunned down at the riot when Mario only wanted to share his poem dedicated to Pablo Neruda. Why do we only read sad things? I’m not sure, that was a rhetorical question. Another thing that grasped my attention was when Crespi proposes to Amaranta who cruelly rejects him despite her love for him which leads to him committing suicide. This also leads to Amaranta burning her hand badly, she then wears a black bandage that she wears until she dies. The meaning behind the black bandage is the fact that it shows that she is mourning someone’s death. Another example is the Little Gold Fishes. These fishes that Col. Aureliano Buendia has initially represent his creative nature, I could even go as far as to say that this creative nature extends to all Aurelianos. However, these fishes become more significant later, marking the ways Aureliano himself has affected the world. This also ties into his seventeen sons, which are also given a fish, which in turn represents the affect that his sons have on the world. However, in other cases or even other instances the little gold fishes are used as passkeys when messengers for the Liberals use them to prove their allegiance. Also later, many years later, the little gold fishes become collectors items so to speak, merely relics of a leader or was somewhat great and had an affect on the people. This kind of attitude disgusted Aureliano because he recognized that people were using him as a figurehead or someone who was of great importance, a mythological hero that represents whatever they want it to represent, well in a way I guess. Basically in the end Aureliano begins to understand that the little gold fishes no longer represent him in the symbolic way they once did well not in a personal way which leads him to taking the action to stop making the new little gold fishes and instead melts down the old ones over and over repeatedly. Another big thing is when the Gypsies start showing up with these magical and weird innovations and technology. The people see these new magical things as foreign objects as mysterious things, for instance navigation technology is strange to them, even ice a common commodity in today’s world was a foreign object to them. Basically when the Gypsies came in to town, they brought a lot of new things with them. A huge thing in the book was the Bible which was quite relevant, there were many biblical references, like at the beginning of the novel, Macondo is in a sense like the Garden of Eden which represents that the town has a feeling of innocence. This would best be illustrated by saying the town was at its prime just like Garden of Eden before sin entered the world after Eve ate from the tree. So basically, the author used quite a few biblical references, which allowed the book to give a widened perspective on how the town was depicted, so having previous knowledge about the Bible helped tremendously with being able to understand the Biblical references throughout the book. This basically concludes my post, I got the most out of the book than I did the movie and the poems, but the banana plantation part really stuck with me because of how tragic it was and how people can forget the things in history like that, and you’re right, we often can forget these tragic events because of time and how scattered the truth can be at times. We need to be more aware of these events and not let them be lost to time as some of these events have.

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