Setting definitely plays a huge role in One Hundred Years of Solitude. Macondo, the fictional town the majority of the story takes place in, is, like I mentioned on Linnea's post, a character itself. The mountains and swamps surrounding the town give a proper sense of isolation needed for Macondo's strange ways to keep prospering separate from the rest of the world. Their only visitors are various travelers and gypsies, who bring strange things from other towns. Because of Macondo's isolation, everything that these travelers bring seems magical and wondrous to the characters.
The fact that Macondo was created to be an ideal city, with all of its perfectly laid out streets and houses, makes it a sort of utopia for the citizens, even if they are cut off from society in general. In this way they are allowed to create their own private society, with their own sets of morals, or at least until there are more frequent visitors, and the war starts.
Another part of the setting is the world in general that is portrayed in the novel, mostly through the gypsies' stories. They make Jose Arcadio Buendia feel like he is missing out on the discoveries and advancement and excitement of the rest of the world, causing him to want to move, which Ursula objects to.
People who visit Macondo often end up staying there longer than they planned. This makes it seem like Macondo is a very appealing city, and Jose Arcadio Buendia and the other founders were successful in making a quality city, with it's own unique characteristics.
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I completely agree with you, and Macondo seems to be set up like a family neighborhood, all the houses close together and beautiful warm setting, but it seems like the characters aren't all that close, outside of their seperate families.
ReplyDeleteYeah, that's interesting. Because even though they created this perfect town, they are still human and don't have perfect interactions or feelings towards one another. I didn't think of that.
ReplyDeleteAlso what you said about people actually staying for longer than planned, I hadn't thought about that before, and I like it very much. It's true, with Rebeca and others and makes the city seem warm and inviting.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what a lot of what you said, but I'm not sure the reason people stay in Macando longer than planned is because it is appealing city. To me it almost seems as though the isolation which you described before( mountains, swamps, only visitors being gypsies, etc.) is what is causing these charecters to stay.
ReplyDeleteThats a good point. But the characters who I can remember staying actually stayed for different reasons. The priest stayed because he wanted to bring religion into the nice town he found, Pietro stayed because he fell in love with the girls and the town, the magistrate stayed because he also liked it. (I can't remember at the moment who else visited and stayed... but I feel like there were more).
ReplyDeleteThat does bring to mind, though, that some of the reasons the people stayed was because of the appeal of such a fresh civilization that they could actually influence to be how they themselves wanted it to be. I think Macondo is sort of a dream for everyone, each person picturing themselves shaping it to what they want it to be.