You must post 2 times before Wednesday, April 11th. Your first post should be completed by Friday, April 6th. It should 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.
- Where do you see connections between what we've learned about Freud's ideas concerning the unconscious and our dreams and the way Gabriel Garcia Marquez has chosen to write this text? Give specific examples including passages from the text. Cite page numbers.
- Find a piece of art which you feel represents a passage or portion of the text. (You will need to paste the link to the artwork in your blog post so that other students may view it.) Explain your choice. Support your explanation by comparing the passage from the text with details from the artwork. Cite page numbers. Do not simply Google "One Hundred Years of Solitude art", do a little more of an in-depth searching on your own.
- Identify elements of the story that you find particularly 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.
I found the section on page 30 interesting where it stated, "One January Thursday at two o'clock in the morning, Amaranta was born. Before anyone came into the room, Ursula examined her carefully. She was light and watery, like a newt, but all of her parts were human. Aureliano did not notice the new thing except when the house became full of people..."
ReplyDeleteMy question is.. Is this new born child, Amaranta, a superhuman? Would this tie into magic realism?
Nah I don't think they were worried about her being superhuman as much as they were worried of her being mutated from inbreeding. But if she turned out to have a special power I wouldn't be surprised because Aureliano already has the power to see the near future.
DeleteCall out!
DeleteIn regard to the third prompt, one of the things that interested me was the magic realism. One instance of this is when Aureliano, a small child, is handed a bowl of soup from his mother, and before she sets it down, he says, "It's going to spill." Then just as she set it down, the soup inside the pot began to move and it spilled making a mess on the floor. This happens on page 15. My questions are how does this small child know what is going to happen? If he is some sort of psychic or something, how did he obtain that power? Why doesn't one of the other characters or the gypsies have that ability, why is he the only one? One other interesting thing that was on page 20 is that it talks about a man who has a pigs tail. It just seems different and unnatural which ties into the magical realism. I think that it is interesting because they are bringing a supernatural realm into the story.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the part of the magic realism, because it's not like he actually knows what is going to happen because physic powers dont exist in real life, unless they're hidden deep in the world. I think the author wanted to maximize the magical realism in the book by putting in this sentence
DeleteI agree with Nick, the magic realism in 100 Years of Solitude is very perplexing which makes it intersting. After the author reveals that Aureliano has psychic powers it makes you wonder why the author chose Aureliano to have the psychic powers. I feel as though it would make more sense for a gypsy to have these powers. What is the author trying to communicate to the reader through giving these abilities to Aureliano? What does this say about him?
Deletehttp://www.google.com/imgres?q=river+bank+with+white+stones&hl=en&biw=1024&bih=598&tbm=isch&tbnid=D4dmvFigCQM5mM:&imgrefurl=http://www.colourbox.com/image/white-stones-in-the-shallow-waters-of-the-picturesque-lake-image-1980743&docid=9RMIUPZ9-UnzdM&itg=1&imgurl=http://www.colourbox.com/preview/1980743-681676-white-stones-in-the-shallow-waters-of-the-picturesque-lake.jpg&w=320&h=480&ei=MFp-T5CnNcOSgQfohczuDQ&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=673&sig=105644746994062570858&page=2&tbnh=129&tbnw=90&start=15&ndsp=20&ved=1t:429,r:19,s:15,i:146&tx=60&ty=16
ReplyDeleteThis is the picture I found which represents the beginning of the book when they were describing Macondo. On page one it says, "...built on the bank of a river of clear water that ran along a bed of polished stones, which were white and enormous, like prehistoric eggs." It also has mountains in the background just like the ones Ursela and Jose Arcadio Buendia journeyed through and created the city of Macondo.
Elements of the story that I found interesting was the part about when Ursula went to look for Jose Arcadio and was already too far that she didn't want to turn back(pg. 34. Her not returning for six months has a great depiction of what hers and Jose Arcadio Buendia's relationship was like if she was gone for that long of a time. Also the par on page 36 where it says "She gave him a conventional kiss, as if she had only been away and hour" says something too because most husband and wifes would be overjoyed and really worried about their spouse. This part gave more insight into what could become of their relationship. Another point that was neat to see was when Jose Arcadio Buendia, because Ursula left,started to take car of the newborn baby, Amaranta. On page 35 it says, "He took care of little Amaranta like a mother. He bathed and dressed her, took her to be nursed four times a day, and even sang to her at night songs that his wife never know how to sing." I think this part was interesting because in my mind this was the first time he really showed affection towards family or really anyone for that matter. This section showed a bit of a character change, in showing that even though he had crazy ideas and weren't around his kids all that much that he does have a softer side and is responsible.
ReplyDeleteWhat I found interesting was that on pg. 31 the author goes into great detail about the love between Pilar and Jose Arcadio. The author says, "they came to suspect that love could be a feeling that was more relaxing and deep than happiness". The author speaks of how great their love is. Then once Pilar tells Jose Arcadio that he is going to be a father his feelings for her disappear and so does he. This makes me question whether or not Jose Arcadio ever loved Pilar or if the love between the two was real. It also makes me question what message the author is trying to send through this happening.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Brennas post. There has been a lot of love already throughout the book and i think the author was doing some forshadowing in the relationship between pilar and jose arcadio. The fact that Jose Acradio ran off with the gypsys and is still yet to be heard from or seen makes me believe the love between the two wasnt very real and Jose Acradio definately wasnt old enough or mature enough to handle a child.
DeleteI am going to blog about the third promt. I felt like the fact that Jose Arcadio would sneak off every night to meet up with Pilar was interesting. I also found it weird that his mother Ursula walked in on him naked and commented on his body. My question would be why do you think Jose Arcadio went off with the gypsys and do you think he will come back? page number (34)
ReplyDeleteI agree with Will's statement on the weirdness of the fact that even she thought Jose had an abnormal bottom half of his body. Answering Will's question, I do believe that Jose Arcadio will eventually return to visit his family. I first thought that the stranger that came and eventually cured the insomnia was going to be Jose but it turned out to be Melquiades.
DeleteTo answer Will's question, I think that he was so stressed out and surprised that Pilar was pregnant and that he was going to be a father. I think it also scarred him because I'm sure he thought he wasn't ready to take on that responsibility so he decided to do his own thing.
Deletehttp://www.flickr.com/photos/ramdiboy/3203302327/
ReplyDeleteThat ^ is a picture of a cock fight. Pretty awesome. And taken with a pretty amazing camera. The only thing that would make the story behind that particular cock fight any more intriguing, would be if the loser poked fun the winner's inability to impregnate his wife! And then perhaps, the winner, insulted by this insult, would go get a spear used by his great grandfather and return to kill the insulter! Actually, it reminds me of a story I read on page 21 of a book entitled "One Hundred Years of Solitude." ...
and by great grandfather, of course I mean just his grandfather. *
ReplyDeleteI thought it was interesting that at the drop of a hat Ursula went out in search for Jose Arcadio. I can understand that a mother's love takes over and maybe that's why she went to look for him but a mother's love usually goes for all the kids. I don't really understand why she left the other two kids without even batting an eye. Then when she returned she wasn't even ecstatic to see them, it was just like another day. I feel like the feeling people get when they miss their loved ones, and the feeling they get when they're reunited aren't really present in this book.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Grace. When a mother loves a child so much, it is hard for her to go without that child for a certain amount of time. I think it is interesting as well that she left her other to kids alone while she went to go look for Jose Arcadio. I think that she missed Jose so much that she wasnt as worried about that two other kids at home. Yet she was so excited to see them when she came home.
DeleteI also agree with Grace. I think that a mother will go to great lengths for one of their children. I think that sometimes a mother can be really focused on one child when they are in need. And sometimes because of that they can leave behind the others until the other things are resolved. I don't get though why she wasn't excited to see her kids upon her return to home. You would think that she would have acted different in a situation like that.
Delete"What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off?"
Delete-Matthew 18:12
I agree with all these peeps and Jesus. I know a mother's instinct to protect her children and would have done the same thing as Ursula. On the other hand I have to side with Jesus, who is on Ursula's side....
"And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off."
-Matthew 18:13
This is in response to the first prompt. Freud has a strange idea called the oedipus complex. This theory states that a child will want to kill the parent of the same sex as him/her in order to have the other parent all to themselves. I don't agree with this but i think it can be tied in to a part of the chapter. On page 27 when Acrcadio first snuck over to Pilar's house it was pitch black and he couldnt see. Him and pilar were about to do adult things and when he tried to picture her face he could only picture Ursala's (his own moms). The text even says the look on the face he imagined was "confusedly aware that he was doing somthing that for a very long time he had wanted to do." Disturbing, right?
ReplyDeleteI agree and think that it does relate with the theory that a child wants the opposite sex parent to themselves, as weird as that sounds. It doesn't really have the whole "killing the parent of the same sex" part, but it definitely has the disturbing second part. The fact that he pictured his mom while doing "adult things" as jack said, undeniably resembles Freud's theory.
DeleteI'm going to respond on the third prompt. First I would like to point out that this story seemed to be written by a horny teenage boy, and that it's the closest thing to pornographic literature I think we're going to get. But my actual response is about the end of the chapter when Ursula returned. It said that she left to find he son, Jose Arcadio who had of course left with the gypsies. When she comes back though, she informs the rest of her family of the civilization she had found on the other side of the swamp, bringing zero information back about Jose Arcadio. So my question is, did she just give up on trying to find him? And do you think that he will return back to his family, or even make another appearance in the rest of the book?
ReplyDeleteI agree with Geordon on the fact that Ursula left for six months looking for Jose Arcadio and instead came back with a new civilization. She gave no information to her family on the whereabouts of Jose Arcadio, instead she was excited about the people she brought back from the other side of the swamp. The rest of the chapter doesn't mention Jose Arcadio at all. It's almost like the author forgot about him being missing and was only focused on the new people that had come to Macondo.
DeleteI agree with Georden with that Ursula acted strange when she came back and didnt give much detail about the trip. Ithink Jose Arcadio will come back into the novel, because he played such a big roll and showed a change by having the first "grandson." I am anxious in the future to find out if Arcadio learns that Jose Arcadio is truly his own father or if the secret will stay secure in the family.
DeleteI found it interesting on page 30 when Pilar told Jose Arcadio that he now could be called a man when he got Pilar pregnant. What surprised me was when Jose Arcadio ran away after he heard that. He was sneaking around and laying low so he could see Pilar, and then just like that he leaves everything. I understand that he wanted to become a gypsy, but I thought it was odd that he went through all that work to see Pilar, and then he leaves her just like that.
ReplyDeleteI think that the reason he left Pilar was because he was running away from responsibilities. When he would sneak out and hook up with her it was more fun and adventurous. Now that she is pregnant the fun is taken out and replaced with responsibility and there is no more mystery or lust. Once he hung out with the gypsies he saw the fun way they lived and wanted to be apart of them because it was adventurous and he didn't have to worry about responsibilities. He was able to do what he wanted when he wanted but he wouldn't have been able to do that with a baby.
DeleteI agree with Catherine when she says he's running away from responsibility, and it doesn't really surprise me because movies and tv shows today always show guys avoiding responsibility and dropping everything and leaving. Even if that's not the way real guys are, I think we are all used to seeing it happen
DeleteI agree with Connor i thought it was rather abrupt that he just left with the gypsies after he tried building some kind of relationship with Pilar. Who he did impregnate.
DeleteThis post is in response to the first prompt. Freud describes dreams as chunks of our memory and conscience that work together to create the strange things we call dreams. He also spoke about how dreams jump around in time and don't always make the most sense. In 100 years if solitude the plot skips around a lot, just like our dreams most of the time. In this particular chapter the time jumps from the past and back to the present multiple times. First the author jumps from describing Ursela and Jose Arcadio Buendia's relationship, to then describing Pilar and Jose Arcadio's relationship. This is very confusing when reading the story, but it plays with the ideas that Freud presented in dealing with dreams.
ReplyDeleteOne interesting thing that happened in our reading was as Ursula was apparently coming home to Jose Arcadio that all of these weird and mystical phenomena started happening. Could this mean that there is a mystical side to her or the author is trying to add significance to her return. And when she finally returns home she gives him a kiss as if she had been gone an hour. Little puzzled by the Author's underlying meaning.
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DeleteI think that was a very smart post Christopher. I personally think that the author is trying to add more significance to her return just by building up so much the day of her arrival, but I do agree that it is kind of weird that when she does get home its kind of different that she just kisses him like she hasn't been gone for that long at all which is a little weird to me, like she never missed him when she was gone or something? Author is confusing but then again i think this book is confusing. Just my opinion, if you don't like it, there is a red box with a "X" in it in the corner, feel free to press it.
DeleteChris.
I think that the author is trying to show us something here and I do not know what quite yet. I do think you are on to something however. Maybe this is a little foreshadowing as the story goes on.
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ReplyDeletehttp://www.google.com/imgres?start=99&um=1&hl=en&sa=N&biw=1280&bih=608&tbm=isch&tbnid=Ac4jZouX0Mp49M:&imgrefurl=http://hammertomyworld.wordpress.com/&docid=l4gn04DwbrxfFM&imgurl=http://hammertomyworld.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/rocker.jpg%253Fw%253D640%2526h%253D512&w=640&h=512&ei=t4iFT5k8jOeCB-Lf2eYH&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=586&vpy=2&dur=191&hovh=201&hovw=251&tx=171&ty=74&sig=117756052796584025665&page=5&tbnh=126&tbnw=155&ndsp=28&ved=1t:429,r:17,s:99,i:41
ReplyDeleteThis pitcure that I found refers to how rebecca was before she was incorporated into the family.
"She would sit in her small rocker sucking her finger in the most remote corner of the house" pg. 41/42
As you can see, the pitcure I have chosen shows a lonely rocking chair in what appears to be a dark empty room, similar to the story and this picture seems to be very similar to what I think the rocking chair in the story would appear to look like
I also found it interesting that of all the things rebecca came with, one is a rocking chair. I agree that it is interesting and agree with you that it is similair to what hers would have looked like. It wasn't a huge part of the story, but a smaller detail that was interesting. It must be important to her if she brought it with her parents bones.
Deletehttp://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large/psychic-hand-mary-delave.jpg
ReplyDeleteI chose to do the second prompt. I found a painting that depicts a human hand with a bunch of eyes on it and future events to come. I believe the picture represents seeing the future and this ties into the book because on page 15, Aureliano foresees the bowl of soup going to spill. He is a psychic and the picture is of psychic fortune telling.
I noticed the magic realism too. I find it more and more as read further into the story. A kid having phsychic powers is definitely surreal and i think it is cool that magic realism is a part of this story because it keeps things interesting and it keeps me guessing.
ReplyDeleteI am writing in response to the third prompt. I find the birth of Urusula's daughter to be quite significant. This can be found on page 30. I also think that the way the author described the new born child was made in great detail. Do you think that the child will have an important role the way the author talked about the new born later in the story?
ReplyDeleteOne thing that i thought was really interesting was the part where Aureliano knew that the soup was going to spill. That is on page 15. Another interesting thing about him was that he was born with his eyes open. His mom felt that there was something different about their son but the father didn't think anything of it and was absorbed in his work. I thought this was interesting because these are things that normal humans don't have happen to them.
ReplyDeleteYeah there is something definitely supernatural about Aureliano, only time will tell what else he can do and it will be interesting to see how he grows and what other things he does in the future and how his relationships develop
DeleteI think that Jose Arcadio and Pilars relationship is very interesting. It is extremely odd that he finds her scent of smoke so attractive, and the fact that she is so old! I did not think that he would get her pregnant and then run away with the gypsies. I thought he would come back, but he didn't (well he hasn't yet.)
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