Postcolonial Perspectives in Select Novels of Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Dissertation submitted to Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirappalli-24

in partial fulfillment of the requirements

for the award of the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy in English

Submitted by

C. Dhanabal

Under the Guidance of

Dr. T. Jayakumar Associate Professor of English

PG & Research Department of English

Periyar EVR College (Autonomous) Tiruchirappalli – 620 023

August 2011

Dr. T.Jayakumar Department of English

M.A., M.Phil., B.Ed., Ph.D., Periyar EVR College (Autonomous)

Associate Professor of English Tiruchirappalli- 620 023.

Certificate

This is to certify that the thesis entitled Postcolonial Perspectives in Select

Novels of Gabriel Garcia Marquez submitted by C.Dhanabal to the Bharathidasan

University, Tiruchirappalli, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of

the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English is his original work, based on the

investigation carried out independently by him during the period of study under my

guidance and supervision and it has not formed the basis for the award of any degree,

diploma, associateship, fellowship or any other similar title, in any College/University.

Signature

Declaration

I, the Research Scholar, hereby declare that the dissertation entitled

Postcolonial Perspectives in Select Novels of Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a record

of bona fide research work done by me during the period 2006-2011 under the guidance

of Dr.T.Jayakumar, M.A., M.Phil., B.Ed., Ph.D., Associate Professor of English,

PG & Research Department of English, Periyar EVR College (Autonomous),

Tiruchirappalli – 620023 and it has not formed the basis for the award of any degree,

diploma, associateship, fellowship or any other similar title in any College/University.

Tiruchirappalli

Date: C.DHANABAL

Contents

Chapter Title Page No.

Certificate

Declaration

Preface

A Note on Documentation

I Introduction 1

II Magic Realism: A Postcolonial 37

Narrative Technique

III Reconstruction of the Past: A Postcolonial 88

Search for Identity

IV Violence: A Colonial Legacy in Postcolonial Nations 141

V Conclusion 184

Works Cited 206

A Note on Documentation

In this process of writing the thesis on the basis of various sources, the following

abbreviations have been used. Their expansion is given below.

OYS --- One Hundred Years of Solitude

OLD --- Of Love and Other Demons

AOP --- Autumn of the Patriarch

NWC --- No One Writes to the Colonel

CDF --- Chronicle of a Death Foretold

IEW --- In Evil Hour

CS --- Collected Stories

Preface

Postcolonial studies have emerged as a major critical discourse in the study of

literature. The world was once dominated by European empires. Till 1921, eighty four

per cent of the surface of the earth had been colonized since the sixteenth century. The

colonial powers destroyed the native tradition and culture; further, they continuously

replaced them with their own. This often led to conflicts, when countries became

independent and suddenly faced the challenge of developing a new nationwide identity

and self-confidence. As generations had lived under the power of the colonial rulers,

the Western culture was assimilated as their very own. Though, by the mid-1960s, most

colonies were, formally, independent, the experience of the subsequent decades showed

how much the ghost of colonization still loomed over the postcolonial world. A

colonial cast of mind persists, one that geopolitical power relations make it very hard to

shake off. The challenge for these countries was to find an identity of their own. They

found it difficult to get rid of the western way of life and the western way of thinking.

Now, there is a growing awareness and the colonized countries want to get rid

of the colonial traces from their colonized minds, in order to start a new history and ‘set

afoot a new man’ (Fanon). Postcolonial thinking, thus, stresses humanity-in-the-

making, the humanity that will emerge, once the colonial spectre of violence and the

racial difference have been swept away. The ultimate goal of postcolonialism is that of

combating and removing the residual effects of colonialism on native cultures. It is not

simply concerned with salvaging past worlds, but learning how the world can move

beyond this period, towards a place of mutual respect.

The postcolonial societies struggle to wriggle out of the colonial clutches and

try to make their mark in the new world. All the same, the people of the liberated

nations do not experience cultural freedom despite the achieving of political freedom.

They are still chained and oppressed, not by the colonizer, but by their own men.

Though there is freedom, it is not freedom at all.

The purpose of this research is to create awareness in the colonized minds that

the real freedom is yet to be achieved. A study of Garcia Marquez’s novels would

explain the stance that though there is freedom, it is not freedom at all. Garcia Marquez

has made his mark in the literary front with his magical realism which positions both

the ‘centre’ and the ‘other’ on equal footing. The presentation of history in his novels

serves a dual purpose. The true history of the land is brought out in place of the

distorted version presented by the colonial forces. The picture of the past serves the

colonized individuals to learn from their past mistakes. Violence is a legacy left by the

brutal colonizers. The colonizers have sown the seeds of violence in the minds of the

colonized in order to consolidate their power over the indigenous people. The native-

born dictators and the corrupt politicians of the independent nations, knowingly or

unknowingly, follow in the footsteps of the colonizers and make sure that there is

violence in their lands for their personal and selfish gains. Unaware of the

consequences, they spread violence, which mars the growth of the colonized nations

into formidable powers. The colonized nations should wake up from their slumber,

stoke the embers of their latent history and culture, learn from their past mistakes,

realize their real potential and work towards a bright new world.

This research work, Postcolonial Perspectives in Select Novels of Gabriel

Garcia Marquez, which was born out of a desire to see the effacing of the colonial

traces from the faces of the colonized nations, would not have come to fruition without

the help of many people.

First, I thank the Almighty, for showering His blessings upon me and enabling

me to complete this project successfully.

I register my heartfelt gratitude to my guide, Dr. T. Jayakumar, Associate

Professor, PG & Research Department of English, Periyar EVR College (Autonomous),

Tiruchirappalli-23, for nurturing this project at every stage with his valuable

suggestions and critical insights. His constant encouragement and sustained motivation

enabled me to complete this project in time.

I extend my thanks to Prof.Pazha.Gowthaman, Principal i/c, Periyar EVR

College (Autonomous), Tiruchirappalli-23, and Dr. A. Padmavathy, Head, PG &

Research Department of English, Periyar EVR College (Autonomous), Tiruchirappalli-

23, for granting me permission to pursue my research in this college.

My sincere thanks are to Dr.M. Marcus Diepen Boomination, former

Principal, Bishop Heber College (Autonomous), Tiruchirappalli-17, who has been a

source of inspiration for me to pursue this research work. I extend my thanks to

Rev. Dr. P. Manoharan, Principal (i/c), Bishop Heber College (Autonomous),

Tiruchirappalli – 620 017 for his support and encouragement during the course of this

project.

I am greatly indebted to Dr.Roopkumar Balasingh, Head, PG & Research

Department of English, Bishop Heber College (Autonomous), Tiruchirappalli-17, for

sowing the seeds of research in me on this marvellous author. I must also thank him for

his valuable suggestions during my discussions with him.

My heartfelt thanks go to Mr.P. Natarajan, former Head, PG & Research

Department of English, Bishop Heber College (Autonomous), Tiruchirappalli-17, for

his diligent proof-reading of this project.

I thank the librarians of Bishop Heber College, Trichy, Bharathidasan

Univerisity, Trichy and The American Library, Chennai -6, for granting me permission

to use their respective libraries. Let me add a special word of thanks to Mr. Srinivasan

Premkumar, Reference/Outreach (Promotional) Librarian, The American Library,

U.S. Consulate General, Chennai- 6 and Mr. R. Prabu, Research Scholar, Department

of Library & Information Science, Bharathidasan University, Trichy -24, for taking

pains to provide material for my research.

I thank my colleagues, Mrs. J. Baby Eliammal, Mr. S.Azariah Kirubakaran,

and Mrs. Cheryl Davis, PG & Research Department of English, Bishop Heber College

(Autonomous), Tiruchirappalli-17, for their timely help.

I extend my thanks to Mr. Raja of Saratha Xerox, Trichy-17 for his technical

support in typing and printing this thesis.

I may fail in my duty, if I do not thank my wife, Mrs. Nalini Christina and my

son Master. C.D. Jackin for providing me moral support during the course of my

research work. I also thank my brothers, sister and all members of my family for

evincing a keen interest in my research.

Finally, I dedicate this work to my father (Late) Mr. S.Chelliah and my mother

(Late) Mrs. Arputhamani Chelliah, for giving me good education amidst difficulties.

C. DHANABAL

Introduction

The term ―Latin America‖ refers to the area that includes all of the Caribbean

islands and the mainland that stretches from Mexico to the southernmost tip of South

America. It includes those countries in the ‗New World‘ formerly colonized by

Portugal, Spain and Italy. It also includes the countries that are located on the South

American continent, and those countries which are in Central America. The main

language of Latin America is Spanish. Latin America has a very long history, dating

back to Columbus‘ discovery of the territory, in the late 15th century. Columbus landed

in America in 1492. With the Spanish and Portuguese immigrants, Latin American

culture is derived from the traditions of both its European newcomers and its native

inhabitants. The Spanish colonial government understood its empire as a single force

and a single protectorate. It concentrated on building its empire on the central and

southern parts of America. It exploited the human and material resources of these

areas, such as the large concentration of silver and gold. It wanted to create a culture

that was distinct and somewhat homogenous. But, variations emerged through peculiar

dialogues and clashes that took place between the Spanish societies and the native

communities that existed in the regions, before the arrival of the Spanish. The Incas, the

Aztecs and the Mayans were the large and dominant cultures before the arrival of the

Spanish. Spanish colonialism forced these cultures to struggle for survival. When the

Spanish and the Portuguese arrived, they easily overcame these native populations.

The colonists destroyed the native architecture, replaced the native religions

with Catholicism, and strengthened the class system for their personal ends. As the

natives died from diseases brought to them by the European immigrants, they were

2

replaced by a new generation that resulted from an intermixing of the male immigrants

and the female natives.

For nearly two hundred years, the Spanish were the dominant force in the

region. Havana remained an important Spanish American centre and trade city, while

Lima and Mexico City evolved as cultural hubs. In these New World cities, there was a

thriving artistic and literary community. The work produced by this community,

however, was notably imitative of the work of the Golden Age in Spanish letters.

Modern Latin American writers do not have any affinity with the literature of the

colonials, but they use their historical documents in their writings. The Spaniards are

known for their act of recording. There are innumerable documents which detail the

vicious process of colonization and the terrible anxiety and guilt associated with it. The

documents of the historians, priests, governors and leaders of the evolving empire,

portray the emergence of a new Latin American identity. Even among them, some

remained as conduits through whom the history of the Inca, Maya and Aztec, reached

the modern readers. Notable among them are La Casas, Oviedo, Gomara and Castillo.

The themes with which these writers grappled, the politics that shaped their existence

and the terrible conditions they witnessed, are the elements that have come to shape the

character of Latin American fiction, in the last several hundred years. It is impossible to

read Carlos Fuentes, Gabriel Garcia Marquez or Alejo Carpentier without reference to

the writings of the above writers.

During the colonization, there were certain factors that severely retarded the

development of the novel in the Latin American countries. Notable among them, was

the church‘s view, that the novel form would spoil the morals of the individuals. Books,

such as Amadis, were not allowed to be imported in the year 1531. However, in 1580,

all sorts of fiction entered the region, including Cervantes‘ Don Quixote. But still the

3

law in Spanish-speaking regions, successfully prevented the production of anything that

might be called a novel until 1816. The first novel of Spanish America appeared within

the politically liberal orientation of nascent romanticism.

Latin American literature emerges out of the strange contradictions between

nationalism and the empire that characterize the experience of the region. The

movement towards independence in Latin America, as in all other formerly colonized

states, entailed a quest for a distinct cultural and national identity. But, this Latin

American identity cannot be easily defined. It is peculiarly defined by the tension

among the colonial force of Spanish dominance, the spirit of discovery and the quest to

found a new society with values and a new understanding of the landscape and

individuality, and the presence of non-European cultures in the region. While the

literatures of the Latin American countries share some similarities, they have their

distinct qualities. The history of modern Latin American writing has a tendency to

homogenize and lump all countries into a single and manageable unit; but, at the same

time, it maintains the distinct nationalism of each country; the histories of these

countries intersect at certain points, but they remain quite distinct from one another.

Though the Latin American writers come from different nationalistic backgrounds, they

share a common goal. Their aim is to create a literature from the bloodied soil of Latin

America.

Latin American literature aligns itself with the history of the region. The whole

of Latin American Literature can be divided into four periods: the colonial period, the

independence period, the national consolidation period, and the contemporary period.

During the colonial period, the literature reflected its Spanish and Portuguese roots and

consisted primarily of didactic prose and the chronicles of events. The independence

movement of the early 1800s saw a move towards patriotic themes, in mostly poetic

4

form. The consolidation period that followed brought about Romanticism--and later,

modernism--with essays being the favourite mode of expression. Finally, Latin

American literature evolved into the novel and drama forms in the early 20th century.

The earliest Latin American literary works in Spanish are claimed equally by

Spain and its overseas colonies. The business of war and of Christianizing and

organizing the newly discovered continent was not favourable to the development of

lyric poetry and prose fiction. The Spanish-American literature of the 16th century

excels mainly in didactic prose works and in the chronicles of events. The spirit of the

Spanish Renaissance, as well as much religious fervour, is apparent in the writings of

the early colonial period. Men of the church, predominated in all cultural endeavours.

Mexico and Lima, the capitals of the vice-royalties of New Spain and Peru,

respectively, became the centres of all intellectual activity in the 17th century. City

life, a splendid replica of that of Spain, became a routine of erudition, ceremony, and

artificiality. The creoles often outstripped the Spaniards in the acceptance of the

baroque styles then those current in Europe. In literature, the acceptance of the current

styles was evidenced in the popularity of the works of the Spanish dramatist Pedro

Calderon de la Barcay Henao and, the Spanish poet, Luis de Gongora y Argote, and in

the local literary production. The most notable 17th

century poet was the Mexican Nun

Juana Ines de la Cruz, who wrote verse plays, both religious and secular. She also

wrote poems in defense of women and autobiographical prose, on her various learned

interests. A mixture of satire with realistic traits, which was then current in Spanish

literature, appeared also overseas, both in poetry and in the novel.

In Spain, the Habsburg dynasty was replaced by the Bourbon dynasty in 1700.

This event opened the colonies, with or without official sanction, to French influences,

evidenced in a wide acceptance of French classicism and, during the later part of the

5

century, in the spread of the libertarian doctrines of the Enlightenment. Jose Joaquin

Fernandez de Lizardi, known as ‗the Mexico thinker‘, was fundamentally a

pamphleteer and essayist who travelled with a portable printing press, turning out

material in support of the war of independence. His first novel, The Itching Parrot, led

to a current of romantic novels in the region. Although the picaresque genre in Spain

was used by the church to preach morality, Lizardi‘s picaresque novel was brutally

anticlerical. The Peruvian dramatist Peralta Barnuevo adapted French plays. Other

writers, such as the Ecuadorian Francisco Eugenio and the Colombian Antonio Narino

aided the diffusion of French revolutionary ideas toward the end of the 18th century.

During this epoch, new literary centers also arose. Quito in Ecuador, Bogota in

Colombia, and Caracas in Venezuela, in the north, and soon afterward Buenos Aires,

in the south, began to vie with the old viceregal capitals in learning, publications, and

literary gatherings. Contacts with the non-Spanish world became more frequent, and

the intellectual monopoly of the mother country was challenged.

The period of struggle for independence brought a flood of warlike patriotic

writings, largely in poetry. The first Spanish-American novel was Periquillo

Sarmiento, by the Mexican author Jose Joaquin Fernandez. In it, the adventures of a

roguish protagonist afford panoramic views of colonial life, which contain veiled

criticisms of society. Literature and politics were closely intermingled during this

period, as writers assumed the pose of Roman republican tribunes. The Ecuadorian

poet and political leader Jose Joaquin Olmedo praised the South American

revolutionary leader, soldier, and statesman Simon Bolivar in his poem ―Victoria de

Junin‖. The Venezuelan poet Andres Bello extolled tropical agriculture in his famous

Silvas Americanas, which is similar to the bucolic poetry of the Roman poet Virgil.

The Cuban poet Jose Maria de Heredia y Campuzano foreshadowed the coming of

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romanticism in poems such as ―Al Niagara‖, written while he was an exile in the U.S.

About the same time, in the south, an anonymous popular poetry of a political nature

began to rise among the gauchos of the La Plata region.

During the period of consolidation, the new Latin American republics tended to

look still more toward France than Spain, but with a new nativistic emphasis. The

Eighteenth-century classical forms gave way to romanticism, dominant through much

of the 19th century. Argentina was exposed to French-European romanticism by

Esteban Echeverria. French influence also spread via Mexico, while the Hispanic

realistic tradition continued through the costumbrista writings. Political and economic

consolidation and struggle during this period involved many Spanish-American

writers. Notable was the so-called Argentine romanticist-rebel-exile generation of the

opponents of the regime of the dictator Juan Manuel de Rosas. This group, influential

also in Chile and Uruguay, included Jose Marmol , author of a cloak-and-dagger

romance, Amalia. Jose Marmol learned his craft from Sir Walter Scott and Alexander

Dumas. The educator (later president of Argentina), Domingo Faustino Sarmiento,

whose biographical-social study Facundo indicated that the basic problem of Latin

America was the gap between its primitive state and its European influences. The

novel progressed notably in this period. The Chilean Alberto Blest Gana made the

transition from romanticism to realism, depicting the Chilean society with Balzacian

techniques, in his Martín Rivas. The novel is illustrative of his desire to become the

Balzac of Chile, although, at its base, it is still a Romantic work, rather than a realistic

one. In fact, it has been termed the best example of Romantic realism in Latin America

and it exhibits the typical polarity that is so evident in the novels of his period: city

against country, reality against appearances, and good against evil characters. In

Ecuador, Juan Leon Mera idealized the Indian in a jungle setting, in the novel

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Cumanda. In Cumanda, Mera lays the foundation for the modern novel of protest

against the inhuman treatment of the Indians, about whom he had solid documentary

knowledge. The same type of novel, overlaid with European sentimentalism and full of

fateful coincidences and melodramatic surprises, including the usual impossible

marriage of siblings, appeared in Peru under the title, Birds Without a Nest: A Story of

Indian Life and Priestly Opposition in Peru. The author, Clorinda Matto de Turner has

written a preface within the tradition of the moralistic essay, declaring that her purpose

was to exhibit the unjust treatment meted out to the Peruvian Indian. It is a prime

example of the nineteenth century Romantic novel in that it is far more concerned with

theme than with technique. In Mexico the outstanding romantic realist was Ignacio

Altamirano. He attempted to raise the quality of the Latin American novel by urging

his fellow authors to read widely, in order to gain a more universal literary vision.

Although an Indian himself, and desirous of making the novel more realistic, he

tended to produce romantically stereotyped characters, Indian or otherwise, and failed

to plead the Indian‘s case strongly. His Clementia and Christmas in the Mountains, are

worthy novels, but his ability to tell a good adventure story is best displayed in El

Zarco: the Bandit. There are two couples in El Zarco, one positive and the other

negative, the one illustrating what is good for Mexico and the other illustrating what

threatens to destroy it. Naturalistic novelists, like the Argentine, Eugenio Cambaceres,

author of Sin rumbo, reflected the influence of the experimental novels of the French

writer Emile Zola.

Modernism, a movement of literary renewal, appeared during the 1880s. It was

favoured by the political and economic consolidation of the Latin American republics

and the resultant peace and prosperity among the larger nations. It emphasized the

purely artistic, rather than the utilitarian, functions of literature. It was characterized by

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refined sensibilities, even hyper-aestheticism, and in contrast to criollismo’s desire to

come to grips with Latin American reality, its aim was to rise above it, in a manner of

escape. The modernists shared a cosmopolitan culture influenced by recent European

trends, including French Parnassian and symbolist poetry; and in their writings they

blended the old and the new, the foreign and the native forms and themes. Modernism

spread from Latin America to Spain, culminated in about 1910, and left its mark on

prose fiction, in a greater concern on the part of the writer for sound artistic

accomplishment and in an increase in the use of imagery in prose style, issuing,

ultimately, in some novels that must be read almost as poetry, on account of the

intensity of their language. Concurrently, many writers bypassed modernism,

continuing to produce realistic or naturalistic novels on regional social problems.

Regional fiction was produced by the Argentine, Ricardo Guiraldes, in Don

Segundo Sombra, the culmination of the gaucho novel; the Colombian, Jose Eustasio

Rivera, in La Voragine , a novel of the jungle; and the Venezuelan, Romulo Gallegos,

in Dona Barbara, a novel of the plains. The Guatemalan diplomat Miguel Angel

Asturias, who was awarded the 1966 Lenin Peace Prize and the 1967 Nobel Prize in

literature, excelled as a political satirist in El Senor Presidente. Jorge Luis Borges, the

first avant garde poet, became the most distinguished writer of modern Argentina,

specializing in esoteric metaphysical tales. His works are also widely read in

translation. In collaboration, he and Adolfo Bioy Casares, stimulated interest in the

sophisticated detective story and in the fantasy literature. International acclaim came to

Julio Cortazar for his experimental novel Rayuela. Cortazar‘s works have been praised

as brilliant and original. The new Mexican novel departed from mere crude realism, as

a result of the influence of the British writers Virginia Woolf and Aldous Huxley, the

Irish writer James Joyce, and, especially, the American writers John Dos Passos and

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William Faulkner. Within a regional framework, Jose Revueltas wrote Human

Mourning, and Agustin Yanez wrote The Edge of the Storm, adding new psychological

and magical dimensions. Carlos Fuentes in Where the Air is Clear alternates, in

manner, between the purely fantastic-psychological and the nativistic.

Since 1900, the Latin American novel in Spanish was characterized by three

specific features: the realist-modernist duality, super-regionalism and the striving

towards universalization. The realist-modernist trend continued upto 1910, the year of

the bourgeois- democratic revolution in Mexico. This event reverberated in the

consciousness of Latin American writers. Their ability to perceive and depict the

violent reality, which the modernists tried to black out, made the need for realist writing

imperative. However, literary realism in the Latin American, context meant the

portrayal of the peculiar problems and conflicts of the region, which accounts for the

incorporation of the qualifying term 'regionalism'. The writers groped for an

understanding of the American situation, searching for the causes of economic

backwardness and the misery of their people. This led to the over-emphasizing of the

antagonism between civilization and barbarism, in their works. Nature versus

civilization became the focal point in fiction writing. Social problems continued to find

an echo but nature was depicted as an all-powerful force in their writings. The period

from the first world war to 1950, left an indelible imprint on the people of Latin

America. Fascism was directly experienced in the Spanish Civil War, and the fall of the

Spanish Republic in 1936, was an intensely felt personal loss for the Latin American

writers. At the economic plane, the development of industry, however marginal,

resulted in the growth of urban centres and the emergence of indigenous elites. But

hopes of national resurgence were belied as the U S intervention and exploitation of the

natural resources of Latin America advanced in a systematic manner. The situation was

10

complicated by political violence and the curtailment of democratic rights. A false

image of development of Hispanic America was projected contrary to its actual

underdevelopment. Such naked conditions prevalent in society were bound to have

their reflection in the works of art and literature. The shift from a regionalist or

localized view of problems and conflicts to a view of reality in a wider perspective, i.e.,

in the framework of the correlation of forces at the international plane, became

inevitable. Writers were neither impressed nor convinced by the euphoria of 'progress'

sought to be created in the continent. They were now able to discern the danger posed

by the conditions of chaos and instability that engulfed their region. The threat of

neocolonialism became abundantly real and clear to them, particularly in view of the

penetration of the U S economic and cultural influence in the life of the peoples of

Latin America. The problem of Man versus Nature, which had hitherto dominated the

literature of the continent, naturally receded into the background, making way for the

portrayal of man caught in the mire of moral and socio-economic conflict.

In general, the Latin American novelists in Spanish have achieved international

recognition with their new sophisticated techniques, styles, perspectives and themes,

transcending the old regionalism. The stylistic label ―magic realism‖, is applicable to

many of the stronger narrators, those who seem to convey a sense of the mystery

hidden behind reality. A group of writers suddenly rose to prominence during the

1960‘s. This period is often refereed to as the ‗boom‘ of Latin American literature,

signalling the birth of the ‗New Latin American Novel‘. The Cuban novelist Alejo

Carpentier gave a new mythological dimension to the novel of the jungle in The Lost

Steps. His Reasons of State deals with the subject of dictatorship. He creates a

powerful effect in the novel by the use of the interior monologue to characterize the

dictator. The Peruvian Mario Vargas Llosa, found many perspectives in the apparently

11

closed world of a military school, in The Time of the Hero. Most of his works are

about the military establishment, prostitution or a combination of the two. His The

Green House and Conversation in the Cathedral, are bitter analyses of the Peruvian

society. The Brazilian, Joao Guimaraes Rosa‘s The Devil to Pay in the Backlands, is

written in Joycean language, rich in neologisms and regional speech. The Chilean-born

Jose Donoso, who is often compared with Llosa, is best-known internationally for his

masterpiece The Obscene Bird of Night. Donoso‘s novels represent an advance in the

novelist‘s art in his country and, at the same time, they continue the country‘s tradition

of examining a segment of the society, by the use of carefully controlled language. The

work of Julio Cortazar presents a major example of the movement of the Latin

American novel into the universal sphere. His novel, Hopscotch, moves away from the

sterile atmosphere of the Argentine novels of his generation and presents a far more

authentic existentialist hero in Horacio Oliveira. Oliveira is a person in motion,

creating a new persona, however defective, as he moves. One of the important

contributions of Cortazar to the new novel, is his insistence that the reader participate

in the creative act with him. In the work of these writers, the Latin American novel in

Spanish, not only came of age, but also appeared to impress a widening international

public, as a most vigorous development of universal interest. In Colombia, Jorge

Isaac‘s Maria and Jose Eustacia Rivera‘s La Vordgine were the two novels which

dominated the centre stage of national literature for a long time. María, a lyric tale of

doomed love on an old plantation, is a Hispanic masterpiece among romantic novels.

Jorge Isaac and other romantics were generally more concerned with nature, and the

heroine of Isaac‘s novel appears to be almost a projection of the landscape of

Colombia‘s valley, Cauca Valley. The tale is typical of its day, involving an encounter

of soul mates who are separated and then reunited at the conclusion, only to learn that

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fate has made their marriage impossible. In this case, the couple is brother and sister

by adoption and her death prevents their marriage. Garcia Marquez‘s One Hundred

Years of Solitude and other novels, radically changed the standards by which the Latin

American critics and readers measure their national heritage. His novels suddenly leap

over the nationally defined boundaries of Latin American literature, to become

international phenomena. With his new narrative techniques, he deregionalizes,

denationalizes and internationalizes Latin American literature. His ability to produce

major works that have achieved both critical and popular success, has tended to efface

national literary boundaries and to catapult Latin American literature to the cutting

edge of literary innovation. Thus, Garcia Marquez, who hails from Colombia, has

taken the novel of Latin America to new heights, transcending the local world through

magical and timeless unity. The history of Colombia is fraught with violent and bloody

incidents, and Garcia Marquez has been a witness to many of such events, which get

reflected in his novels.

Before the Spanish colonization of the Americas by the right of conquest, the

northern region of South America, that is contemporary Colombia, had no culture akin

to that of the (Peruvian) Incas, the (Central American) Mayas, or the (Mexican) Aztecs.

That region was populated by the Tairona and the Chibcha Indian tribes, who were

organized as clans, from which derived the local monarchy, who governed pre–

Hispanic ―Colombia‖. In 1509, Vasco Nunez de Balboa established the first

settlement, as an advanced guard of the Spanish invasion and conquest. After Gonzalo

Jimenez de Quesada‘s conquest of the Chibchas in 1538, Bogota became the centre of

colonial Spanish rule. In 1810, upon the collapse of the Spanish Empire in Colombia,

provincial juntas soon arose to challenge the political authority of the national

government in Bogota; yet six years later, in 1816, the royalist armies of Count Pablo

13

Murillo restored Spanish rule to Colombia. It was because of the internal bickering, that

allowed the fledgling Colombia to fall to the sword of General Murillo; this period is

immortalized in Colombia‘s history, with the colourful name of ‗The Booby

Fatherland‘. Three years later, in 1819, when Simon Bolivar began a second war of

independence from the Spanish Empire, he proclaimed the supranational state of

Greater Colombia whose capital city was Bogota and which comprised northern South

America and Southern Central America (contemporary Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador,

Panama) and the previous Viceroyalty of New Granada.

Gran Colombia‘s Independence in 1819, revealed many obstacles to

nationhood; the geography was a formidable obstacle to modernization, such as paved

roads; thus, the high cost of transport facilitated the establishment of economically and

politically discrete autonomous communities. The Colombian society had wrestled with

modernity and modernism since the eighteenth century, and the social and philosophic

dynamism of the modernizing capitalist revolution, presented the Colombian ruling

classes with a choice; either progress into the modern industrial world or perish in

backwater barbarism. To incorporate the country into the world, the Colombians looked

to the European and the U.S. models of government, politics, and economy.

As the nineteenth century Colombians explored, described, and colonized their

interior, they mapped racial hierarchy onto an emerging national geography, composed

of distinct localities and regions. This created a racialized discourse of regional

differentiation that assigned greater morality and progress to certain regions that they

marked as ―white‖. Meanwhile, those places defined as ―black‖ and ―Indian‖, were

associated with disorder, backwardness, and danger; technology and modernization

became associated with race.

14

The nation of Colombia began violently — from the Bolivarian wars for

independence from the empire to the Marxist-Leninist guerrillas of the FARC:

Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. The initial, Bolivarian violence was for

liberation from the Spanish Empire. After the independence, there arose well-defined

socio-economic regions, divided north-south, by parallel spurs of the Andes mountains,

which contributed to continued civil and political instability, even after having expelled

the Spanish Crown. Moreover, Colombia's geographically and culturally dispersed

populations and natural resources much hindered the government's modernization of

the country and the nation. The two political parties which got concretized after the

independence, were the Liberals and the Conservatives. Although initially forming

themselves around the nucleus of two distinct and different ideologies, long years of

bloody conflict have eroded the distinctions between the parties. The Conservatives and

the Liberals are more like warring factions or clans than any parties with firmly

established or radically opposing ideologies. It has often been said of Colombia‘s

parties, that you do not join them, you are born into them; and indeed they act more as

territorial and familial units than as peacefully functioning parties with distinct political

platforms. In addition, the country is split into two main regional groups—the

Costenos of the coastal Carribbean, and the Cachacos of the central highland. Both

groups use those terms as pejorative of the other, and both occasionally view the other

with disdain. The Costenos tend to be more racially mixed, verbally outgoing and

superstitious. They are primarily the descendants of pirates and smugglers, with a

mixture of black slaves. They are also dancers, adventurers and people full of gaiety.

The Cachacos, on the other hand, are more formal, aristocratic and racially pure, who

pride themselves on their advanced cities, such as Bogota, and on their ability to speak

excellent Spanish. Traditionally, the tropical Caribbean coast has been a Liberal bastion

15

and in the cool mountains and interior valleys, the Conservatives are strong. Garcia

Marquez views himself as a Costeno. Throughout the nineteenth century, Colombia

was wracked by rebellions, civil wars of both the local and national variety and several

coup d‘etat. This century of bloodshed had its culmination in 1899, when the War of

Thousand Days began—Colombia‘s most devastating civil war, a conflict that ended

later in 1902. The war claimed the lives of over 1,00,000 people, primarily peasants and

their sons.

In 1934, the reformist President Dr. Alfonso Lopez Pumarejo, unanimously

voted to office by the Colombian Liberal Party, installed The Revolution on the March,

characterized by labour law and social services reforms, benefitting the working class

and the Indian peasants, much to the anger of the reactionary Conservatives. Twelve

years later, in August 1946, Mariano Ospina Perez assumed office as the first

Conservative party President of Colombia. Two years later, on 9 April 1948, the

assassination of the popular and influential Liberal candidate, Jorge Eliecer Gaitan

began the decade period (1948–58) of Colombia‘s history known as La Violencia,

between the right-wing and the left-wing of the national political spectrum. By the mid-

1960s, the country had suffered some two hundred thousand assassinations; from 1946

to 1966, La Violencia had occurred in five stages: (i) resumption of political violence,

before and after the presidential election of 1946; (ii) popular urban insurrection

responding to the Gaitan assassination; (iii) guerrilla warfare-- against the Conservative

government of Ospina Pérez; (iv) incomplete pacification and negotiation from army

General Rojas Pinilla, who deposed Laureano Gomez; and (v) disjointed fighting under

the Liberal–Conservative coalition of the National Front from 1958 to 1975.

Violence was a stumbling block to the growth of Latin American literature.

Colombian literature was obviously on the wane. Colombia had always been a bastion

16

of Catholic conservatism, political traditionalism and literary purism. Its writers had

been either grammarians or academicians. Barring a few exceptions, the country had

been notorious as the source of some of the worst writings to appear in the continent,

being dominated mainly by extravagantly exotic, erotic and even pornographic

writings. In the name of realism, the novel of violence held sway for some time. The

Colombian literature confined itself to some superfluous, shallow and even anecdotal

themes.

The victory of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, opened a new chapter in the

history of the Latin American people. It opened new vistas, aroused new hopes and

aspirations. But more importantly, the Cuban Revolution focussed the attention of the

world on South America, which had remained isolated, if not insulated, thus far. The

people of the world were able to appreciate the immense potential, both material and

moral, that this hitherto obscure continent held for mankind. The relatively unknown,

safe and secret haven for U S exploitation was laid bare before the world by the Cuban

Revolution. This, in turn, increased the demand for all things Latin American,

including works of literature, as the world wanted to know more and more about the

continent of the future. The desire to know more about its literary creations was roused

to an unprecedented level. Apart from this, the Cuban Revolution had a tremendous

influence on the writers and intellectuals of Latin America. The literary world

witnessed a definite process of polarization between progressive and conservative

trends. The conscious pursuit, by the revolutionary government of Cuba, of a cultural

policy aimed at focussing attention on the neo-colonial danger and galvanizing anti-

imperialist sentiments played a catalytic role in this process.

In spite of the long turmoil and disorder that existed in Latin America, after the

Cuban Revolution, the region enjoyed increasing economic prosperity and a new-found

17

confidence which gave rise to a literary boom. From 1960 to 1967, the major works of

the boom were published. Many of these novels were somewhat rebellious, from the

general point of view of Latin American culture. Authors crossed traditional

boundaries, experimented with language, and often mixed different styles of writing, in

their works. Structures of literary works were also changing. Boom writers ventured

outside traditional narrative structures, embracing non-linearity and experimental

narration. The figure of Jorge Luis Borges, though not a Boom author per se, was

extremely influential for the Boom generation. Latin American authors were inspired

by North American and European authors as well as each others‘ works; many of the

authors knew one another and influenced their styles. The Boom really put Latin

American literature on the global map. It was distinguished by daring and experimental

novels such as Julio Cortazar‘s Rayuela's, that were frequently published in Spain and

quickly translated into English. Though the literary boom occurred while Latin

America was having commercial success, the works of this period tended to move away

from the positives of the modernization that was underway. Boom works tended not to

focus on social and local issues, but rather on universal and, at times, metaphysical

themes. Of all the Boom writers, Gabriel Garcia Marquez was the most influential

writer of the period. He was the first of the four Latin American novelists to be

included in the literary Boom; the other three writers were the Peruvian Mario Vargas

Llosa, the Argentine Julio Cortazar and the Mexican, Carlos Fuentes. One Hundred

Years of Solitude earned him international fame as a novelist of the magical realism

movement within the literatures of Latin America.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez was born on 6 March 1928 in Aracataca, a town in

Northern Colombia, where he was raised by his maternal grandparents, in a house filled

with countless aunts and rumours of ghosts. His childhood was a happy one, in which

18

he enjoyed a close relationship with his grandfather and he was raised in a storytelling

environment in that the elders were constantly reliving the past and recounting

anecdotes about the history of the family and the town. His grandfather, Colonel

Nicolas Marquez, had fought on the liberal side against the ruling Conservatives in the

Thousand Days‘ War, the last of a succession of civil wars that had rent Colombia, and

would often reminisce about stirring times. His grandmother and aunts were credulous

and superstitious women who believed in the supernatural and recounted all sorts of

magical happenings, as if they were everyday events. The author has often claimed that

it was from his grandmother that he learned his narrative manner.

In the law college where he studied, Garcia Marquez found that he had

absolutely no interest in his studies. He began to skip classes and neglect both his

studies and himself. He wandered around Bogota and rode the streetcars. He read

poetry instead of law. But, one day, his life changed upside down after he read a simple

book. It was Kafka‘s The Metamorphosis. The book had a profound effect on Garcia

Marquez, making him aware that literature did not have to follow a straight narrative

and unfold along a traditional plot. The effect was liberating. For the first time he

realized that he could write in this way too. Had he known it before, he would have

started writing a long time ago. He also remarked that Kafka‘s ‗voice‘ had the same

echoes as his grandmother‘s—his grandmother used to tell stories, the wildest things

with a completely natural tone of voice. Kafka‘s influence made him read all the

literature he had been missing. He began reading voraciously; devouring everything he

could get his hands on. He also began writing fiction, and to his surprise, his first story

―The Third Resignation‖ was published in 1946 by the Liberal Bogota newspaper El

Espectador. He entered a period of creativity, penning ten more stories for the

newspaper, over the next few years.

19

Faulkner and Sophocles were the two big influences on him. Faulkner amazed

him with his ability to reformulate his childhood into a mythical past, inventing a town

and a county in which to house his prose. In Faulkner‘s mythical Yoknapatawpha, he

found the seeds of Macondo; and from Sophocles‘ Oedipus Rex, he found the ideas of

plot revolving around the society and the abuses of power. Garcia became dissatisfied

with his earlier stories, believing them to be too abstract from his true experiences.

They were simply intellectual elaborations, nothing to do with reality. Faulkner taught

him that a writer should write about what is close to him; and for years Garcia Marquez

had been struggling to understand the meaning of this statement. Even his earlier

stories Leaf Storm, No One Writes to the Colonel and In Evil Hour were unemotional

and abstract. Leaf Storm was too indebted to Faulkner and No One Writes to the

Colonel and In Evil Hour were too far away from his imagined goal, the image he had

been developing for years. He knew that his ultimate work would take place in the

mythical town of Macondo, but he had to find the right tone in which to tell his tale; he

had to discover his true voice. Finally, in 1965, an inspiration suddenly struck him and

he could find the tone of his novel. For the first time in twenty years, a stroke of

lightning clearly revealed the voice of Macondo. He started writing and he wrote every

day for eighteen months. In 1967, One Hundred Years of Solitude was published and,

within a week, all 8000 copies were gone. From that point on, success was assured and

the novel sold out a new printing each week, going on to sell half a million copies

within three years. It was translated into over thirty seven languages and it won four

international prizes. Garcia Marquez himself acknowledges in one of his interviews to

Gene H. Bell-Villada that the novel is a great success in many languages:

Gene Bell-Villada (GB-V) : How many languages has One Hundred

Years of Solitude been translated into?

20

Garcia Marquez : Thirty seven at my wife‘s latest count.

GB-V : How did the Japanese version fare? Did

readers understand it?

Garcia Marquez : It caught on fast. Not only did they

understand the book, they thought of me

as Japanese….

GB-V : Outside of Spanish, which language has it

sold best in?

Garcia Marquez : It‘s hard to track down. The first Russian

edition sold a million copies, in their

foreign literature magazine. Apparently

they‘re preparing translations into other

Soviet languages. The Italian version has

sold well, I believe. (19)

Gabriel Garcia was 39 years old when the world first learned his name. His fame grew

exponentially, not only in Latin America but throughout the international community.

When the sales of One Hundred Years of Solitude skyrocketed, awards and honours

rained down on him. Its critical acclaim and popularity have forever changed Garcia

Marquez‘s life. Gene H. Bell-Villada praises the novel ―as a glorious instance of

literature‘s possibilities, of what prose narrative can do for our imaginations and

emotions, our politics and pleasures, our knowledge of life and our sense of humor‖

(204). Unlike the other books of the Boom, One Hundred Years of Solitude moved

beyond an academic audience and elite writing circles, to reach popular audiences

across the world. In Latin America, people from all socioeconomic classes and various

backgrounds read the book and recognized their world. Though several Boom authors

21

were important during this period, One Hundred Years of Solitude was the only book

that truly won popular and critical success. Immensely popular with Latin Americans,

the novel also transcends any notion of regionalism, and captures international

attention.

In 1969, the novel won the Chianchiano Prize in Italy and was named the Best

Foreign Book in France. In 1970, it was published in English and was chosen as one of

the best twelve books of the year in the United States. Two years later, Gareia Marquez

was awarded the Romulo Gallegos Prize and the Neustadt Prize and in 1971, a

Peruvian named Mario Vargas Llosa (he won the Nobel prize for literature, 2010) even

published a book about his life and works. In 1981, he was awarded the French Legion

of Honor, and in 1982, he received the Nobel Prize for Literature, the most prestigious

recognition possible for a major writer. He was the fourth Latin American to win a

Nobel Prize and the first Colombian. Colombia went wild with excitement, sending

Garcia Marquez off to accept the prize with an entourage of sixty dancers and musical

performers to bring a tropical celebration to Sweden. Garcia Marquez delivered a

moving speech about the political tragedies of Latin America, and the Nobel

Committee acknowledged Garcia Marquez for his global readership and

humanitarianism. For more than forty years, Garcia Marquez has had a great impact on

the scholarly and academic worlds. Numerous studies have been written about his

work, both in Latin America and throughout the international community. In the United

States, Garcia Marquez has been well received and admired. In the United States, many

scholarly and critical studies have emerged in the past fifteen years; important critics

include Gene H. Bell-Villada, Steven Boldy, Harley Oberhelman, and Raymond

Williams. Garcia Marquez‘s influence on other writers in Latin America, the United

States, Europe, and across the globe has been significant and lasting. Before the Boom,

22

in the twentieth century, it was typically the French who influenced the American

writers. When One Hundred Years of Solitude appeared in translation in the United

States, it was something new and wholly different. American reviews of Garcia

Marquez‘s work are typically positive, and writers such as Robert Coover and John

Barth, have praised One Hundred Years of Solitude as brilliant literature. Garcia

Marquez‘s work has influenced such highly acclaimed American authors as Anne

Tyler, Jonathan Safran Foer, Oscar Hijuelos, and fellow Nobel laureate Toni Morrison.

Morrison‘s writing in particular, which focuses on the experiences of African

Americans, blends the fantastical and mythical elements with realistic depictions of

racial, gender, and class conflict. The influence of Garcia Marquez is apparent in such

Morrison novels as Song of Solomon and Beloved, in which the heavy weight of the

past presses down on present reality.

Garcia Marquez‘s literary influence also extends far beyond the United States.

Garcia Marquez has been a major influence on contemporary Chinese fiction, and

echoes of his style can be detected in the work of the Nigerian poet and novelist Ben

Okri, who describes both the mundane and the metaphysical in his works. The success

of the Latin American Boom helped set the stage for the postmodern novel and the

Post-Boom novel. The Boom itself changed the way Latin American culture and arts

are perceived around the world and opened the doors for many new writers. Like

Borges‘ work, Garcia Marquez‘s writing was revolutionary and affirmed the power of

invention. Of all the Boom writers in his generation, only Garcia Marquez was a true

Magical Realist. The critic Bell-Villada attests, ―Because of the enormous reach of his

reputation, Garcia Marquez is now seen not just as another major author but as the

prime symbol of the surge of creativity in Latin American letters in our time‖ (203). In

Latin America, writers cannot escape Garcia Marquez‘s looming shadow, and his

23

popularity and success are viewed as both a blessing and a curse. The style of magical

realism is apparent in the works of Isabel Allende, one of the first successful women

novelists in Latin America. Allende‘s novels often focus on the experiences of women,

weaving together myth and realism. The House of the Spirits concerns a cast of bizarre

characters, telling a story that covers several generations, and it includes psychic

abilities, ghosts, and strange accidents. Allende is often compared to Garcia Marquez,

and critics have analyzed The House of the Spirits as a unique reworking of One

Hundred Years of Solitude. Many Latin American authors have tried to free themselves

from the shadow of Garcia Marquez and from magical realism, including the critically

acclaimed writers Jose Manuel Prieto, Horacio Castellanos Moya, and Francisco

Goldman. Other Post-Boom authors include Antonio Skarmeta, Rosario Ferre, and

Gustavo Sainz, who have typically used a simpler, more readable style than the Boom

authors or have returned to realism. Yet almost all Latin American writers have learned

from Garcia Marquez‘s imaginative oeuvre, and, in fact, he galvanized Colombian

literature in a way that was unprecedented. For many writers in Latin America, Garcia

Marquez was the model Latin American writer of their youth, a hero and mentor who

inspired many to pick up a pen. He raised the bar high with the quality of his novels,

however, and each succeeding generation of Latin American authors, runs the danger of

being pigeonholed as writers of magical realism.

In Colombia and throughout much of Latin America, Garcia Marquez is an

icon. In Colombia, everyone knows who he is, and most people have read One

Hundred Years of Solitude, or at least a story or newspaper article written by him; his

work is very much in the public realm. Garcia Marquez has greatly affected the reading

public, specifically Latin Americans, who immediately respond to and recognize the

world that he presents as their world—the social and cultural reality, and the specific

24

history of their countries. Yet his work is also widely appreciated around the world by

readers who can identify with the solitude suffered in modern times. No South

American writer or literary novel from South America had ever had such an impact.

One Hundred Years of Solitude and Garcia Marquez‘s diverse, acclaimed work that

followed, have inspired a vast array of critical scholarship and inspired readers from

around the world. Garcia Marquez is considered one of the most significant authors of

the twentieth century, and his work has influenced ideas about the novel, the technique

of magical realism, and the power of imagination. It is difficult to imagine the

contemporary novel without Garcia Marquez. One of the most famous, beloved, and

critically acclaimed literary writers alive today, Garcia Marquez has greatly contributed

to and rejuvenated contemporary literature.

Though it is for his long-lasting impact on literature that Garcia Marquez is

most widely known, he is also famous for his political ideologies and journalistic

background. Garcia Marquez has always been outspoken about politics. Early on in his

career, he committed himself to several years of vigorous journalistic activity, in

support of the revolution, and over the years, his fame and journalism have provided a

platform from which he could fight against human injustices and support leftist causes.

He has been outspoken about the U.S. involvement in Colombia and other Latin

American countries, and for many years he was denied a visa by the U.S. government.

After three decades spent on the U.S. Immigration blacklist owing to his Marxist ties,

he finally saw the curious travel ban lifted by the administration of President Bill

Clinton, whose favourite novel, it seems, is One Hundred Years of Solitude. Though

Garcia Marquez is well respected for serving as an intermediary between governments

and revolutionaries, he is often criticized in Latin America for remaining close to

25

Castro; unlike many artists and writers who later changed their views about the Castro

regime, Garcia Marquez has always supported the Cuban Revolution.

Though Garcia Marquez is a social critic in his fiction and assertively leftist in

politics, his fiction is not didactic or overtly political. Turning to journalism instead of

fiction to deal directly with political and social issues, Garcia Marquez rejects social-

protest literature, believing that it limits artistic expression and freedom. Yet nearly all

of his work addresses social-political concerns in some way—though often subtly. His

fiction examines the realities of colonial and postcolonial history and cultures in the

Americas while also exploring the truths and myths of national histories. Though critics

focus on the magical realism of his work, Garcia Marquez claims, he writes ―socialist

realism,‖ and critic Raymond Williams agrees: ―One Hundred Years of Solitude might

seem at first like a book of fantasy, but it is one of the most historical books of the

Boom and it abounds in social and political implications‖ (96). Constant political

discontent, national instability, and Colombian history and myths have shaped not only

Garcia Marquez‘s ideology but also the grand scope and depth of his fiction.

There are many incidents that happened in the Colombian history which have a

tremendous influence on his works. An important event that would influence his

writings was the Banana Strike Massacre of 1928. Although coffee is generally

considered Colombia's main export, for the first few decades of the twentieth century,

bananas were also of crucial importance to the economy. The banana trade had its

principal manifestation in the United Fruit Company, an American outfit, that had a

virtual monopoly on the banana industry, which at the time was the only source of

income for many of the costeno areas, including Aracataca. One of the more lamentable

examples of Western Imperialism veiled as prosperity, the UFC had unlimited

economic power and tremendous political clout, but it was a corrupt and amoral

26

company that exploited its Colombian workers terribly. In October of 1928, over

32,000 native workers went on strike, giving a charter of demands. The response of the

Yankees was essentially to ignore their demands; shortly after the strike began, the

Colombian government occupied the banana zone and employed the military as

strikebreakers. One night in December, a huge crowd gathered in Cienaga to hold a

demonstration. In order to quell the incident, the Conservative government sent in the

troops, who fired on the unarmed workers, killing hundreds. Over the next few months,

more people simply vanished, and finally the whole incident was officially denied and

struck from the history books. Garcia Marquez incorporates the incident in One

Hundred Years of Solitude.

La Violencia or The Violence is the event that would eventually affect Garcia

Marquez‘s writing. The Violence had its roots in the banana massacre. Jorge Eliecer

Gaitan was the only politician who was courageous enough to take a stand against the

government‘s corruption. He was a young Liberal member of the Congress who

convened meetings to investigate the incident. Gaitan began to rise in prominence, a

champion of the peasants and the poor, but an annoyance to the powerful members of

both parties, who viewed him with something akin to fear and loathing. Using the radio

as his medium, he heralded a time of change, a time when the people would take part in

a true democracy and corporations would be forced to act responsibly. By 1946, Gaitan

was powerful enough to cause a split in his own party, which had been in power since

1930. The split caused a Conservative return to power, and fearing a reprisal, they

began organizing paramilitary groups whose ultimate purpose was to terrorize the

Liberal voters, which they did admirably, killing thousands of them by the end of the

year. In 1947, the Liberals gained control of the Congress, putting Gaitan in charge, as

party leader. Tensions rose, and on April 9, 1948, Gaitan was assassinated in Bogota.

27

The city was convulsed by lethal riots for three days, a period called el

Bogotazo, and responsible for 2500 deaths. La Violencia then shifted into an even more

deadly phase. Guerrilla armies were organized by both parties, and terror swept through

the land. Towns and villages were burned, thousands -- including women and children -

- were brutally murdered, farms were confiscated, and over a million peasants

immigrated to Venezuela. In 1949, Conservatives even gunned down a Liberal

politician, in the middle of giving a speech in the very halls of Congress. The

Conservatives finally dissolved the Congress, declared the country to be in a state of

siege, and the Liberals were hunted, persecuted, and murdered. The country was ripped

apart. The Violence would later become the backdrop to several of Garcia Marquez's

novels and stories.

Garcia Marquez is a great exponent of magical realism. He is a master in

transforming the fabulous into true existence. He brings magic realism by fusing the

fantastic with the factual. In magical realism, he integrates unusual incidents into

everyday life. He achieves magic realism by presenting the events in an exaggerated

manner. However, the exaggeration is almost always numerically specific and each

occurrence becomes a sense of reality. Magical realism is normally associated with the

fictions that tell the tales of those on the margins of political power and influential

society. It is practised in many of the postcolonial countries that are battling against the

influence of their previous colonial rulers and consider themselves to be at the margins

of imperial power. It resists the dominant culture imposed by Western imperialism, in

all aspects. It pursues a postcolonial agenda with its characteristic literary technique,

with which it re-evaluates the perspectives that are different from the dominant Western

rational-empirical outlook. It abandons a conventional linear plot, set by the West.

There is no straight timeline and the story often moves back and forth. It includes

28

bizarre events and stories in the plot, mostly exploiting myths. Thus, it implicitly

questions the rational cultural traditions of the West. It mimics, subverts, exaggerates

and parodies the way in which the western European culture has used the novel to make

sense of experience. It incorporates into a basically realistic world, elements which,

according to the standards of literary realism, would be considered highly implausible,

impossible, or even disturbing intrusions from another realm. It not only critiques the

West, it challenges Eurocentricism by expressing the experiences of the margins and

drawing on local cultural traditions. It also exploits the long-standing social and

cultural constructs of the dominant Western world-view, only to undermine them. The

Western construction of the ‗other‘ is primitive and irrational. But, in magic realism,

the ‗other‘ perspectives are also accepted as equally valid ways of seeing the world.

Thus, magic realism levels the hierarchy between margin and center, arguing that

alternative outlooks must be taken into account. With magic realism, Garcia Marquez

wants to rebuild the true identity in the twisted reality caused by the dominant culture.

He uses it to create a new identity for his nation in particular and for the whole of Latin

America in general.

With his magic realism, he tries to bring out the true reality which was blurred

by subjective historian, political power and dominant paradigms, caused by high

culture. The reality that he brings out, raises the colonized nations to reconsider the true

reality, with the exclusion of the dominant paradigms caused by political and other

powers. These paradigms are predefined concepts that exist in unquestionable and

unchallengeable circumstances. He shows a confused and uncertain world in which

conflicts arise because there is a great desire to keep the ethnic identity and the social

political structure, despite oppression from the powers that be. In short, he wants to

29

show in his novels that ‗other‘ cultures have a unique value, based on their native

myths and superstition.

Garcia Marquez has written many novels and novellas which include, Leaf

Storm (1955), No One Writes to the Colonel (1961), In Evil Hour (1962), One Hundred

Years of Solitude (1967), The Autumn of the Patriarch(1975), Chronicle of a Death

Foretold (1981), Love in the Time of Cholera (1985), The General in His Labyrinth

(1989), Of Love and Other Demons (1994), Memories of My Melancholy Whores

(2004), A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings. The novels taken for study are No One

Writes to the Colonel, In Evil Hour, One Hundred Years of Solitude, The Autumn of the

Patriarch, Chronicle of a Death Foretold and Of Love and Other Demons.

One Hundred Years of Solitude is the history of the isolated village, Macondo

and the Buendia family which founded it. For years, the town has no contact with the

outside world, except for gypsies, who occasionally visit, bringing in technologies like

ice and telescopes. The patriarch of the family, Jose Arcadio Buendia, is impulsive and

inquisitive. He maintains peace and order in Macondo for some time. But, gradually,

the village loses its innocent, solitary state when it establishes contact with the other

towns in the region. Civil wars begin causing violence and death to the peaceful

Macondo. Imperialist capitalism reaches Macondo in the form of banana plantations,

exploiting the land and the workers. Years of violence and false progress lead Macondo

and the Buendia family towards destruction. The last surviving Buendia, with the help

of Melquiades, translates a set of ancient prophecies and finds that all has been

predicted. The novel is a history of Colombia right from the days of the Spanish

conquest. It also pictures how imperialist capitalism reaches Macondo in the form of

banana plantations, exploiting the land and the workers.

30

In Of Love and Other Demons, Garcia Marquez creates the story of an

impossible, yet undeniable love. The novel is set in a South American seaport during

the colonial era, the home of bishops, viceroys and others. Sierva Mara, the rebellious

child of a decaying family, has been raised by her father‘s slaves in their quarters,

behind his mansion. On her twelfth birthday, she is bitten by a rabid dog and made to

withstand therapies which are nothing but tortures. Believed to be possessed, Sierva

Mara is imprisoned in a convent, where she meets Father Cayetano Delaura, who has

been sent to oversee her exorcism. Father Delaura is unprepared for the love that is

awakened in his soul by Sierva Mara. Their love may be improbable but deeply moving

and defying - even in death - the constraints of reason and faith. Of Love and Other

Demons is a sustained, direct and complete exploration of colonialism. Apart from the

direct and prolonged focus on the theme of colonialism, it also deals more pointedly

with the role the church played in sustaining colonialism in Spanish America.

The Autumn of the Patriarch is about the life and death of a Patriarch. He is an

ancient dictator whose exact title is General of the Universe. But his domain is a poor

Caribbean country. He is dependent upon the charity of world powers. He commits the

greatest treachery of selling the sea of his country to the ―gringos‖, in exchange for the

security of his power. In other words, he betrays the life of his country and of its

people, the sea being the universal symbol of life. The Patriarch symbolizes the

absolute power enjoyed by the colonizers.

Chronicle of a Death Foretold revolves around the events surrounding the

murder of Santiago Nasar, a youngman thought to have taken the virginity of Angelo

Vicario. On her wedding night, after discovering that she is not a virgin, Angela‘s

husband, Bayardo San Roman, returns her to her house. Angela‘s twin brothers, Pedro

Vicario and Pablo Vicario, ask her who took her virginity. She tells them that Santiago

31

Nasar did. The brothers find Santiago and kill him. Even though the Vicario brothers

repeatedly announce their plan to murder him, everyone thinks that the Vicarios are

bluffing. After the murder, the entire Vicario family leaves the town because of the

disgrace the events have brought upon the family. The murder shows that violence has

become a habit for the people of Colombia.

In his next novel, In Evil Hour, the novelist prefers an unnamed village to

Macondo, as its setting. The novel is about the mysterious lampoons which suddenly

appear on the walls of the village. Someone puts these placards to undermine the

town‘s stability. These anonymous notes contain personal accusations that lead to

conflicts, fights, people moving from the town, and even deaths. The mayor, who had

been proud of the control he had established in the town before the appearance of the

placards, is forced to repress the town‘s inhabitants, in order to maintain order. When

the slanderous broadsides proliferate, the villagers become increasingly restless and

fearful. The police arrest a boy, when he distributes the posters at the cockfights. He is

only distributing them and not putting them on the walls. The boy is murdered during

the interrogation by the police and violence follows his death. In the end, the posters

are forgotten but the effects of the posters gain in importance. The novel pictures the

fear and distrust that pervaded the national consciousness in Colombia during La

Violencia.

No One Writes to the Colonel is the story of a stoic retired colonel who waits

for fifteen years for a pension cheque that never arrives. The colonel is in his mid

seventies and he and his wife are down to their last money, selling heirlooms to eat.

The colonel goes to the post office everyday to see if the pension letter has come. Even

in their growing hunger, they maintain the life of the fighting cock, which their son left,

when he supposedly was killed for political reasons a year ago. While the colonel‘s

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wife is in deep mourning for her son, the colonel knows that actually, he lives and is in

hiding. He keeps his son‘s cock alive for much the same reason he keeps hoping for his

pension—to seek a meaning to living beyond the mere fact of eating. Besides the

psychological portrayal of the colonel, the characterization and actions of the other

characters in No One Writes to the Colonel reveal a town suffering from corruption and

repression. Garcia Marquez, in a subtle way, incorporates the social and political

realities of life in Colombia during the period of La Violencia.

Postcolonial theory and criticism have been used to study the novels of Garcia

Marquez. Postcolonial studies have their own importance, because more than three-

quarters of the people living in the world today have had their lives shaped by the

experience of colonialism. They cover all the culture affected by the imperial process

from the moment of colonization to the present day. This is, because there is a

continuity of preoccupation throughout the historical process initiated by the European

imperial aggression. It is concerned with the world as it exists during and after the

period of European domination and the effects of this on contemporary literatures. Post

colonialism refers to the political and social attitude that opposes colonial power,

recognizes the effect of colonialism on other nations and refers specifically to nations

which have gained independence from the rule of another imperial state. Postcolonial

writing can be a way of reconsidering the identity of a nation after its independence or

it can be a means of expressing opposition to the idea of colonialism. It is generally

agreed in postcolonial theory and criticism that the effects of colonialism are not just

the imposition of one nation‘s rule over another, but it includes attempts to change the

colonized people‘s ways of thinking and beliefs to accept the cultural attitudes and

definitions of the colonial power. This often involves the attempt by colonial rulers to

define the colonized people and their nation from the colonizer‘s perspective and to

33

impose a homogeneous, authoritative, historical and cultural identity on the colonized

nation. These disruptive and displacing effects on the cultural life of the colonized

nation, have been the most difficult aspects of colonialism to change. Postcolonial

writers like Garcia Marquez, at their best, try to change or modify everything that was

imposed by the colonial power. What is special about his writings is that they emerge

out of the experience of colonization and assert themselves by foregrounding the

tension with the imperial power and by emphasizing their differences, from the

assumptions of the imperial center.

Post-colonialism is a specifically post-modern intellectual discourse that

consists of reactions to, and analyses of, the cultural legacy of colonialism. The

ultimate goal of post-colonialism, is that of combating the residual effects of

colonialism on indigenous cultures. It is not simply concerned with salvaging past

worlds, but learning how the world can move beyond this period together, towards a

place of mutual respect. It emerges from the inability of European theory to deal with

the complexities and the varied cultural provenance of postcolonial writing. European

theories emerge from particular cultural traditions, which are hidden by false notions of

‗the universal‘. Theories of style and genre, assumptions about the universal features

of language, epistemologies and value systems are radically questioned by the practices

of postcolonial writing. Postcolonial theory has proceeded from the need to address this

different practice. Indigenous theories have developed to accommodate the differences

within the various cultural traditions as well as the desire to describe, in a comparative

way, the features shared across those traditions. Magic realism comes in handy to

explain what the European theory could not deal with the indigenous cultures and

complexities.

34

Postcolonialism recognizes that many of the assumptions which underlie the

―logic‖ of colonialism, are still active forces today. Exposing and deconstructing the

racist and imperialist nature of these assumptions, will remove their power of

persuasion and coercion. As a postcolonialist, Garcia Marquez recognizes that they are

not simply airy substances, but have widespread material consequences for the nature

and scale of global inequality. A key goal of postcolonial theorists is that of clearing

space for multiple voices. This is especially true of those voices that have been

previously silenced by dominant ideologies. It is widely recognized within the

discourse that this space must first be cleared within the academia. Garcia Marquez

highlights this multiplicity in his novels and disregards the views of the metropolitan

and prefers instead, to rely on the intellectual superiority of the ‗other‘ and its peers.

During the imperial period, writing in the language of the imperial center was

inevitable. The aim of these writings by the literate elite of this period was to identify

with the colonizing power. The literature produced in the colonizer‘s language was

alone given license for publication and distribution. But, the modern postcolonial

writers like Garcia Marquez, abrogated the constraining power of the colonial center

but appropriated the language of the colonizer for new and distinctive usages.

The political and cultural monocentricism of the colonial enterprise was a

natural result of the philosophical traditions of the European world. The imperial

expansion and the culmination of the outward and dominating thrust of the European

into the world beyond Europe or the West, was underpinned in complex ways by these

assumptions. In the first instance, this produced practices of cultural subservience or

cultural cringe. Subsequently, the emergence of identifiable indigenous theories, in

reaction to this, formed an important element in the development of a specific national

and regional consciousness. The aim of Garcia Marquez‘s novels is to create a new

35

national consciousness. He wants to create a new Colombia, which is free from any

colonial consciousness or any traces of colonialism. A study of his novels from a

postcolonial perspective, would bring out the zeal of the colonized nations which strive

to create a new identity. Indeed he has changed the way Latin American culture was

viewed by the western world. His works have become an emblem of resistance to the

western culture and an example to the other marginalized countries, which strive to

make their imprint in world literature.

The first chapter of my thesis would discuss the development of Latin American

fiction, a detailed note on the author, his contribution to the literary world and the

relevance of a postcolonial study of his novels.

The second chapter discusses magic realism as a postcolonial narrative

technique. Most of the magic realist writing is postcolonial. Much of it is set in a

postcolonial context and written from a postcolonial perspective that challenges the

assumptions of an authoritative colonialist attitude. It seeks to disrupt the official and

defined authoritative assumptions about reality, truth and history. Magic realism, with

its dual narrative structure, is able to present the postcolonial context from both the

colonized people and the colonizers‘ perspectives, through its narrative structure as

well as its themes. It is able to produce a text which reveals the tensions and gaps of

representation in such a context. Moreover, it provides a means to fill in the gaps of

cultural representation in a postcolonial context, by recuperating the fragments and

voices of forgotten or subsumed histories from the point of view of the colonized. It

also points to the inherent problems created by the imposition of a bizarre and unreal

European world-view onto the local reality of the colonized. Magical realism uses

circular time transgressing the basic tenets of the ‗center‘s‘ sense of time. It uses the

center‘s linear time as the base to explore the circular time, of magical realism.

36

The Third chapter of the thesis is about the Reconstruction of Past: a

Postcolonial Search for Identity. The colonialists are the supposed history makers who

see their homeland as the point of reference and who consider the history of the colony

an extension of metropolitan accomplishments. Thus, there will be an official version

of events and an imposed succession in which the history of colonization becomes

another link in the forward march of the metropolis and, by extension, of its progeny.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez works against such constructs. He rewrites the expurgated

version of colonial history in his novels. Further, he wants the people to learn lessons

from the past; he exhorts his people not to repeat the mistakes of the past.

The fourth chapter is on Violence: a Colonial Legacy in Postcolonial Nations.

All the novels of Garcioa Marquez abound with violent incidents. Violence has been

woven into all his novels, because he was a witness to various internal struggles of his

country. Colombia has a long history stained in blood. After the end of the

institutionalized colonial rule, the Liberal and Conservative parties battled for control, a

fight that continues to this day. As a result of this internal strife, the country Garcia

Marquez was raised in, was frequently the site of harsh violence, even though the two

parties were more like clans than entities with distinct philosophical differences. This

violence has its roots in the colonial period. Garcia Marquez wants his people to

understand that it is the ploy of the colonial powers which have deliberately sown the

seeds of violence in the soil of the colonized nations and knowingly or unknowingly,

this colonial legacy continues even today in the colonized countries. The worst thing

which happened to the colonized nations is that this colonial legacy of violence has

marred their development. Through his novels, Garcia Marquez warns the people about

the dangers of allowing violence to continue, when peace is possible. He strives to

create a new identity for Colombia, by wiping the blood stains off its face.

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Chapter II

Magic Realism: A Postcolonial Narrative Technique

The history of magical realism goes back to the time of the discovery of

America and the Conquistadors. In their chronicles, Americo Vespucci, Cortes and

Columbus have written about the marvellous reality that they found in the newly

discovered world. T.Todorov quotes Columbus in his book The Conquest of America:

―I saw many trees unlike ours, and many of them have their branches of different kinds

and all on one trunk and one thing is of our [i.e. European] kind and the other of

another, and so unlike that it is the greatest wonder of the world‖( 7). The ordinary

world appeared mystical and magical to them. It was like a marvellous fairy tale

produced by magic. It must be considered that the Spaniards had preconceived ideas

about what they would see. When they came to America, some of them had been under

the influence of literature dealing with the Age of Chivalry and the Arabian legends.

They saw men with animal heads, mermaids, and beautiful Amazon women. The whole

land was fantastic to them.

The development of magical realism is a complicated story spanning eight

decades with three principal turning points and many characters. The first period was

set in Germany in the 1920‘s, the second period in Central America in the 1940‘s and

the third period, which began in 1955 in Latin America, continues internationally to

this day. All these periods are linked by literary and artistic figures whose works

spread the influence of magical realism around Europe, from Europe to Latin America

and from Latin America to the rest of the world. The key figures in the development of

the term are Franz Roh, a German art critic, Alejo Carpentier, a Cuban writer of mid-

twentieth century, Massimo Bontempelli, an Italian writer of the 1920‘s and the 1930‘s,

38

Angel Flores, a mid-twentieth century Latin American literary critic and Gabriel Garcia

Marquez of Columbia. Magical Realism is a contested term primarily because the

majority of critics increase the confusion surrounding its history by basing their

consideration of the term on one of its explanations rather than acknowledging the full

complexity of its origins. But the consensus among the majority of the critics is that the

term was first introduced by the German art critic Franz Roh to refer to a new form of

post-expressionist painting during the Weimar Republic. He coined this term in 1925. It

stood for a form of painting that differs greatly from expressionist art in its attention to

accurate detail, a smooth photograph-like clarity of picture and the representation of the

mystical non-material aspects of reality. Some of the magic realist painters of Roh‘s

time were Otto Dix, Max Ernst, Alexander Kanoldt, George Grosz and Georg

Schrimpf. Even the paintings of these artists differ from one another.

Alejo Carpentier, a French Russian Cuban, was widely acknowledged as the

originator of Latin American magical realism. He was greatly influenced by European

artistic movements while living in Paris in the 1920‘s and the 1930‘s. After returning

from Europe to Cuba, he instigated a distinctly Latin American form of magical

realism, coining the term ‗marvellous realism‘. When Latin America gained its

Independence from Spain, writers were free to promote the new rational humanism,

because the church no longer dominated society so effectively. Liberal reformers

opposed the Old Spanish authoritarian, superstitious heritage, although many of the

people remained under the influence of long-held beliefs. The writers‘ task, according

to Carpentier and others, was to lead the people away from old myths and convince

them of being native-born Americans, and not transplanted Europeans. Carpentier

resided in Paris from 1928 to 1939. He became disillusioned with rationalist humanism

because he saw that it robbed the people of their instinct and imagination. During this

39

time, he lost much of his respect for European civilization, as Fascism and Nazism

swept France. He became involved with Surrealism in opposition to the lack of

imagination of the rationalists. On his return to Haiti in 1943, he re-examined the role

of religion and voodoo among the black slaves and foresaw the possible development

of a new hybrid civilization, formed by a very diverse mix of New World cultures. The

Marvellous Real proposed by Carpentier, was a genuine, unadulterated, spontaneous,

extraordinary event or experience, found frequently in Latin American native cultures:

So we should not establish a definition of the marvellous that does not depend

on the notion that the marvellous is admirable because it is beautiful. Ugliness,

deformity, all that is terrible can also be marvellous. All that is strange is

marvellous. Now then I speak of the marvellous real when I refer to certain

things that have occurred in America, certain characteristics of its landscape,

certain elements that have nourished my work. (Carpentier 75)

Having been witness to European surrealism, he recognized a need for art to

express the non-material aspects of life but also recognized the differences between his

European and his Latin American contexts. The term ‗marvellous realism‘ described

the concept that could represent for him the mixture of differing cultural systems and

the variety of experiences that create an extraordinary atmosphere, alternative attitude

and a differing appreciation of reality in Latin America. For him, Magical Realism is a

combination of reality, myth, magic and fantasy, terms that Latin Americans often

identify with, because all of these terms are important elements in the diverse but

unique cultures created by the sudden juxtaposition of the primitive cultures with those

of the modern society. This occurs there in contrast to those cultures, which have

developed a common cultural identity over time. Carpentier saw the unique aspects of

Latin America in its racial and cultural mixture rather than in the flora and fauna. He

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felt that the improbable juxtapositions and marvellous mixtures exist by virtue of Latin

America‘s varied history, geography, demography and politics and not by manifesto.

After the World War II, and the fall of the Spanish Republic, the Latin American

countries wanted to create and express a consciousness distinct from that of Europe.

Carpentier was at the forefront of such a movement and was commissioned to write

books on topics like ‗history of Cuban music,‘ etc. His artistic enterprise was a search

for origins, an attempt to recover the history and tradition and the foundation of an

autonomous American consciousness. It was the basis for a literature faithful to the

New World.

Carpentier and other writers tried to create an indigenous form of Latin

American literature, because Latin America has a form of postcolonial relationship with

Europe and, particularly, in relation to the colonial power of Spain, until the mid-

twentieth century. This relationship placed Latin America on the margins of European

perception, knowledge and culture. It was able to make a shift away from the position

of marginal cultural production, in which all things European were esteemed, with the

development of magical realist fiction in Latin America. This resulted in the emergence

of a new literary tradition in Latin America, known as the ‗boom‘ of the 1950‘s and the

1960‘s. The fiction of this period became known as the ‗new novel‘ and is generally

considered to be a modernist movement due to the attitude of the writers who sought to

break away from the previous literary traditions and to find a new means of expression.

Soon Latin American writing was developing in many countries as a distinct tradition

from that of Spain and, gradually, this mode of fiction became closely associated with

the development of a Latin American literary tradition.

Even in the early stages of magical realist writing in Latin America, Carpentier

created a distinction between the European magic realist writing and the Latin

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American magical realist writing that he defined and named as ‗American marvelous

realism‘. He saw European magic realism as ‗tiresome pretension‘, unconnected in

magical content to its cultural context of production. Seeing Europe as a rational place

where magic consisted of fairy-tale myths, he considered the European magic realists to

be creating a sense of mystery narrative technique rather than cultural beliefs. In the

prologue to his book The Kingdom of this World, he made a statement that broke away

from the influence of Roh‘s magic realism and established a new form of magical

realism that was specific to and arose out of a Latin American context. For Carpentier,

the mixture of cultures is what he considers to be at the heart of the spirit of the Latin

American that makes magical realism such an apt mode of fiction to express its culture.

He states that ―the marvelous real is encountered in its raw state, latent and

omnipresent, in all that is Latin American. Here the strange is commonplace and

always was commonplace‖ ( Carpentier 78).

In the English speaking world, magic realism first appeared in early 1970‘s in

Canada, West Africa and the United States and now it spans many locations across the

globe. The best known writer of magical realism in the English language is the British-

Indian writer Salman Rushdie. His writings are influenced by Garcia Marquez, Gunter

Grass and Mikhail Bulgakov. His English form of magic realism straddles both the

surrealist tradition of magic realism as it developed in Europe and the mythic tradition

of magic realism as it developed in Latin America. What locates these writers

politically is their narrative position outside the dominant power structures and cultural

centres. Although Salman Rushdie is located at the centre of cultural production, his

narrators and subject matter are located outside it. What often connects the English

language magical realists with one another is their opposition to British colonialism in

countries such as India, Canada, Australia and the regions of West Africa and the

42

Caribbean. In addition, writers currently in conditions of oppression in the United

States, such as Native American, Chicano and African Americans, have also adopted

magical realism as a means to write against the dominant American culture. Because

of this, there are many similarities between anti-British-colonial magical realist writing

and anti-neo-American-colonial magical realist writing, since both groups of writers are

concerned with the incorporation of oral culture and indigenous myth into the dominant

Western cultural form of the novel.

The majority of magical realist writing cannot be said to occupy the mainstream

of these countries‘ literary production. In Indian writing, for instance, Salman Rushdie,

Amitav Ghosh and Arundhati Roy are very notable prize-winning writers and all are

writers of magic realism, but they do not constitute a movement or group in Indian

literature, each being unconnected to the other and located in different countries.

Rushdie and Ghosh are diasporic Indian writers whose writing is influenced by their

hybrid cultural context. Magic realist writing, because of its inherent mixture of

opposing perspectives, is the perfect form of writing for cosmopolitan postcolonial

middle-class emigrant writers such as Rushdie and Ghosh whose life has been

influenced by British Colonialism and Indian popular culture, with all their

multiplicities and contradictions. As political writers, they are deeply concerned with

the future of India and are fascinated by the diversity of its population, religions and

languages. Their India has always been based on ideas of multiplicity, pluralism and

hybridity. Arundhati Roy is concerned with the local and the things considered

insignificant in a larger society, which reinforces its concern for the mistreatment of

those in the margins of the Indian society. As the magical realist narrative is told from

the perspective of a native child, it provides a critical commentary on and contrasts

with the ugly world of Indian social prejudice. But, in spite of their use of magic

43

realism in their writing, the Indian magical realist writers are not able to constitute a

group like that of the Latin American.

But in Canada, magic realism is recognized as a sub-genre of Canadian

literature. In the 1970‘s, at a time when Canadian writers were attempting to conceive a

sense of Canadian nationhood divorced from British colonialism, Robert Kroetsch and

Jack Hodgins in the Canadian west, away from the centre of power in the eastern

cities, were writing magic realist fiction. Kroetsch‘s use of the magical realist mode in

his novel What the Crow Said was a deliberate choice, following the influence of

Garcia Marquez, specifically to find a mode of fiction that would provide a means to

express both the marginal perspective of rural western Canadians and also the Canadian

perspective in relation to Britain and to the powerful neo-colonial neighbour, the

United States. Another notable contemporary writer to be associated with magical

realism in Canada is Michael Ondaatje. In his works, it is the form of magical realism

that, in its exuberant and colourful content and setting, has more connection to Indian

or Latin American magical realism than to that of the harsh Canadian West. This is

because of his transcultural background rather than his Canadian nationality: he was

born into a mixed race Sri Lankan family and immigrated to Canada. The settings of

his novels reflect this cosmopolitanism: Sri Lanka, the United States, Canada, Europe

and North Africa, although his magic realist events are only set in Sri Lanka.

On the African continent, magical realism and postcolonialism have gone hand-

in-hand particularly in West Africa and South Africa. In West Africa, the Yoruba

mythologies and beliefs, in particular, have provided material for the other African

writers such as Ben Okri and Amos Tutuola. In addition to drawing on the western

novel form and upon themes such as colonialism, religion and internationalism, the

West African magical realism often incorporates local influences to produce the cross

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cultural literature that emulates the situation of many West Africans today. South

Africa, unlike West Africa, has a significant history of European settlement. Its colonial

history and culture are notably different and so its magic realist writing is also different

from that of West Africa. Moreover, the need to reconsider its history and its

mythologies in the light of the nation‘s new post-apartheid political conditions provide

a motivation for Afrikaner writers to employ magical realist techniques.

In United States, magical realism is used by cross-cultural women with a political

agenda relating to gender and the marginalization of cultures. Due to the dominant

Anglo-European culture of the United States and its predominant immigrant society,

there are many cross-cultural groups which, like the African Americans, sense that they

are marginalized and misrepresented in Anglo-European American life. This is doubly

true for cross-cultural women who face prejudices, both as a member of a marginalized

culture and as women. The Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison writes magical realist

narratives that draw from her cross-cultural context as an African American. Magical

realism is employed by Morrison in order to create a specifically cross-cultural African

American cultural memory with which to rebuild a sense of an African American

community at a time of crisis, when the majority of the African American population

seems to her to be held in a position of economic and spiritual poverty. Leslie Marmon

Silko is a mixed blood Native American writer. Her main magical realist text is her epic

postmodern novel The Almanac of the Dead. Whilst proposing an environmental and

community-building political view point, this novel incorporates Native American,

Native Mexican and even West African mythologies and belief systems into the equally

Anglo-European American text. The novel includes the story of a political movement

to save Mother Earth from misuse and ultimately from destruction by the Anglo-

European Americans. The cultural and political perspective of the novel is in accord

45

with the native American belief in the spiritual interconnectedness and equality of all

physical aspects of the environment and the animals that inhabit it. This is contrasted

with the dominant cultural attitudes in America that treat the earth as a commodity and

resource. The novel‘s magical realist plot follows the work of an eco-warrior.

In Europe, many writers were influenced by the writings of the Italian, Massimo

Bontempelli, who adopted the idea of magic realism from Roh. He thought that magic

realism would provide a means to de-provincialize Italian literature and also that it

could contribute to Mussolini‘s unification of Italy by creating a common

consciousness. Later his writings became the inspiration for many writers from

Belgium. The well known magic realist writer in mainland Europe is the German

novelist and Nobel Prize winner, Gunter Grass. His magic realist novel, The Tin Drum

was written in a retrospective narrative, looking back to the context of his early life. He

had been brought up in a household that accepted the Nazi propagandists‘ version of

truth, which was overturned at the fall of the Nazi regime at the end of the war. This

severely disrupted his perception of reality and prompted him to include a recognizably

magical realist account of life under the Nazi regime, from the matter-of-fact

perspective of a boy, and later, a man with an extra-ordinary capacity for perception.

Although Grass himself admits to having been influenced by fairy tales, his magical

realism can be seen to have arisen from the same source as Garcia Marquez‘s; that is,

the distortion of truth through the effects of extremely horrific violence, which Grass

had witnessed during and immediately after the Second World War. Rushdie cites The

Tin Drum, as one of the most influential texts for him whilst writing Midnight’s

Children.

Thus, in mainland Europe, magic realism remains a narrative mode that is chosen

for the purposes of literary experimentation and does not have its source in the writers‘

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mythological and cultural context. Although magic realism originated in Europe, it is

now more particularly associated with the Latin American form of magical realism and

with its associated mythology and cultural context. However, postcolonial and cross-

cultural contexts, and particularly those in the English-speaking world are producing

writers who adopt magical realism in order to express their non-Western mythological

and cultural traditions. They develop new variations of magical realism that are

relevant to their marginalized, postcolonial or cross-cultural contexts.

The variable features of the magical realist novel are local or native narrative

traditions that are brought by the practitioners of this literary genre into contact with

and incorporated into the European realistic novel. To be sure, the distinctions between

foreign and native, cosmopolitan and local, western and nonwestern are eroded, if not

altogether collapsed, in the successful magical realist texts. In any event, to insist upon

a difference between a local narrative tradition and an imported or alien one is to make

an arbitrary and historical distinction. Legends of medieval Catholic saints, like

indigenized versions of Spanish chivalric romance or West African myth and folklore,

are hardly the pure product of the Latin American soil. Many elements of voodoo were

imported from West Africa and Western Europe. But the fact that these exotic

narrative strands within the magical realist text, typically appear to even sophisticated

readers as native or indigenous elements, merely underlines the modern historical

horizon within which the magical realist novel is both written and read. Garcia

Marquez depends, in no small part for his literary success, on the exotic appeal of the

magical elements in his novels. In fact, all magical realist writers wish to inculcate in

their readers, the sense that they are encountering a new, a pre-modern and nonwestern

world, which is yet to be disenchanted. This self-consciously staged encounter between

the West and its ‗other‘, always involves a meeting between a modern literary tradition

47

and one or several pre-modern, pre-secular, pre-scientific, and, sometimes, preliterate

narrative traditions. Magical realism replicates in its narrative form, the sediment-

character of global postcolonial culture: beneath the topmost layers of modernity, one

finds the lower strata of cultural traditions that predate the arrival and the imposition of

―Western‖ modernity.

Magical realism hybridizes elements borrowed from Western and nonwestern

cultures and modern and pre-modern ways of life. Such a synthesis does not necessarily

require, however, that these elements be combined in equal measure, or that they be

granted an equal ontological, epistemological and historical status. The question that

arises here is, whether these writers implicitly favour modern Western culture or the

many traditional non-western cultures, represented in magical realist fiction. The

authors of many magical realist novels, as well as their reviewers and critics, have

emphasized the ways in which new alternative voices of the marginalized and the

subaltern are to be heard in their pages. Magical realism thus reveals itself as a ruse to

invade and take over dominant discourses. It is a way of access to the main body of

―Western‖ literature, for authors not writing from the perspective of the privileged

centers of literature for reasons of language, class, race, or gender. At the same time,

they avoid being simply epigones by not adopting the views of the hegemonic forces in

their discourse.

For Colombia, magical realism is its postcolonial identity. The country is aware

of the cultural and racial mixture that makes up its nationhood. The reality of the

Spanish is not the only reality that the Colombians know. This is especially the case

with Garcia Marquez. As he was born in Aracataca, a small town near the Caribbean

coast of Colombia, he has perceived a wide range of cultural manifestations, entirely

different from the inland culture of Bogota. The coastal area has absorbed not only the

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dominant culture of the colonial Spanish, but also the alternative cultures of the native

Indians and the Afro-Caribbeans. It is in this space of cultural heterogeneity that Garcia

Marquez learns a distinct, hybrid reality. In an interview, he claims:

The Caribbean taught me to look at reality in a different way, to accept the

supernatural as part of our everyday life. [...] The history of the Caribbean is full

of magic -- a magic brought by black slaves from Africa but also by Swedish,

Dutch and English pirates who thought nothing of setting up an Opera House in

New Orleans or filling women‘s teeth with diamonds. Nowhere in the world do

you find the racial mixture and the contrasts which you find in the Caribbean.

[...] Not only is it the world which taught me to write, it‘s the only place where I

really feel at home. (Mendoza 55)

This alternative sense of reality that Garcia Marquez derives from his childhood

space can be argued to play an influential role in the emergence of magical realism in

One Hundred Years of Solitude. Macondo is marked by extraordinary events that

cannot be explained by dint of rationalism. Father Nicanor Reyna rises six inches above

the ground after drinking a cup of hot chocolate . The blood of Jose Arcadio‘s

murdered body finds its way from his home back to the kitchen of the Buendia‘s house,

where his mother is preparing food. The rain of yellow flowers takes place in Macondo,

covering roofs and blocking doors, when the patriarch Jose Arcadio Buendia dies.

Remedios, the Beauty, rises into the sky, along with Fernanda‘s expensive sheets.

Macondo becomes at once a real yet uncanny town, where fantastic events are

normalized. For Macondo‘s population, these fantastic events are banal and happen

every day. However, normal events, or at least ‗normal‘ events in our own view, are

strange and fabulous for them. They are, for instance, surprised at ice, magnets, and

magnifying glasses brought in by the gypsies. These contradictions between the normal

49

world and Macondo raise questions about truth and reality. European readers might not

understand the reality behind the magical elements in his stories, because their

rationalism prevents them seeing that reality isn‘t limited to the price of tomatoes and

eggs. Everyday life in Latin America proves that reality is full of the most

extraordinary things. In saying this, Garcia Marquez, commits himself to the argument

made by Alejo Carpentier, that magical realism should be used to represent the true

Latin American reality. According to Carpentier:

Because of the virginity of the land, our upbringing, our ontology, the Faustian

presence of the Indian and the black man, the revelation constituted by its recent

discovery, its fecund racial mixing [mestizaje], America is far from using up its

wealth of mythologies. After all, what is the entire history of America if not a

chronicle of the marvellous real? (88 )

The politics behind Carpentier‘s use of the marvellous real is clear; his version

of magical realism should be used as a dominant literary mode in Latin American

literature, as it truly represents the consciousness of the continent, which has long been

subjected to the domination of Europe, in this respect, objectified by its sense of

rationalism. Now magical realism is synonymous with Latin American literature with

writers claiming that the reality of Latin America is different and needs an alternative

way to recapture it. In his Nobel Address, Garcia Marquez himself asserts that:

To interpret our reality through schemas which are alien to us only has the

effect of making us even more unknown, even less free, even more solitary.

‗Schemas which are alien to us‘ are in a sense analogous to the epistemological

patterns which European colonialists or present-day US neocolonialists have

used to comprehend Latin America, similarly distinguished in their firm basis of

rationalism . ( 289)

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For Garcia Marquez, it is useless to adopt such schemas in Latin America, because it is

a continent full of wonders and marvels, those that cannot be explained by rationalism.

If one follows this argument closely, magical realism then signals what

Amaryll Chanady terms ‗the territorialization of the imaginary‘, especially in its

insistence on the exceptional nature of New World geography and partly to the Latin

American strategies of identity-construction that emphasize regional specificities. In

this light, one can see that Garcia Marquez attempts to use magical realism in his novel

as a way to represent the uniqueness of his own nation or, to the same effect, his own

continent. However, it should also be highlighted that magical realism is not a literary

style native to Colombia, or to Latin America as a whole. It has transferred from

Europe to the Latin American continent in a process of what might be called reverse

colonization, whereby it is reappropriated and made to bear on Latin America‘s

geographical and cultural specificities. If Garcia Marquez wishes to purport that

magical realism is a poetic mode unique to his continent, his claim is justified in the

sense that it represents the Latin American consciousness in terms of its hybridity, i.e.

the fact that its origins are highly multicultural and heterogeneous. Following this line

of thought, he manages to find a suitable identity for his post-colonial voice, while, at

the same time, evincing that this voice is not at all monolithic, but already hybridized,

as is the coastal area where he was born.

With his magical realism, the writings of Gabriel Garcia Marquez move towards

a new direction for Latin American literature after the new novel, despite his

involvement in his younger days with the Latin American avant-garde. Hailing from a

highly traumatized country of Colombia and writing about long periods of civil unrest

such as the War of a Thousand Days (1899-1902) and government brutality known as

La Violencia (1948-58), his magical realist exuberance is not only a celebration of the

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diversity of Latin America, but a way to express the excessive violence and confusion

of Colombian politics. The horrific past and present of much of Latin America, lends

itself to magical realism due to its ability to convey the unearthly tidings of Latin

America. The use of hyberbole in events such as the thirty-two armed uprisings, the

seventeen sons of Colonel Aureliano Buendia, the three thousand casualties in the

banana strike etc, is meant to express the enormity of violence and the chaos which

prevailed in Colombia‘s politics.

Garcia Marquez uses magical realism to attack the assumptions of the dominant

culture. Zamora and Faris claim that ―Magical realist texts are subversive: their in-

betweenness, their all-at-oneness, encourages resistance to monological political and

cultural structures, a feature that has made the mode particularly useful to writers in

postcolonial cultures…‖ (6). Magic realism symbolizes a cultural conflict between the

dominant ruling classes and those who have been denied power. The dominant culture

remained dominant by denying others the power to govern and the power to challenge

the truths that they proposed. When magic realism is considered from the position of

the ‗other‘, it can be seen that the transgressive power of magical realism provides a

means to attack the assumptions of the dominant culture and particularly the notion of

scientifically and logically determined truth. In effect, magic realism brings into

question the very assumptions of the dominant culture and the influential ideas of the

Enlightenment. In One Hundred Years of Solitude, Garcia Marquez questions the

assumptions of the dominant ruling classes through the use of magical realism. First,

Garcia Marquez ironically debunks Spain‘s claim that it has bequeathed to America the

benefits of European civilization. The early phase of Macondo, evokes Latin America‘s

colonial period, when communities lived isolated from one another and the

viceroyalties themselves had little contact with the distant metropolis. Latin America‘s

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isolation from intellectual developments in Europe is hilariously brought out when Jose

Arcadio‘s researches lead him to the discovery that the earth is round and colonial

underdevelopment is reflected in his acute awareness of Macondo‘s backwardness in

relation to the outside world. Indeed, the conquest itself is parodied, in a passage

reminiscent of the chronicles by the expedition in which the men of Macondo re-enact

the ordeals of the Spanish explorers and conquistadores, in order to make contact with

the civilization that Spain allegedly spread to its colonies.

Furthermore, the Spanish colonial heritage is identified as one of the principal

factors in Latin America‘s continuing underdevelopment. Significantly, the expedition

of Macondons fails to make contact with civilization and succeeds only in finding the

hulk of an old Spanish galleon, stranded on dry land and overgrown with vegetation,

symbol of a heritage that is anachronistic, out of contest and ill-equipped to tackle the

awesome American environment. Above all, that heritage takes the form of a mentality,

personified in the novel by Fernanda del Carpio. An incomer from the capital, she

embodies the Castilian traditionalism of the cachacos, the inhabitants of the cities of

the Colombian altiplano, and, beyond that, a whole set of values and attitudes that

Latin America has inherited from Spain. Nursing aristocratic pretensions that are

reflected in her name --an echo of that of Bernardo del Carpio, a legendary Spanish

hero of medieval times -- she lives the illusion of a grandeur that no longer exists and

clings to antiquated customs in a world that no longer has any use for them; and, as

Macondo falls into the hands of the Banana Company and is invaded by lower-class

upstarts, she comforts herself with the belief that she is spiritually superior to the vulgar

tradesmen who have taken over the world, an attitude that echoes the response of

Spanish American intellectuals of the Arielist generation to the North American

expansionism. The heirlooms that she receives from her father as Christmas gifts are

53

ironically described by her husband as a family cemetery, and, as though to confirm the

truth of his works, the last gift turns out to be a box containing the father‘s corpse.

What they symbolize, in fact, is an outmoded, traditionalist mentality that prevents

Latin America from coming to terms with the modern world.

The peculiar characteristic of magical realism which makes it such a frequently

adopted narrative mode by Garcia Marquez and others is its inherent transgressive and

subversive qualities. It is this feature that has led many postcolonial writers to embrace

it as a means of expressing their ideas. When Aureliano exclaims that the ice is

―boiling‖, he subverts or overthrows the basic Western tenet of ice. Magic realism also

transgresses or resists the law of European scientific beliefs. In Macondo, one can find

that a gunshot is not fatal. Colonel Aureliano shoots himself in the chest but survives.

Thus magical realism unsettles the received ideas on how reality is to be perceived and

portrayed, and explores alternative approaches as to their epistemological potential.

Of course, the transgressive and subversive qualities are hinted at in the term

itself. The oxymoron ‗magical realism‘ reveals that the magic of the Latin America

and the realism of the dominant countries are brought into question by their

juxtaposition. If in magical realism, the magical is presented as a part of ordinary

reality, then the distinction between what is magical and what is real is eroded. The

magical events of One Hundred Years of Solitude cannot be assimilated to a

rationalistic worldview. By the same token, the realism of Garcia Marquez's Macondo

is never entirely abandoned -- the world of science, technology, and empirical

knowledge exists side by side with the world of the magical and the supernatural. The

characters of Garcia Marquez notoriously fail to acknowledge that there even exists a

tension between the ―real‖ and the ―magical‖ features of the world they inhabit. As

Lois Parkinson Zamora and Wendy Faris put it, in ―magical realists texts ... the

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supernatural ... is an ordinary matter, an everyday occurrence -- admitted, accepted, and

integrated into the rationality and materiality of literary realism ‖(9 ). By equating

magic with realism, Garcia Marquez has sabotaged the notion that Western realism is

superior to the myth and magic of the colonial nations. Nevertheless, he wants magic

and realism to coexist together. In One Hundred years of Solitude, magic and reality

reinforce, support and depend on each other. Father Nicanor Reyna levitates only after

having sipped hot chocolate of Latin America. Remedios, the Beauty, rises to heaven,

while waving good-bye, clinging to the treasured monogrammed sheets of the

comically snobbish Fernanda, who proceeds to rave about her lost family linens.

Hitherto, the Westerners associated themselves with the realistic discursive mode and

looked down upon the magic of the margins. But, now, the characters of Garcia

Marquez do not acknowledge this distinction. For them, both the magic and the real

are the same. By placing myth and magic on par with realism, Garcia Marquez pushes

the ‗other‘ towards the ‗centre‘, equating the ‗margin‘ with the ‗metropolitan‘. He

creates a Latin American world which is quite similar to the world found in the Old

Testament. There is an original sin, an exodus, the discovery of an (un) promised land,

a plague, a deluge and an apocalypse. He does not reverse or improve upon the biblical

world. He creates a world that is parallel to the Christian world.

Garcia Marquez wants his countrymen to be original. For him the imitation of

the dominant culture is suicidal. In One Hundred Years of Solitude, the leader of the

gypsies, Melquiades, represents Western knowledge. He brings many scientific

instruments to Macondo. Jose Arcadio, who stands for the colonized, tries to find a

practical application of these ―useless‖ inventions, in spite of Melquides warning that

his attempts will lead to naught. Jose Arcadio recognizes the superiority of the gypsies

(Westerners) over the stagnant knowledge of the people of Macondo. He looks upon

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the Western scientific knowledge as far superior to that of the marginalized countries

and accepts the ignorance of these countries when he says, ―incredible things are

happening in the world…. Right there across the river there are all kinds of magical

instruments while we keep on living like donkeys‖ (OYS 8).

Jose Arcadio is awestruck at the immense scientific knowledge of the Western

world. He tries to improve upon them and puts them into practical use. He does not

make any attempt to find anything new but simply improvises upon the given

knowledge on the West. He tries to use the magnets to extract gold from the bowels of

the earth. When Melquiades introduces the magnifying glass to him, he tries to invent

a weapon of war out of it.

In an attempt to show the effects of the glass on enemy troops, he exposed

himself to the concentration of the sun‘s rays and suffered burns which turned

into sores that took a long time to heal….at one point he was ready to set the

house on fire. He would spend hours on end in his room, calculating the

strategic possibilities of his novel weapon until he succeeded in putting together

a manual of startling instructional clarity and an irresistible power of

conviction. (OYS 3)

Whether it is astronomy or alchemy, experiments with astrolabe or sextant, his

entire scientific pursuit ends up in vain because they are nothing but the imitation of the

Western knowledge. Garcia Marquez condemns such imitation and exhorts his

countrymen that only through a systematic study of nature, true knowledge and the

practical application of that, can knowledge be acquired. He is also confident that his

people would one day excel in the field of science and come out with better inventions

than what the Westerners have done in the field of science. ―Let them dream…We‘ll do

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better flying than they are doing, and with more scientific resources than a miserable

bedspread‖ (OYS 32).

On the thematic plane also, Garcia Marquez emphasizes that imitation is

useless. But, he uses a comic tone to parody the scientific knowledge of the Western

world. Melquiades, the man of science, introduces the ordinary magnets as the eighth

wonder of the learned alchemists of Macedonia. The way he showcases the power of

the magnets evokes laughter.

He went from house to house dragging two metal ingots and everybody was

amazed to see pots, pans, tongs, and braziers tumble down from their places and

beams creak from the desperation of nails and screws trying to emerge, and

even objects that had been searched for most and went dragging along in

turbulent confusion behind Melquiades‘ magical irons. ―Things have a life of

their own.‖ the gypsy proclaimed with a harsh accent. ―It‘s simply a matter of

waking up their souls‖. (OYS 2)

The hyperbolic power of the magnets corresponds to the exaggerated superiority of the

imperialistic scientific knowledge. In the same way, when displaying the telescope and

the magnifying glass to the inhabitants of Macondo, he proudly proclaims that science

has eliminated distance. But the humour does not stop there. He goes on to say that

man will be able to see what is happening in any place in the world without leaving his

own house. The same comic tone continues when Jose Arcadio announces with august

solemnity that the earth is round like an orange. These lines are included not just to

expose the ignorance of the marginalized people, but to make fun of the superior

attitude of the imperial states.

Garcia Marquez uses his ―tone‖ as an anti-colonial device to shake the

foundations of European realism. Tone belongs, by all rights, to the narrator's voice:

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someone who would report all the incidents calm and untouched, without comments or

moral judgments on what has happened. Garcia Marquez chose to employ this serious

tone to make unbelievable ideas seem real, because it allows him to dispense with

explanations and justifications. According to Gullon, the most crucial element of

Garcia Marquez‘s masterpiece that allows the reader to accept as real, what would

otherwise be considered otherworldly events, is the fact that the narrator maintains an

unwavering, almost matter-of-fact tone throughout the novel:

He does not doubt or question events or facts. For him there is no difference

between what is likely and what is not; he fulfills his mission—his duty—of

telling all, speaking as naturally of the dead as he does of the living, associating

with the greatest of ease, the intangible with the tangible. His steadfastness

reveals itself in his unchanging, constant tone. From the first page to the last, he

maintains the same tone levels, without fluctuation or variation. Prodigious

events and miracles, mingle with references to village and household events.

The narrator never allows it to become evident, by interjection or amazement,

that there may be a substantial difference between the extraordinary and

commonplace. (28)

With his authentic presentation of events, there is no need for him to justify all the

implausible phenomena in the story. His sole duty is to simply recount the tale in the

most natural fashion, so that the intangible can be associated with the tangible with

ease. As Garcia Marquez has once asserted himself, ―the key to writing One Hundred

Years of Solitude was the idea of saying incredible things with a completely

unperturbed face‖ (McMurray 87). In order to fuse the fantastic or improbable

perfectly into realistic occurrences, the only effective way is to deliver them as if they

were the implacable truth. There are many examples for this remarkable narrative tone.

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Garcia Marquez, in a casual tone, describes the priest‘s levitation: ―Just a moment, now

we shall witness an undeniable proof of the infinite power of God‖ (OYS 85). This

statement was said by the priest who levitates by means of chocolate. By depicting this

absurd occasion as an unquestionable truth, the author has merged the grotesque into

his fictional world so naturally, that no one suspects its existence. Another example is

the plague of insomnia that comes to Macondo:

‗The children are awake too, ‗the Indian said with her fatalistic conviction.

'Once it gets into a house no one can escape the plague‘. They had indeed

contracted the illness of insomnia. Ursula, who had learned from her mother the

medicinal value of plants, prepared and made them all drink a brew of

monkshood, but they could not get to sleep and spent the whole day dreaming

on their feet. In that state of hallucinated lucidity, not only did they see the

images of their own dreams, but some saw the images dreamed by others. (OYS

46)

The examples show how the constant tone and the matter-of-fact manner in

which the narrator introduces the illness of insomnia, an apparently contagious disease

that will go on to infect the whole town, lull the reader into accepting as real, in the

world of the novel what would, under other circumstances, be considered extraordinary.

What is important is the consistency of the author‘s narrative tone which persists

without fluctuation or variation, throughout the novel. Garcia Marquez himself admits

in an interview to Peter H. Stone that he tells the story without any expression on his

face:

The tone that I eventually used in One Hundred Years of Solitude was based on

the way my grandmother used to tell stories. She told things that sounded

supernatural and fantastic, but she told them with complete naturalness [...]

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What was most important was the expression she had on her face. She did not

change her expression at all when telling her stories and everyone was

surprised. In previous attempts to write, I tried to tell the story without believing

in it. I discovered that what I had to do was believe in them myself and write

them with the same expression with which my grandmother told them: with a

brick face. (Stone 188)

This brick face with which the story had been told--from the recounting of the

discovery of ice in the first pages, to the plague of insomnia and the labeling of all

things in order to remember their function, to the levitation of the priest when he drinks

hot chocolate --is maintained throughout the novel.

Stephen Slemon defines magical realism as an important literary manifestation

of the postcolonial spirit. In his article ―Magical Realism as a Postcolonial Discourse,‖

Slemon appropriates the mode‘s lack of theoretical specificity for postcolonial uses,

seeing in both its narrative discourse and thematic content an adequate representation of

―real social and historical relations obtaining within the postcolonial culture in which

they are set‖ (408). He notices an ―incompatibility of magical realism with the more

established genre systems‖ (408) arguing that it ―seems most visibly operative in

cultures situated at the fringes of mainstream literary traditions‖ (408). He sees magic

realism as implicitly ‗ex-centric‘, a literary practice closely linked with a perception of

―living on the margins,‖ (408) and encoding a system of resistance - a specific mode of

oppositional discourse. In this sense, it is not incidental that magical realism has come

to signify the experience of the subversive and the resistant, since it is in itself a genre-

transgressing mode, falling in-between established generic systems, belonging to

several, but to none, in its entirety. Magic realist texts introduce enchantment, the

fantastic and the extra-ordinary within the seamless fictional fabric of realism--the

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privileged discourse of the colonizer--thus undermining its authority and power and

foregrounding the very gaps and absences characteristic of the mode‘s disjunctive

language of narration. The thematisation of a postcolonial discourse, involving the

recuperation of silenced voices and the imaginative reconstruction of reality, is

essential in the analysis of the transgressive potential of the mode. By foregrounding

the gaps, absences and silences, the text invites plurality to step in, allowing space for

multiplicity and subversion. In a way similar to the workings of textuality itself, this

thematisation allows for a supplementation of discourse with that which the discourse

attempts to suppress. Magical realism thus reveals itself as the mode of a conflicted

consciousness, the cognitive map that discloses the antagonism between two views of

culture, two views of history and two ideologies. The banana strike is the best example

that brings out the truth suppressed by imperialism. Garcia Marquez uses magical

realism in order to recuperate the silenced voices and reconstruct the reality. He uses

the banana company episodes for this purpose, because they are the most forceful and

dramatic episodes in the entire saga of Macondo. He rewrites the events related to

banana massacre in order to demystify them. The establishment‘s tradition of

manipulating history is exposed, when the authorities hush up the massacre of the

striking banana workers and the roundup and disappearance of all potential subversives,

claiming that Macondo is a peaceful and contented community where social harmony

reigns. ―You must have been dreaming‖, the officers insisted. ―Nothing has happened

in Macondo, nothing has ever happened, and nothing ever will happen. This is a happy

town‖ (OYS 316). Later, young Aureliano, brought up by his uncle to regard Macondo

as the victim of the Banana Company‘s imperialist exploitation, discovers that the

school history books portray the company as the benefactor which brought prosperity

and progress. Garcia Marquez, with the help of magical realism, sets out to debunk the

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official myth by offering an alternative truth. He presents an exaggerated number of

workers killed in the incident. While the authorities are able to silence the voices of the

village, he brings to light the number of persons murdered in the banana incident. This

is evident in the conversation that takes place between Jose Arcadio Segundo and a

woman of Macondo, immediately after the massacre. ―There must have been three

thousand of them‖, (OYS 313) he murmured. He is sure that the number of persons

killed in the incident is more than what the official version has declared. Garcia

Marquez exaggerates the number considering the immensity of the episode.

Garcia Marquez‘s notion of death is distinct from that of the West‘s. Death is

normally associated with sorrow. It is an event of mourning. But, Garcia Marquez

reverses this idea and presents death in his works as if it were an ordinary matter. The

Gypsies report that Melquiades died in Singapore. But, at the same time, he returns to

live with the Buendia family. He tells in a matter-of-fact tone that he has come back

because death bored him. ―He really had been through death, but he had returned

because he could not bear the solitude‖ (OYS 50). Amaranta is not scared of death and

in fact she gets ready for death as if she were going to sleep. ―It was around that time

that Amaranta started sewing her own shroud‖ (OYS 258). She announces her death

without making any fuss. ―She announced without the least bit of dramatics that she

was going to die at dusk. She not only told the family but the whole town…‖ (OYS

285). Ursula plans her death in advance. After the massacre of the banana workers, the

town is saturated by heavy rains that last for five years. Ursula says that she is waiting

for the rains to stop so that she can die last. ―Ursula had to make a great effort to fulfil

her promise to die when it cleared‖ (339). Thus with magic realism, Garcia Marquez

makes death an ordinary event and reverses the general notion that it is fearsome.

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Magic realist texts play an active role in decolonization. Magic realist texts

reconfigure structures of autonomy and agency that destabilize the established

structures of power and control. Individuals merge or identities are questioned in other

ways, and mysterious events require us to question who or what has caused them. With

respect to autonomy, the characters are merged with others. In One Hundred Years of

Solitude the Buendias repeat the names and there are at least four Arcadios, namely,

Jose Arcadio Buendia, Jose Arcadio, Jose Arcadio and Colonel Aureliano Buendia,

who look similar. Even some of the characteristics of José Arcadio and Aureliano are

the same throughout the novel. With regard to agency, magical elements question that

as well. What force causes Remedios, the Beauty, to rise skyward, cannot be explained.

By writing about the unearthly tidings of Columbia, Garcia Marquez strives to

recreate a distinct social and cultural selfhood. With his magic realism, he rewrites the

culture and instills a sense of nationalism that works against absolutist cultural

hegemony. The phenomenon of re-establishing a culture through literature, negotiates

cultural hybridity, while establishing selfhood. Thus he maintains the aspects of the

colonized culture vital to his existence, while manipulating it (the colonized culture) to

serve as the building blocks of an independent society. He does not want to abandon

the science of western countries, but at the same time he wants his people to be

independent of the western knowledge. He treats myth on par with science. In this way

he creates a kind of hybrid moment, in which, whatever he writes is not a copy of the

colonial original, but a qualitatively different thing in itself. The misreading and

incongruities in his writings expose the uncertainties and ambivalences of the colonial

text and deny it an authorizing presence. The textual insurrection against the discourse

of cultural authority is located in his interrogation of the colonizer‘s literature within

the terms of his own system of cultural meanings.

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The colonized state is a hybridized state where the people are forced to occupy

two conflicting worlds or spaces, referred to as the ―duality of postcolonial doubled

identity and history‖ (Wilson 204). The colonization creates a duality of worlds for the

native people. The ―reason‖ and ―logic‖ of the European intellectual tradition collides

with the "mysterious" and "mythic" perspective of the natives. The two worlds are

incompatible in many ways, and the colonized cannot avoid defining their identity in

terms of the dual worlds or spaces they are forced to inhabit. Colombia is no exception.

According to Robert Wilson, magic realism creates a ―space in which the spatial effects

of canonical realism and those of axiomatic fantasy are interwoven. In magic realism,

space is hybrid (opposite and conflicting properties co present)‖ (204). Wilson calls this

phenomenon ―dual spatiality‖. This dual spatiality is found in Garcia Marquez‘s

Macondo of One Hundred Years of Solitude, where the hybrid nature of space becomes

apparent in the natural way in which abnormal, experientially impossible, and

empirically unverifiable events take place. For example, Father Nicanor‘s arrival at

Macondo to officiate the marriage of Aureliano Buendia and Remedios Moscote and

his decision to stay back in Macondo for another week constitute a common

phenomenon. But soon, something magic happens, when Father Nicanor Reyna rises

six inches above the ground after drinking a cup of hot chocolate. In the same way Jose

Arcadio Buendia‘s death is a natural event. But soon after his death, there is a ―light

rain of yellow flowers‖ (OYS 144) covering roofs and blocking doors, and smothering

the animals which sleep outdoors. How the Father is able to rise six inches above the

ground and where the yellow flowers come from, are not questions that are asked.

Indeed, Wilson suggests, ―it is as if there are two worlds, (wholly distinct, following

dissimilar laws) which interact, interpenetrate, and intertwine, unpredictably but in a

fully natural manner."(204)

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The opening up of hybrid space in magic realism makes it difficult to conceive

of the ―real‖ as a single world with a single set of rules or laws. It accommodates a new

set of rules. In the context of postcolonial writing then, magic realism points to the

inherent problems created by the imposition of a bizarre and unreal European world-

view onto the local reality of the colonized. In the beginning, the Macondons live a life

of innocence. Jose Arcadio Buendia is able to create a paradise-like village in which all

the inhabitants are happy. A perfect harmony prevails in the society, even with the

limited knowledge of science. But soon the village is disturbed by the arrival of

Melquiades and his men. A great hullaballoo is created with the help of ‗magical‘

things like ice, magnet etc. The Melquiades culture gets synthesized with the

Macondon culture. Macondons occupy two different worlds which become inseparable

for ever.

The Banana Company has made its presence felt in Macondo and gradually, it

is able to bring the village under its control. ―So many changes took place in such a

short time that eight months after Mr. Herbert‘s visit the old inhabitants had a hard time

recognizing their own town‖(OYS 234). The Banana Fruit Company changes the

texture of the society in its favour. The government is on its side and, at the behest of

the company, it kills the striking workers of the Banana Fruit Company. The company

presents a distorted view of the massacre and is successful in hiding the facts of the

murder. As usual, a conventional imperialist‘s world-view is carefully detailed while, at

the same time, Garcia Marquez introduces another level of reality, which is

inexplicable according to the logic and reason of Western thought. He introduces the

number of persons massacred in the Banana incident which is a magic number and

which cannot be explained by the westerner‘s logic and reason.

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These two incidents offer two system, of possibility, one that aligns with

European rationality and another which is incompatible with a conventional Western

world-view. Magic realism does not create imaginary worlds. What it does create,

through its ―dual spatiality,‖ is a space where alternative realities and different

perceptions of the world can be conceived. The imposed social and political systems of

Western culture effectively deny a space in which the native voices could speak for

themselves. The possibility of a "dual spatiality" provided through the deployment of

magic realism, gives space where the silenced voices can speak and be heard.

Binarisms and dualities operate within settler cultures, binarisms such as Europe

and its other, the colonizer and the colonized, and the West and the rest, for example.

Garcia Marquez‘s magic realist narrative in One Hundred Years of Solitude,

recapitulates a dialectical struggle inherent within the postcolonial culture. The binary

oppositions undergo a process of dialectical interplay, which undermines the fixity of

borders between them, foregrounding the gaps, absences and silences produced by the

colonial encounter. The binarisms of the civilized and the barbaric, the colonizer and

the colonized, the vocal and the silent, the centre and the periphery are all present in the

novel. The Banana Fruit Company represents the civilized, colonizing power. The

advent of the company changes the mood of the society. A sense of fear permeates the

atmosphere of Macondo. The direct suppression and oppression disturb the internal

peace of the village. Thousands of workers are killed and hauled up into the sea. A

distorted version of the banana massacre is given to the world by the imperialists.

Macondons are forced to live in yet another world, which is in no way similar to the

erstwhile paradise-like Macondo. Garcia Marquez‘s presentation of the Banana

incidents undermines or in a way ridicules the description of the imperialists.

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Garcia Marquez‘s magical realism is a double-edged sword. On one side, it

gives a strong resistance to the Western ideology. On the other, it gives a call to the

colonized people that they should be self-reliant and self-confident that they should not

blindly follow in the footsteps of the Westerners, as it leads only to destruction. Garcia

Marquez, through magical realism, wants to show that the imperialism of the past,

prefigures the imperialism of the future. Jose Arcadio is never able to foresee this end.

As he is a man of science and technology, he is not able to understand this end. Right

from the beginning, he is after magic-science-with the notion that ―right across the river

there are all kinds of magical instruments while we keep on living like donkeys‖(OYS

8). This attitude, which considers that western knowledge is superior to that of the

others, brings the ―apocalypse‖, at the end, to his state, Macondo.

Jose Arcadio‘s quest for western knowledge begins with the arrival of gypsies

at Macondo. The gypsies come every year ―with an uproar of pipes and

kettledrums‖(OYS 1 ) and always with new inventions, until the wars make such trips

too dangerous and the natives become too indifferent. They first appear in a distant

past, ―when the world was so recent that many things lacked names and in order to

indicate them it was necessary to point‖( OYS 1 ). Into this primitive world, the gypsies

bring an omen of the future, an invention of great wonder and potential: the magnet.

Melquiades calls this invention ―the eighth wonder of the learned alchemists of

Macedonia‖ (OYS 2). He drags it around, from house to house, so that everyone can

see pots and pans fly through the air, nails and screws pull out of the woodwork and

long-lost objects reappear. Like a great missionary of progress, Melquiades is

concerned with enlightening the natives; so he also provides an explanation; ―Things

have a life of their own…It‘s simply a matter of waking up their souls‖ (OYS 2 ).

Confronted with a marvellous magnet, Jose Arcadio feels that it is necessary to

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discover a useful application. Whereas Melquiades is content to mystify the natives,

Jose Arcadio must look with a wonder of his own toward the future. He comes up with

an idea that is portentous, just as his technological imagination will be fatal. Through a

process no one else seems to understand, he calculates that it must be possible to use

this marvelous invention ―to extract gold from the bowels of the earth‖ (OYS 2 ). Jose

Arcadio‘s overestimate of and blind faith in western technology is ridiculous. But, to a

man like Jose Arcadio, a brilliant idea should translate into a well-deserved profit. Even

though Melquiades is honest and tells him that this idea will not work, Jose Arcadio

begins to search for gold, enough and more, to pave the floors of the house. He trades

in his mule and a pair of goats for the two magnetized ingots and explores every inch of

the region; but he fails to find anything he considers valuable. All he finds is a suit of

fifteenth century armor that had all of its pieces soldered together with rust and inside

of which there was the hollow resonance of an enormous stone-filled gourd. Searching

for gold, Jose Arcadio finds the remains of Spanish imperialism. Jose Arcadios‘ blind

quest with the help of western scientific knowledge results in Spanish imperialism.

Unaware of the consequences, Jose Arcadio continues his experiments with western

science which is both mystifying and exploiting.

The following March, when the gypsies next appear in Macondo, they bring a

telescope and a magnifying glass, ―the latest discovery of the Jews of Amsterdam‖

(OYS 4). Once again, Melquiades provides an explanation—Science has eliminated

distance—and not surprisingly, he once again mystifies the natives. His theory of the

elimination of distance, like the theory of magnetic souls, is a fusion of chicanery and

advanced science—and it is as prophetic as Jose Arcadio‘s accidental discovery of the

suit of armor. Even though the natives are unable to understand the principles of

Melquiades‘ discoveries, they are all too willing to assume that, it is because they are

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not ―advanced‖ enough. The natives are in no qualms in accepting the superiority of

the western scientific knowledge. Later, the westerners cash in on the ignorance of the

natives and make them slaves through the banana company. The natives believe that

Melquiades‘ perspective, unlike theirs, is global; he has circled the world many times;

he seems to know ―what there was on the other side of things‖ (OYS 4 ). Melquiades

promises them that such a perspective will soon be available to everyone, through the

wonders of science, with no disruption of domestic tranquillity, without the

inconvenience of travel.

―In a short time, man will be able to see what is happening in any place of the

world without leaving his own house‖ (OYS 3). Jose Arcadio and other natives believe

this pseudo promise not knowing that, in future, their domestic tranquillity will get

disturbed, through the death of thousands of natives working for the banana company

which is a symbol of imperialism.

Jose Arcadio‘s practical approach to western science suffers from a fatal

blindness. He believes that science is essentially democratizing. He does not understand

that his misdirected discovery of the rusted armour and its ―calcified skeleton‖ has

already brought to Macondo a vision of ―progress‖ that is both mystifying and applied,

but not democratizing. Years later, after the prolonged senility and death of Jose

Arcadio. after the innumerable deaths of Melquiades, Macondo will eventually see the

outside world—which Jose Arcadio tried so hard to discover with the help of the

western science. But by then, the chicanery of the gypsies will only be replaced by

more sophisticated and more determined exploitation. Craze for westernism results in

imperialism. Garcia Marquez gives a clairvoyant call to the countries which blindly

follow westernism.

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Unaware of this truth, Jose Arcadio continues with his fantasies, which

transport him to an ―outside‖ reality which he badly misunderstands. After watching

another of the gypsies‘ demonstrations, in which the magnifying glass is used to set a

pile of hay on fire, he immediately decides that this invention has even greater potential

than the magnet, because it can prove useful as an instrument of war. Ignoring the

legitimate fears of his wife, Jose Arcadio is compelled to invest in an invention. This

time, he uses a more progressive currency, the two magnetized ingots and three

colonial coins. His enthusiasm prevents him from noticing that his currency is being

debased. He is not able to buy the magnifying glass with his magnets. He has to shell

out his colonial coins along with his magnets to buy the magnifying glass. Many years

later, the currency of Macondo is debased by the scrip of Banana Company. Gold and

even colonial coins are superseded by the scrip which is ―good only to buy Virginia

ham in the company commissaries (OYS 305, 306). But Jose Arcadio will never be

able to understand how the debasement of the currency helps support the domination of

his people. He is happy to dream of progress, to experiment, to burn himself, to almost

set the house on fire. The colonized people, like Jose Arcadio, are in their slumber,

without knowing anything about the debasement of their economy by the western

countries.

Then, Jose Arcadio makes the greatest of his many misjudgments. He sends his

manual to the military authorities. With it, he sends all the scientific evidence he

considers appropriate, ―numerous descriptions of his experiments and several pages of

explanatory sketches (OYS 3, 4). He is determined to leave no doubt that he is ready to

do his part for the perfection of military technology: if called upon, he will even train

them himself in the complicated art of solar war. But nothing happens. Jose Arcadio is

disappointed. He never recovers from his disappointment at having been denied the

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excitement of futuristic wars. He revives his spirits just long enough to prove that ―The

earth is round like an orange‖ (OYS 5). By this time Ursula and others are convinced

that he has lost what little was left of his mind. Finally, he ends up with a strange

senility, interrupted only by prophecies in Latin.

Jose Arcadio‘s experiment with science was initially a spirit of social initiative.

His first creations were the traps and cages he used to fill all the houses in the village

with birds. He made sure that the houses were placed ―in such a way that from all of

them one could reach the river and draw water with the same effort‖ (OYS 9). He

devised the town plan in such a way that no house received more sun than another.

From the beginning, he was useful to his people, having faith in his ingenuity. His

plans were sane and beneficial to the people of Macondo. They enjoyed the fruits of his

experiments and no one showed any resistance to his endeavors. But the peace of

Macondo and the inner peace of Jose Arcadio are disturbed with the advent of

―advanced‖ science. That spirit of social initiative disappeared in a short time, pulled

away by the fever of magnets, the astronomical calculations, the dreams of

transmutation and the urge to discover the wonders of the world. The appearance of the

‗outside‘ science in Macondo ruins the ingeniousness of the native people. Beginning

with Jose Arcadio, throughout the history of Macondo, the ‗outside‘ science mystifies

the citizens of Macondo and exploits them till the end. The novel‘s arresting first

sentence suggests that these two purposes--mystification and exploitation—have

always been inseparable. ―Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel

Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to

discover ice‖ (OYS 1). But perhaps, if his father had avoided such discoveries,

Aureliano Buendia might never have wound up before a firing squad of his own

government. Further, Jose Arcadio‘s mental stability is disturbed when his own

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government does not recognize his knowledge of solar war. There is a craze for

everything that comes from ‗outside‘. In developing countries, there is no place for

native wisdom. Garcia Marquez wants the people of developing nations to have faith in

themselves.

Jose Arcadio is doomed because he has convinced himself that ―Right across

the river there are all kinds of magical instruments while we keep on living like

donkeys‖ (OYS 8). His greatest fear is that he might die without receiving the benefits

of science. The village is doomed by the same belief that magic—in particular,

advanced technology—is valuable in itself, uplifting, and the privileged possession of

the outside world. Once the people believe that science, like all uplifting things, must

come from elsewhere, that the outside world is better because it is more ―advanced‖,

then imperialism becomes much easier to justify. The discoveries of the ―gypsies‖ are

always excessively foreign. Later, the residents of Macondo easily convince

themselves of the innate superiority of Italian music and French sexual techniques. The

Crespi brothers‘ business in mechanical toys, aided by their foreign looks and foreign

manners, develops into a hothouse of fantasy. If the government had only understood

this inclination when they received Jose Arcadio‘s manual on solar war, it could have

saved itself a lot of time. But Jose Arcadio‘s plans did not convince it that Macondo

was a regular hothouse of applied fantasy, in this sense, it did not fully appreciate its

natural sources until it learned from Mr. Brown and the Banana Company.

The villagers too for their part never understand what all these foreign wonders

do to them. Like Jose Arcadio, when he bumps into the soil of armor, they let their

infatuation with the promises of the future render them incapable of uncovering their

past. ―Dazzled by so many and such marvelous inventions, the people of Macondo did

not know where their amazement began‖ (OYS 229). They merely enjoy, with more

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moderation than Jose Arcadio, the excitement of closing the ―technical gap‖ that has

separated them from the ‗outside world‘. The bearers of science are always strange,

unusual and different to them. At the same time, the villagers‘ primitive past is

rendered so insignificant that it is not worth remembering. To them, the important

things have always happened somewhere else- and their future will be determined by

somebody else.

Many years later, when the government massacres thousands of civilians in

order to crush a union strike, no one except Jose Arcadio Segundo, the great-grandson

of the first Jose Arcadio, will even be capable of remembering ―the insatiable and

methodical shears of the machine guns‖ (OYS 311). As for the rest, they will remember

only what they have been taught to remember by the technocrats and the government

that supports them. The banana company, with the help of the government, is raising

the village‘s standard of living, so it must be benevolent. It cannot be responsible for a

massacre. The irony that Jose Arcadio Segundo has the name of his great-grandfather

is an indication that the oppressed have been unable to learn what is really important.

In One Hundred Years of Solitude, Garcia Marquez reformulates the early

modern narratives of self-discovery and dominion. He does it with the help of magical

realism. He signals his intention of rewriting the great Renaissance narratives of

discovery, when he begins his 1982 Nobel Prize acceptance speech with an account of

Antonio Pigafetta. As a navigator aboard Magellan's (1519-21) voyages around the

world, Pigafetta kept a log that Garcia Marquez categorizes as an ancestor ―of our

contemporary novels‖(Garcia Marquez, 207). The voyage of discovery into Latin

America that is One Hundred Years of Solitude, begins with the Renaissance narratives

that created a real story that is not yet finished. Over and over, Garcia Marquez

dramatizes, how Latin America was created through these ways, inherited from the

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European Renaissance. Where revisionist histories focus primarily on what stories have

been told, Garcia Marquez invokes these narratives of discovery to rethink what kind of

stories can be told. Thus, this ―epic‖ of the New World is told through the forms which

it has inherited. These forms have invented not only Garcia Marquez but a culture in

America, that, in the end, has become not what the Europeans imagined but what their

imagination has wrought. Garcia Marquez uses the Renaissance narratives as the

platform, in order to introduce a new kind of narrative peculiar to Latin America.

One Hundred Years of Solitude is not a conventional revisionist history

attempting to correct facts, offer new perspectives, or give voice to previously unheard

testimony, but it rewrites the narratives that were most important during the Age of

Discovery, as the western Europeans defined themselves, in relation to the rest of the

world. One Hundred Years of Solitude is at once both mythic and historical, because it

emerges out of a Renaissance genre which used myth to create what then became

history, while it also transformed existing history into a form of myth.

Garcia Marquez invokes Pigafetta in his Nobel Speech to extend and redefine

Alejo Carpentier's classic definition of ―lo real maravilloso‖. In Carpentier's account,

the history of Latin American fiction is a reaction against a repressive aesthetics

imposed during the Colonial period. His arguments about the ―marvellous real‖ as a

reaction against an externally imposed ―realism‖, reflect the literary history of the

colonial and postcolonial period. But, Garcia Marquez's work implicitly recognizes the

fact that the Conquistadors who carried the classics and other fabulous tales in their

cargo, imposed, not the rigors of realism, but rather the marvels of fictive romance onto

the New World. By suggesting that marvellous realism begins in the Renaissance with

Antonio Pigafetta, Garcia Marquez thus transforms what is for Carpentier a thirty-year

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literary history into a four-hundred-year one. What is ―imported‖ from Europe is thus

not its recent realism but its sense of what constitutes the marvellous.

Antonio Pigafetta, a Florentine navigator who went with Magellan on the first

voyage around the world, wrote, upon his passage through our southern lands of

America, a strictly accurate account that nonetheless resembles a venture into

fantasy. In it he recorded that he had seen hogs with navels on their haunches,

clawless birds whose hens laid eggs on the backs of their mates, and others still,

resembling tongueless pelicans, with beaks like spoons. He wrote of having

seen a misbegotten creature with the head and ears of a mule, a camel's body,

the legs of a deer and the whinny of a horse. He described how the first native

encountered in Patagonia was confronted with a mirror, whereupon that

impassioned giant lost his senses to the terror of his own image. This short and

fascinating book, which even then contained the seeds of our present-day

novels, is by no means the most staggering account of our reality in that age.

(Garcia Marquez 287)

Garcia Marquez insists that the marvellous real way of writing originated with

Pigafetta and other early European Chroniclers of the Indies. The ―marvelous real‖ that

Carpentier experiences as a distinctly Latin American response to the world, is, for

Garcia Marquez, more specifically a consequence of the first European responses to

America.

As Stephen Greenblatt points out, the marvel is a prominent component of the

European discovery narrative: ―the production of a sense of the marvelous in the New

World is at the very center of virtually all of Columbus's writings about his

discoveries‖ (73). Writers such as Columbus, Vespucci, and Pigafetta use the term

―marvel‖ to describe phenomena which they cannot explain: the abundance of gold, the

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size of the trees, and the nakedness of the people fill the observers with wonder. Where

ordinarily passions stand in opposition to reason, marvelling is an epistemological

passion that exists in the interval between ignorance and knowing. While an integral

part of the discovery narrative, the marvel is often at odds with its claims to knowledge.

Reinventing the early modern narrative of discovery as the point of origin for

One Hundred Years of Solitude, Garcia Marquez portrays how these narratives of

discovery continue to shape representations of America. Ursula and Jose Arcadio

decide to leave their native village to found Macondo because their families fear that

they will breed a race of pig-tailed descendants. The race of pig-tailed humans, born

with a ―cartilaginous tail in the shape of a corkscrew and with a small tuft of hair on the

tip‖ (OYS 20), that Ursula and Jose Arcadio's family fear is a marvel first told of in

Columbus's 1493 Letter to Luis de Santangel (Cecil 138). As one of the few ―marvels‖

that Columbus never himself had seen, the ―pig-tailed‖ men become a future that

Garcia Marquez imagines as a consequence of those first encounters between

Columbus and the Indians. Just as Amerigo Vespucci's ship follows the singing of

"countless birds of various sorts" (Vespucci 3) as they search for land in the New

World, Melquiades's gypsies subsequently find Macondo by following the singing of

Jose Arcadio's parrots. Once ―discovered‖, Macondo is bounded by the early voyages

of discovery and conquest. Jose Arcadio attempts to reverse the trajectory of the

narratives of discovery, when he sets out on an exploration of the outside world in

order to find out not what is out ―there,‖ but to discover the ―here‖ where he is. After

weeks of expedition whose ardours match the deadly travels reported by Pigafetta or

Raleigh, all Jose Arcadio and his men find is ―an enormous Spanish galleon‖ (OYS

12).

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The ―truth‖ of One Hundred Years of Solitude consists equally in magnets and

magic carpets, butterflies and cameras. While critics are correct to attribute this

combination of science and magic to Garcia Marquez's ―magical realism,‖ the

argument can be extended by suggesting that what Garcia Marquez has done is to

transform the organizing epistemological structure of the discovery narrative. As a

genre, the discovery narrative tells a story of intellectual dominion: where Caesar's

imperial epigram was ―I came, I saw, I conquered,‖ the early modern discovery

narratives write a new nationalist identity in the terms ―I came, I knew, I conquered.‖

Yet discovery narratives are also moments of epistemological challenge in that they

achieve intellectual dominion through stories they tell of confrontation with the

unknown. In this context, marvels are isolated interludes which appear within and

contribute to a larger narrative of progress and truth. By virtue of its familiar

inexplicability, the marvel functions to confirm the truths of the narrative as a whole.

Garcia Marquez, by contrast, asks us to imagine a world in which the balance between

knowing and marvelling has been reversed: the marvel is no longer a brief interlude but

a rather a three-hundred-year experience that overtakes the novel as a whole. In doing

so, One Hundred Years of Solitude explores the tension between the teleological plot of

knowing and the interludes of marvelous unknowing that characterize early discovery

narratives.

The history of Jose Arcadio's interaction with the gypsy Melquiades illustrates

the historical and narrative consequences of rewriting the epistemology that

characterizes the European narratives of discovery. Just as Pigafetta uses marvels to

establish the ―truth‖ of his narrative, Garcia Marquez begins with the marvels of

Melquiades, as a way of establishing his novel's concern with ―truth.‖ The treasures

that Melquiades first brings to Macondo-the magnet, the telescope, magnifying glass,

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maps and charts, astrolabes, and sextants--are icons of discovery. On the one hand,

such objects are wonders to be shown to natives as evidence of the divinity of the

Europeans. Thomas Hariot, for example, records that the natives responded to

compasses, magnifying glasses, and other European inventions with wonder, "so

strange ... that they thought they were rather the works of gods than of men‖ (429). At

the same time, such instruments also represent the progress of knowledge that

characterizes the age. Constantly reappearing in the discovery narrative, these

inventions are figures of the production of wonder in the Indian and of knowledge for

the European. Simultaneously illustrating both the marvel and the knowledge, these

inventions typify the epistemological doubleness of the act of ―discovery.‖

Conscious of this duality, Garcia Marquez uses Melquiades‘s marvels to

imagine a rediscovery narrative in which the discoverers and the discovered have

become one and the same, just as the Europeans and the Americans coexist in the

inhabitants of Macondo. When Melquiades and the gypsies first arrive in Macondo they

bring magnets, invented by the ―learned alchemists of Macedonia‖ (OYS 2). The

magnet is the first invention that Melquiades brings to Macondo because, as an

instrument of navigation in the compass, it was what enabled sailors like Columbus to

discover places like Macondo. Yet, it is not the gypsies who are directed by the magnet

for they have been led to Macondo by the singing of Jose Arcadio's parrots. Rather, it is

Jose Arcadio Buendia himself who seeks to follow the science of the magnet. In

proposing to use the magnet to discover gold--in what is the first of his expeditions of

and from Macondo--he acts like the Conquistadors who followed their compasses

across the Atlantic with the hope of finding gold. What Jose Arcadio finds, however, is

not gold but the Conquistadors themselves:

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The only thing he succeeded in doing was to unearth a suit of fifteenth-century

armor which had all of its pieces soldered together with rust and inside of which

there was the hollow resonance of an enormous stone-filled gourd. When Jose

Arcadio Buendia and the four men of his expedition managed to take the armor

apart, they found inside a calcified skeleton with a copper locket containing a

woman's hair around its neck. (OYS 2)

In this initial "discovery," Jose Arcadio finds not new land, people, or

knowledge; instead, he finds the past as he himself reenacts it. Garcia Marquez, with

magical realism, brings both the discoverer and the discovered on the same platform.

In magical realism, time does not always move forward. Realistic novels follow

the Western pattern of linear time. But in magical realism, Garcia Marquez uses

circular time transgressing the basic tenets of the ‗centre‘s‘ sense of time. But it is

typical of Garcia Marquez that he uses the centre‘s linear time as the base to explore the

circular time of magical realism. His One Hundred Years of Solitude is closely linked

to myth. He chooses magic realism over the literal, thereby placing the novel‘s

emphasis on the surreal. To complement this style, time, in One Hundred Years of

Solitude, is also mythical, simultaneously incorporating circular and linear structures.

The novels, based on the Westerner‘s sense of time, are structured linearly. Events

occur chronologically, and one can map the novel‘s exposition, rising action, climax,

falling action, and denouement. One Hundred Years of Solitude is also linear in its

broad outlines. The plot of the novel is simple: The story starts with the founding of

Macondo, through the various stages up to a flourishing modern town, to its decline

and eventual and irrevocable annihilation. In general, the linear history of the town falls

into four sections: utopian innocence and social harmony, in which Macondo exists like

an early Eden, its inhabitants so innocent that no one has yet died and they do not even

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have names for things, the world ―was so recent that many things lacked names, and in

order to indicate them it was necessary to point‖ (OYS 11). The story then moves on to

the military struggle in the various civil wars and revolutions, then into a period of

economic prosperity and spiritual decline, and finally to decadence and physical

destruction. The development of the Buendia family, in a sense, underscores this linear

sense of time, for they form a series of figures who, in part, symbolize the particular

historical period of which they are a part. The patriarch Jose Arcadio is, in some sense,

a Renaissance man of many interests and with pioneering ambitions and energies; his

son Aureliano becomes a great military leader, a main participant in the civil wars; in

turn, he is succeeded by a bourgeois farmer-entrepreneur, family man, Aureliano

Segundo and by the twin Jose Arcadio Segundo, who works for the American

capitalists and becomes the radical labour organizer. And so on. So, as the story moves

from generation to generation, there is a sense of strong linear force, imposed from

outside, driving events in Macondo.

On the contrary, the repetition of experiences and personality traits within the

family create a circular sense of time in the novel. One of the most obvious connections

between the characters is their names. Often these characters have been set into an

identity that their name, not their upbringing, dictates. Ursula, after many years, drew

some conclusions about "the incessant repetition of names" (OYS 106) within the

Buendia family. While the eldest Jose Arcadia Buendia was slightly crazy, his raw

maleness is transferred to all the Jose Aracadios that follow. They tended to be

impulsive and enterprising, though marked with a tragic sign. On the other hand, the

Aurelianos, corresponding with the open-eyed Colonel, seem to be ―indifferent‖ and

―withdrawn‖, yet sparked with a ―fearless curiosity‖ (174). The Aurelianos‘ tendency

towards solitude that shut the Colonel away in his later years would give his distant

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descendant Aureliano Babilonia, the stamina to decipher Melquiades‘s scriptures. Even

their deaths are, in a sense, preordained. The Jose Arcadios suffer as victims of murder

or disease; all three Aurelianos die with their eyes open and their mental powers intact.

And they all succumb to a self-imposed exile in a solitude that can last for decades.

The women also share the same characteristics of their ancestors. Amaranta

Ursula inherits the boundless energy and initiative of her namesakes, in particular,

Ursula. In describing Amaranta Ursula‘s return at the end of the novel, the text

compares her directly to the great mother figure and even uses the same adjectives,

―active‖ and ―small‖ (OYS 403), which had been applied to Ursula in the beginning of

the novel. There is also a less visible link with the Remedios, all three of whom remain

immature and either die young or disappear from the scene, before they are fully able to

develop. Girlish Meme, incidentally, is the only character in the novel that bears a

nickname, the symbol of her continuous youth. In addition, there is Rebecca who

shows infantile characteristics such as a prolonged thumb sucking, and the initial

syllable in her own name suggests her belonging in part to the Remedios group.

Out of this sense of repetition, there exists a constant irony of ―inevitable

repetition of probable futile previous actions‖ (Williams 80), as one of the most

important images in the book makes clear:

There was no mystery in the heart of a Buendia that was impenetrable for [Pilar

Ternera] because a century of cards and experience had taught her that history

of the family was a machine with unavoidable repetition, a turning wheel that

would have gone on spilling into eternity were it not for the progressive and

irremediable wearing of the axle. (Williams 402).

Furthermore, the people of Macondo and the Buendias often have a vital and

amusing present, but their lives, sooner or later. lose meaning because they are

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incapable of seizing their own history. Their past is largely unknown to them, except as

nostalgia, their present is barely active, and their future non-existent. In addition, the

novel stresses the importance of knowing one's family history in order to truly grow,

which the characters cannot do. Instead of learning from the mistakes their ancestors

made, almost all the characters end up repeating them.

The men are characterized by an obsessive repetitiveness in their lives. Full of

ambition and intelligence, and they are unable to realize any long-term success. They

are much less grounded than the women are. The men spend their time foolishly

chasing dreams, while the women carefully plan their moves. Hence while Jose

Arcadio Buendia is vainly pursuing his scientific and technological explorations, it

becomes Ursula's mission to expand the family home and to bring in income by

launching and supervising the animal-candies business. In the same way, Aureliano

Segundo‘s monumental dissipation would be impossible without the enterprise of his

mistress Petra; and once Santa Sofia de la Piedad, the last of the old reliable Buendia

women, simply leaves, the house falls rapidly into desrepair. Amaranta Ursula, on her

return from Belgium, brings temporary renovations, but the ensuing affair with her

nephew leads the two down the path of total irresponsibility, and they all but yield the

old mansion to the vegetation and the ants.

The women too tend to fall into types. The common sense and determination of

the Ursulas, particularly of the stern will of the founding woman, play off against the

enduring figures outside the family: Pilar Ternera and Petra Cotes. The women, for the

most part, are firmly anchored in daily reality, but with the routines of daily living.

Ursula fights all her life against the incest taboo, and Fernanda devotes her life to

imposing the rigorous order of high Spanish Catholicism on an unruly home.

One consistently used technique contributing to the effect of blurring the lines

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between fantasy and reality, is an absolute coolness or understatement, when describing

the incredible situations, and overstatement or exaggeration, when dealing with the

commonplace. In the ice episode in the first chapter, for example, the narrator's

language shares the characters‘ exaggerated reaction to Melquiades‘s new object. At

first Jose Arcadio Buendia calls it ―the largest diamond in the world‖ (OYS 18). The

narrator uses the language that is similar to Jose Arcadio‘s, a few lines later: ―His heart

filled with fear and jubilation at the contact with mystery‖ (OYS 18). He wants his

children to live this ―prodigious experience‖ (OYS 18). By the end of the episode the

narrator has used the words ―mysterious‖ and ―prodigious‖ to describe what would

seem to the reader the most common of everyday experiences, touching ice. The

narrator, like the characters, regularly expresses his astonishment over the

commonplace.

In contrast, the narrator regularly reacts to the most marvelous and fantastic

things with absolute passivity. Jose Arcadio and his children experience the

disappearance of a man who becomes invisible after drinking a special potion.

― [Jose Arcadio]…found a taciturn Armenian who in Spanish was hawking a

syrup to make oneself invisible. He had drunk down a glass of the amber

substance in one gulp as Jose Arcadio Buendia elbowed his way through the

absorbed group that was witnessing the spectacle, and was able to ask his

question. The gypsy wrapped him in the frightful climate of his look before he

turned into a puddle of pestilential and smoking pitch over which the echo of

his reply still floated…‖ (OYS 17)

Neither the narrator nor the characters pay any particular attention to this incredible

occurrence. It is presented as if it were something commonplace.

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There are only rare exceptions to the narrator's basic position of third-person

omniscience. The entire issue of the narrator undergoes a radical change at the end of

the novel when it is revealed that in reality the narrator of the entire story was

Melquiades. The magician of Macondo has also been the creator of magic for the

reader. Suddenly, the reader comes to the realization that the narrator is not outside the

story but within. This discovery underscores the story's basic functionality, another fact

which might have been momentarily forgotten by the reader, absorbed in this history of

Colombia and the saga of Western civilization.

One of the most striking instances of cyclical structure is found in the novel‘s

opening line: ―Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano

Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover

ice‖ (OYS 1). Two generations later, chapter eleven opens the same way: ―Years later

on his death bed, Aureliano Segundo would remember the rainy afternoon in June

when he went into the bedroom to meet his first son‖ (OYS186). These two sentences

are grammatically parallel. They open with an adverbial phrase (―Years later‖),

followed by the subject and then the predicate in exactly the same verb tense. The

sentences begin with an event in the distant future and conclude with an allusion to a

future event that, in both cases, occurs within the same chapter. The words ‗many years

later‘ appear so often in the novel that they become the heartbeat of the novel.

The reader is not the only one who notices these cycles. Garcia Marquez makes

his characters realize the tendency of events to repeat themselves. When Jose Arcadio

Segundo builds a canal, Ursula says, ―It‘s as if time had turned around and we were

back at the beginning‖ (OYS 199). Later, when AurelianoTriste decides to bring the

railroad to Macondo, Ursula ―confirmed her impression that time was going in a circle‖

(OYS 226).

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These cycles serve as a means of mythical rebirth for the Buendias.The

Buendias are a condemned race. Jose Arcadio and Ursula‘s incestuous marriage

becomes the original sin and makes the clan‘s extinction inevitable. The Buendias can

only postpone their demise by initiating another cycle. At the end of the novel, the

possibility of another cycle is gone, and the family is doomed. Aureliano, the last of the

Buendias, wanders ―aimlessly through the town, searching for an entrance that went

back to the past‖(OYS 418). Pilar Ternera, the mistress of one of Macondo‘s brothels,

uses a metaphor to explain time in the Buendia family: ―A century of playing cards and

experience had taught her that the history of the family was a machine with

unavoidable repetitions, a turning wheel that would have gone on spilling into eternity

were it not for the progressive and irremediable wearing of the axle‖ (OYS 402). The

wheel becomes the novel‘s temporal mechanism, with the axle representing linear time

and the turning of the wheel representing cyclical time (McMurray 84). Linear time

finally wears down, making the possibility for ―mythical renewal‖-- another cycle--

impossible. At this point, the machine time stops, and Macondo no longer exists.

One pair of devices Gabriel García Márquez uses extremely skillfully is

flashbacks and flash-forwards. Flashbacks are references to events prior to the novel‘s

present time. These are fairly common in literature; often a novelist will interrupt the

story to tell the audience about the hero‘s earlier life, for instance. Flash-forwards,

anticipations of events that will occur later on in the novel, are less common. A writer

may give the reader a hint of some looming threat or other event, sometimes called

foreshadowing, but will rarely describe the details or the coming event, because that

might rob the story of its suspense. In One Hundred Years of Solitude, however, vivid

images of things that have not yet happened are employed in ways that keep the

audience reading. Furthermore, to create the particular impression of time that he wants

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to convey, the author may even use a flashback and flash-forward in the same passage.

Sometimes a coming event is announced by a character, as when Amaranta declares

that her foster sister Rebeca will never marry Pietro Crespi, and later when she prepares

for her own impending death by weaving a shroud and Ursula announces she will die

when it stops raining. And, sometimes, it is mentioned in the anonymous voice of the

narrator, as when the destruction of Macondo is foretold at the beginning of the

fifteenth chapter.

In Chronicle of a Death Foretold also, Garcia Marquez uses circular time in his

magic realism against the western canon of linear time. The novel is an investigation

into the murder of a local Arab who supposedly dishonours another family in town. The

first chapter concentrates on Santiago's final ninety minutes of life; the second, on

Bayardo and on the wedding night; the third, after some legal matters, on the Vicario

brothers; the fourth, following the autopsy and a report concerning the fate of the

respective families, on Angela‘s late-budding love; and at last, the fifth, after an

account of the townspeople‘s reactions, on the tense few minutes of pursuit and murder.

There is an overwhelming sense of time in this story. There are really three time spans

in the novel. The murder itself lasts about ninety minutes, which is described in full,

gruesome detail at the end of the novel. The events leading up to the murder span about

twelve hours, and are described in separate parts by the many different people who are

in some way involved with the murder. And finally, the narrator is investigating the

murder twenty-seven years after it took place, but uses many quotes from the different

characters he has questioned about the murder. Because he is narrating in the present

tense, the book has a very realistic quality.

Through unconventional perceptions of time, Garcia Marquez attempts to

convey that time does not always mean progress in Colombia. He understands its full

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irony, as, in fact, time does flow and the world needs to go on. When one says that

history keeps repeating, it is a claim made in the framework of progressive time; if time

had not passed, one would not have realized that history repeats itself. What Garcia

Marquez attempts to get across here is the belief that Colombia needs to live with the

paradox, acknowledging the quirkiness of time, yet simultaneously realizing that it does

go on and that a better world can take place. If people believe that time does not signal

progress, they will live in complacent resignation and no longer believe in any

technological advancements, as evidenced in Jose Arcadio Buendia‘s attempts to

destroy Melquiades‘s and his own inventions or in Colonel Aureliano Buendia‘s

unproductive acts of making little gold fish, and, once finished, melting them and

starting all over again.

On a larger scale, this can also be interpreted as Garcia Marquez‘s own criticism

of his country‘s mythmaking. It is natural and understandable to learn that, somehow,

the notion of time as signifying progress is not applicable to Colombia, because the

country has not experienced political progress for the past fifty years; however, it is

another matter to claim that this should be a watershed that helps a country find its

post-colonial identity by breaking up with the myths of its colonial past. This leads to

the fact that Colombian identity is marked by its circular time, that Colombian history

seems to foster the view of circuitous history, as a strategic move away from the

concept of linear history which is largely believed in by European colonialists.

Garcia Marquez‘s magical realism operates as the mode of a disjunctive,

essentially subversive sensibility. Its double-coded nature in terms of both content and

style, often facilitates the expression of various forms of dissent, by allowing the

‗silenced‘ to find its way back into the text. That such critical potentialities are inherent

in its unstable, highly ambiguous form, partly explains its occurrence in cultural and

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ideological contexts, variously marked by political and epistemic violence. In the light

of the above, it becomes possible that Garcia Marquez is on his way to formulating a

more inclusive theoretical model of magical realism. Professing a totalizing conception

of the universe and insisting, at the same time, on the phenomenal, sensible

manifestations of the real, his magical realist art strives towards an intellectual, intuitive

or imaginative apprehension of the ontological foundations (whether metaphysical,

religious or mythical) of empirical reality. Immanent in either the exterior world or in

the perception of the observer, the ‗magic‘ of magical realism in his novels defines

itself against ‗rational‘ understandings of the real, aiming at the incorporation of the

irrational, the unexplainable, the miraculous and the supernatural into the fictional

universe it projects. Hence its hybrid ontology and generic instability; hence, as well,

the disturbing imaginative possibilities that it opens up. Its double-coded nature speaks

of the mixed culture of Colombia that has been ‗peripheralised‘ in one way or another

by hegemonic Western discourses. Therefore, Garcia Marquez‘s magical realism can

be seen as a liminal, ex-centric mode of aesthetic apprehension, whose filiations with

the counter-tradition of the carnivalesque and its constant subversion of boundaries,

whether generic, ontological or ideological, makes it best suited for the expression of a

resistant and sceptical imagination.

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Chapter III

Reconstruction of the Past: A Postcolonial Search for Identity

Latin American novel was born at the moment the Spanish colonies became

independent and many of the significant early novels were historical. The writers

imaginatively re-created the past, as it was necessary for their nation-building project.

Works such as Vincent Fidel Lopez‘s The Heretic’s Love (1846) and Jose Marmol‘s

Amalia (1851) deal with conflictive moments in Latin America‘s history; the rivalries

and repressions of the colonial period, the tragic relations between Native Americans

and Europeans in the wake of the Spanish Conquest and the difficulties of achieving

post-independent stability and freedom. For the Latin Americans, the writing of

historical novels was not just a way of seeking a particular social or class identity, but

a search for identity itself; a political national identity in recently constituted countries

fractured by ethnicities and races and a literary identity in an area with a colonized

imagination. This search for identity largely determined the persistent historical bent

of literary works. In their approaches to history and propositions for self-identification,

these works have travelled a long way. But the historical commitment to engage

history in the search for identity has not changed throughout this long travel. In the

1960‘s, the Boom writers also devoted their novels to Latin American history and

identity. The search for identity through history becomes necessary, because only the

settler makes the history of the colonies and he is conscious of making it. As he

constantly refers to the history of his mother country, his accounts may not represent

the true history of the natives. It must be a biased record and not written from the

native‘s point of view. Garcia Marquez wants to put an end to the history of the

colonizers which is nothing but the obliteration or distortion of the history of the

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natives and bring to existence the true history of the nation-the history of

decolonization. He reconstructs the history of Colombia in order to construct a new

identity for his nation.

The long Colombian history is a tale of turbulence; it knows no peace. The

Colombian history can be divided into five major periods: the Pre-Colombiano Period,

The Colonial Period, The Independence Period. The Period of Consolidation and

Trends since the 1920‘s. The country was torn by civil wars and guerilla attacks. In

short, Colombia cannot boast of a glorious past. In this scenario, Garcia Marquez bases

many of his novels on the historical incidents of Colombia. By presenting the

bloodstained history in his novels, he searches for a new identity to his nation,

Colombia. Garcia Marquez himself once remarked that the reader of his novels who

was not familiar with the history of his country, might appreciate the novel as a good

novel, but much of what happens in it would make no sense to him.

South America has been inhabited for about 20,000 years by hunters and

gatherers who began developing agriculture around 4000 BC. During the pre-

Colombiano period, Colombia was inhabited by indigenous people who were primitive

hunters or nomadic farmers. The Chibchas who lived in the Bogota region, dominated

the various Indian groups. The Chibcha linguistic communities were the most

numerous, the most territorially extended and the most socio-economically developed,

of the pre-Hispanic Colombians. By the third century, the Chibchas had established

their civilization in the northern Andes. At one point, the Chibchas occupied part of

what is now Panama, and the high plains of the Eastern Sierra of Colombia. The areas

that they occupied were the areas where the first farms and the first industries were

developed, and where the independence movement originated. They are currently the

richest areas in Colombia. They represented the most populous zone between the

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Mexican and the Inca empires. In the Oriental Andes, the Chibchas were composed of

several tribes such as Muiscas, Guanes, Laches, and Chitareros, who spoke the same

language, Chibchan. The use of the sacred coca leaf, respect for water and nature and

the other practices of the pre-Colombian Chibcha or Muisca culture survive in

Colombia even today. The culture was as highly-developed as those of the better-

known Inca, Maya and Aztec people, according to scholars. But with the advent of

Spanish culture in the land of Colombia, many Chibcha traditions and customs were

demonized by the Spanish and the people were encouraged to forget them. The violent

subjection of the Chibchas to the colonial regime, gradually destroyed their economic,

social, political and cultural organization, which led to a demographic catastrophe

among their people in the mid-17th century. The Spaniards understood nothing about

this civilization, and as the Chibcha were not warriors, they perished as victims of the

conquerors‘ violence.

Spaniards first sailed along the north coast of Colombia as early as 1500 A.D.

but their first permanent settlement at Santa Marta was not established until 1525. In

1549, the area was established as a Spanish colony with the capital at Santa fe de

Bogota. In 1717, Bogota became the capital of the Viceroyalty of New Granada which

included what is now Venezuela, Ecuador and Panama. The city became one of the

principal administrative centers of the Spanish possessions in the New World along

with Lima and Mexico city. The group of Spaniards that first came to the New World,

consisted of conquistadors, administrators and the Roman Catholic clergy. The

adventurous conquistadors were risk-taking entrepreneurs, financing their own

expeditions in the expectation of being able to get rich quick. The administrators were

appointed by and represented the crown in the colonies and sought to maintain the New

World colonies as a source of wealth and prestige for the Spanish Empire. The clergy

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sought to save the souls of the native Indians, and in the process they acquired land and

wealth for the church. The conquistadors, who felt they owed nothing to the crown,

often came into conflict with the latter's attempts to centralize and strengthen its

authority over the colonies.

Colonial society relied on ―purity of blood‖ as a basis for stratification. The

elites at the top of the social pyramid were peninsulares, persons of Spanish descent,

born in Spain. Peninsulares held political power and social prestige in the society.

Below them were the criollos, those of Spanish descent born in the colonies. This group

had limited access to the higher circles of power and status. For generations, the

criollos accepted a position of inferiority to the peninsulares, but in the late eighteenth

century their acquiescence was transformed into a resentment that ultimately led to

their fight for independence. Next in importance and the most numerous, were the

mestizos, persons of mixed Spanish and Indian descent who were free but relegated to

positions of low prestige. Most Indians gradually became absorbed linguistically or lost

their identity through mixture with other peoples; by the late 1980s, Indians constituted

only one percent of the Colombian population . Black African slaves and zambos,

persons of mixed African and Indian descent, were at the bottom of the social scale and

were important only as a source of labour.

Colombia‘s struggle for freedom begins in 1812, with individual provinces

declaring absolute independence from Spain. That year, Simón Bolivar Palacio,

considered the liberator of South America, tried for the first time to gain independence

for New Granada. The absence of united support from the various provinces, however,

frustrated him. Bolivar left New Granada in 1815 and went to Jamaica. The continuing

tension between federalist and centralist forces led to a conflict that left New Granada

weak and vulnerable to Spain's attempts to reconquer the provinces. At the time of

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Bolívar's departure, the cause of independence New Granada was desperate. Ferdinand

VII, who was ousted from the throne by Napolean, had been restored to the Spanish

throne and Napoleon's forces had withdrawn from Spain. A pacification expedition led

by Pablo Morillo on behalf of the king, proceeded from Bogota, and those who laid

down their arms and reaffirmed their loyalty to the Spanish crown were pardoned.

Morillo also granted freedom to slaves who helped in the reconquest of the colonies.

Because of dissension between the upper class and the masses and inept military

leadership, Cartagena fell to the royalists by the end of 1815.

In early 1816, Morillo moved to reconquer New Granada and changed his

tactics from pardons to terror; Bogota fell within a few months. Morillo repressed

antiroyalists (including executing leaders such as Torres) and installed the Tribunal of

Purification, responsible for exiles and prisoners, and the Board of Confiscations. The

Ecclesiastical Tribunal, in charge of government relations with the church, imposed

military law on priests who were implicated in the subversion. The Spanish reconquest

installed a military regime that ruled with violent repression. Rising discontent

contributed to a greater radicalization of the independence movement, spreading to

sectors of the society, such as the lower classes and slaves that had not supported the

previous attempt at independence. Thus, the ground was laid for Bolivar's return and

ultimate triumph. At the end of 1816, Bolívar returned to New Granada, convinced that

the war for independence was winnable only with the support of the masses. In the

earlier attempt at independence, large segments of the population had been lured to the

royalist side by promises such as repartition of land and abolition of slavery. However,

when, the masses saw that the promises were unfulfilled, they changed their allegiance

from Spain to the independence movement.

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Two significant military encounters led to the movement's success. After having

won a number of victories in a drive from the present-day Venezuelan coast to the

present-day eastern Colombia via the Río Orinoco, Bolívar gave Francisco de Paula

Santander the mission of liberating the Casanare region, where he defeated the royalist

forces in April 1819. After the decisive defeat of the royalist forces at the Battle of

Boyaca in August 1819, independence forces entered Bogota without resistance. Total

independence was proclaimed in 1813 and in 1819 the Republic of Greater Colombia

was formed. After the defeat of the Spanish army the republic included all the territory

of the former viceroyalty. Simon Bolivar was elected its first President and Francisco

de Paula Santander, the Vice President. Two political parties that grew out of conflicts

between the followers of Bolivar and Santander--the Conservatives and the Liberals--

dominated Colombian politics. Bolivar's supporters who later formed the nucleus of the

Conservative Party advocated a strong centralized government alliance with the Roman

Catholic Church and a limited franchise. Santander's followers, forerunners of the

Liberals, wanted a decentralized government state rather than church control over

education and other civil matters and a broadened suffrage.

Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, each party held the presidency for

roughly equal periods of time. Colombia, unlike many Latin American countries,

maintained a tradition of civilian government and regular free elections. The military

has seized power three times in Colombia's history: in 1830 when Ecuador and

Venezuela withdrew from the republic (Panama did not become independent until

1903); in 1854; and in 1953-57. In the first two instances, civilian rule was restored

within one year. Notwithstanding the country's commitment to democratic institutions,

Colombia‘s history has been characterized by periods of widespread violent conflict.

Two civil wars resulted from bitter rivalry between the Conservative and the Liberal

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parties. The War of a Thousand Days (1899-1902) cost an estimated 100 000 lives and

up to 300 000 people perished during La Violencia (The Violence) of the late 1940‘s

and 1950‘s.

A military coup in 1953 brought General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla to power.

Initially Rojas enjoyed considerable popular support due largely to his success in

reducing La Violencia. However, when he did not restore democratic rule, he was

overthrown by the military in 1957 with the support of both political parties and a

provisional government was installed. In July 1957, the former Conservative President,

Laureano Gomez (1950-53) and the former Liberal President, Alberto Lleras Camargo

(1945-46) issued the ―Declaration of Sitges‖ in which they proposed a National Front

whereby the Liberal and the Conservative parties would govern jointly. Through

regular elections the presidency would alternate between the two parties every four

years; the parties also would have parity in all other elective and appointive offices.

The National Front ended La Violencia.

Garcia Marquez includes all the major events of Colombian history in his

novels viz., the pre-Hispanic life, the Civil Wars, The War of Thousand Days, La

Violencia, Banana Strike, etc. One Hundred Years of Solitude is organized into three

large thematic sections or narrative blocs: the utopian foundation of the town of

Macondo; the town‘s consolidation, the development, the expansion and the onset of

crisis; and its decline and destruction. Those who are familiar with Latin American

history recognize certain locative cues that pertain specifically to Colombian national

history and so, the story of Macondo allegorically parallels the foundation,

consolidation and eventual violent decline of the Colombian national state.

Garcia Marquez‘s reference to the ―pig-tail‖ in One Hundred of Years of

Solitude takes the history of Colombia back to the days of the discovery of America by

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Columbus and his men. He dramatizes how intimately connected the New World's birth

is with the Old World's imagination of it, through the interbreeding that takes place

between the Europeans and the Native Americans. If European representations of the

―discovery‖ are structured on an initial perception of ―otherness" that becomes an

image of the ―self,‖ Garcia Marquez recognizes that this narrative contains within it a

genealogy of Latin America, in which the fear of radical exogamy alternates with and

gives way to the fear of incest. The family narrative that Garcia Marquez tells, not just

of Jose Arcadio and Ursula, but of all Latin America, thus takes Columbus's account of

a race of pig-tailed men as its moment of origin. Columbus first mentions the pig-tailed

men in his 1493 Letter to Luis de Santangel, when he discusses some of the further

provinces he has not yet reached, including one ―they call `Avan,' and there the people

are born with tails‖(Cecil 27). In this first letter, the pig-tailed man appears as a figure

of radical and monstrous otherness. Indeed, Columbus admits that he is surprised at the

absence of human marvels: ―In these islands I have so far found no human

monstrosities, as many expected, but on the contrary the whole population is very well-

formed‖ (Cecil 14). As a point of departure for Columbus's definition of the New

World ―marvel,‖ this monstrosity thus appears as a paradoxically familiar image of

otherness.

The pig-tailed men are again mentioned in Columbus's second voyage. In his

account of this voyage, Andres Bernaldez recounts how Columbus received reports of

people inhabiting the region of Magon: ―all the people had tails, like beasts or small

animals, and that for this reason they would find them clothed‖(Cecil 132). Bernaldez

doubts the veracity of this story and concludes that ―This was not so, but it seems that

among them it is believed from hearsay and the foolish among them think that it is so in

their simplicity ... it seems that it was first told as a jest, in mockery of those who went

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clothed‖ (138). This second, more elaborate, version of the tailed men has an obviously

different conclusion. Whatever this story may say about native attitudes toward

clothing, Bernaldez's interpretation reveals much about changes in the Europeans'

attitudes toward the peoples they have met. Where the humans with tails are in some

sense expected, what comes as more of a surprise ultimately is the tribes that wear

clothing. Clothing becomes a cultural mark of the apparently natural differences that

seem to separate the Europeans from the natives. In its subsequent reinterpretation,

then, this story is no longer about otherness; rather, it suggests the more threatening

possibility of a tribe which, in wearing clothing, may violate what the Europeans had

come to see as a fundamental difference that separated them from these peoples. That

is, the people of Magon represent the possibility of a kind of ―mixed breed.‖ They are

not the familiar myth of otherness, but in appearance they are too close to the

Europeans themselves. Columbus‘ myth of a race of pig-tailed men becomes, in Garcia

Marquez, a similar story of origin for Latin America. Garcia Marquez's One Hundred

Years of Solitude thus tells a myth about the birth, not of man as a biological being, but

of Latin America as a culture. In this cultural birth narrative, it is believed that Latin

America is born out of the union of two peoples and their cultures. By reconstructing

the creation of Latin America, Garcia Marquez drives home the point that the European

―self‖ and the native ―other‖ were present together in the land of Latin America right

from the days of discovery. He equates the identity of the ‗other‘ with that of the west.

Jose Arcadio Buendia‘s Macondo, in its infancy, resembles a Chibcha

chiefdom. The life in Macondo is as peaceful as that of a Chibcha clan. As the

Chieftain of the group, Jose Arcadio Buendia provides the needs of the inhabitants and

maintains the harmony of the village.

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Jose Arcadio Buendia, who was the most enterprising man ever to be seen in the

village, had set up the placement of the houses in such a way that from all of

them one could reach the river and draw water with the same effort, and he

lined up the streets with such good sense that no house got more sun than

another during the hot time of day. (OYS 9)

Macondo was "a village that was more orderly and hard-working than any

known until then by its three hundred inhabitants. It was a truly happy village where no

one was over thirty years of age and where no one had died." (OYS 9) . The town

exemplifies the ―social initiative‖ promoted by Jose Arcadio: every house receives

equal access to the water from the river and equal protection from the sun in the streets.

This is prelapsarian Macondo, a communal paradise before the Civil wars, where equity

of opportunity and resources governs social life among the founders and their progeny.

Throughout the descriptions of the village‘s early development, there is virtually no

direct mention of class or social difference among the people of Macondo. When the

outsider Don Apolinar Moscote testifies to his belief in the name of the magistrate by

hanging a sign that reads "Magistrate" on his door, Jose Arcadio explains that laws are

not needed in Macondo: ―In this town we do not give orders with pieces of paper. . . we

don't need any judges here because there‘s nothing that needs judging‖ (OYS 57). The

Macondons lead an idyllic, peaceful and self-contented life. The advent of the

Spaniards disturbs the peaceful life of the Chibchas. In the same way, the arrival of

Melquiades and Don Apolinar Moscote brings catastrophe to Macondo. By creating a

Macondo on the model of the Chibcha clan, Garcia Marquez yearns for the return of

pre-Hispanic life to Colombia. Further, he reverses the conventional wisdom that

attributes the political instability of the nineteenth century to the barbaric countryside,

whose backwardness and lawlessness hinder the civilized cities‘ efforts to lead the

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subcontinent toward order and progress, and comes out with a new notion that the

governmental intervention in local affairs is the origin of Macondo‘s troubles.

Macondo is attacked by insomnia – a plague of forgetfulness; people forget the

names of objects, and forget the significance and uses of the anonymous objects, such

as tables and chairs.

…when the sick person used to his state of vigil, the recollection of his

childhood began to be erased from his memory, then the name and notion of

things, and finally the identity of the people and even the awareness of his own

being, until he sank into a kind of idiocy that had no past. (OYS 45)

The plague reminds of the Spanish colonization and its attempts to obliterate the

customs of the pre-Hispanic life of the native Indians. The plague is brought to the

town by the Indian servants of the Buendias, Cataure and Visitacion. They are the

symbolic depiction of the pre-Hispanic population of the Americas, a group forgotten

and crushed by the conquering Spaniards, who, in the process, forget their own past. It

threatens to make the inhabitants of Macondo forget everything. Macondons forget

their past; their identity is lost. The plague symbolizes loss of both political and social

memories, loss of language and loss of reality. Colonization results in the loss of

identity of the indigenous people; it completely wipes out one‘s past. They begin to

label all objects and describe their purpose. They save their memory through the tool of

writing, attempting to hold on to their awareness of their surroundings and

consequently, the past. Macondo‘s plague of insomnia is a kind of nostalgia for the

―better days‖ of the barbaric, primitive past. It is an allegory to symbolize the potential

repercussions when collective means of communication do not function in relation to

the past and it prefigures the subsequent development of the idea that the inhabitants of

Macondo cannot create a history. The insomnia incident is a clarion call given by

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Garcia Marquez to the people of Colombia that they do not have a glorious history to

their credit and it is time for them to create a new identity and a new history for their

nation.

As dangerous as this collective loss of memory and historical awareness, is the

individual repression of the past, as carried out by the characters of the novel. Most of

them have acrimonious recollections and emotions, especially Colonel Aureliano

Buendia, who brings the second invasion of paradise with his thirty-two civil wars.

After the assassination of his sons, the Colonel opened Melquiades' room looking for

traces of a past before the war, and he found only rubble, trash and piles of waste,

accumulated over all the years of abandonment and, in the air that had been the purest

and brightest in the house, an unbearable smell of rotten memories floated. By way of

cleaning up these rotten memories, Garcia Marquez gives vent to the feelings of the

repressed past. He wants his people to create a new future which they can feel proud of,

for ever.

One Hundred Years of Solitude reflects the history of Colombia since

independence. The novel shows the burden of Garcia Marquez who wants to constitute

a national identity, through the establishment of the Buendia family in the imaginary

town of Macondo. Garcia Marquez himself said in an interview that ―One Hundred

Years of Solitude can be read as an account of Latin American history‖ (Mendoza, 73).

Gerald Martin also suggests that ―the story of the Buendia family is obviously a

metaphor for the history of the continent since Independence, that is, for the

neocolonial period‖(97). Like the other countries in Latin America, Colombia gained

its postcolonial independence in the early nineteenth century; yet, their sense of

collective nationhood has still not been properly formed. This can be attributed to the

rise of oligarchic control in many Latin American countries after the Spanish

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domination: the stabilization of the nation state (often built on old colonial bureaucratic

infrastructures) occurred, for the most part, without grass-roots participation or any

form of democratic means and was often structured by autocratic authoritarian regimes.

In addition, its vague territorial aspect and political instabilities resulting in its

ambiguous spatial borders, complicate Colombia‘s rapport with the Continent.

At the beginning of the novel when Macondo is established, the founding

people are full of hope and optimism. They leave their original homeland with a view

to founding a town by the sea. However, after months of failure they decide to stop

travelling and simply establish a new city in the middle of nowhere:

Jose Arcadio Buendia and his men, with wives and children, animals and all

kinds of domestic implements, had crossed the mountains in search of an outlet

to the sea, and after twenty-six months they gave up the expedition and founded

Macondo, so they would not have to go back. It was, therefore, a route that did

not interest him, for it could lead only to the past. (OYS 10, 11)

In fact, Jose Arcadio Buendia and Ursula Iguaran are relatives and their

marriage in their homeland is scandalized, as people believe that their offspring will be

cursed and be born with a pig‘s tail. This unfortunate situation is rendered more tragic

when Jose Arcadio Buendia kills Prudencio Aguilar, to defend his honour. Even though

the killing is later legitimized as a duel of honour, the ghost of Prudencio Aguilar

continues to haunt him. Thus, Jose Arcadio Buendia thinks that it is time he and his

wife left the town and founded a new one, where people can live without their past. To

analyze Macondo as a nation in this light, can thus be compared to a journey back

through time, to the time when a nation first comes to exist, develop, and encounter

extraneous influence, both benign and malign, not unlike the emergence of Colombia

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which has started with hope after a long period of colonization and has withstood years

of postcolonial conflicts and violence.

Thus the Buendia family and their hometown Macondo, become a stage

whereby Garcia Marquez directs the history of the colonization of his nation. The name

Macondo itself appears in Jose Arcadio Buendia‘s dream on the night that he and other

founders decide to choose the location of their town. A vivid image of a town looms

large in this dream:

Jose Arcadio Buendia dreamed that night, that right there a noisy city with

houses having mirror walls rose up. He asked what city it was and they

answered him with a name that he had never heard, that had no meaning at all,

but that had a supernatural echo in his dream: Macondo. (OYS 24)

The fact that the town he dreams of consists of houses with mirror walls, is

symbolically revealing, as it can be interpreted that Macondo itself serves as a mirror,

its emergence reflecting that of the real nation of Colombia.

In One Hundred Years of Solitude the consequences of colonization are clearly

perceivable. For instance, the presence of Spanish Catholicism is symbolized in the

character of Father Nicanor Reyna, whom Don Apolinar Mascote brings to Macondo to

preside over the wedding between his daughter and Colonel Aureliano Buendia. As the

narrative is set during the turn of the twentieth century, the presence of colonial culture

is more like lingering remnants, a bundle of traces that outstay their welcome. This is

metaphorically perceptible in the figure of the priest himself: ―His skin was sad, with

the bones almost exposed, and he had a pronounced round stomach and the expression

of an old angel...‖ (OYS 86).

Another manifestation of colonialism can be seen in the figure of Fernanda del

Carpio, the wife of Aureliano Segundo, who comes from an old historic town,

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presumably Bogota itself, where the domination of colonial culture has made itself

strongly felt. According to the narrator,

Fernanda was a woman who was lost in the world. She had been born and

raised in a city six hundred miles away, a gloomy city where on ghostly nights

the coaches of the viceroys still rattled through the cobbled streets. Thirty-two

belfries tolled a dirge at six in the afternoon. In the manor house, which was

paved with tomblike slabs, the sun was never seen. (OYS 210, 211)

The symbols of the colonial period, such as the coaches of the viceroys and the thirty-

two belfries, still remain in the city where Fernanda comes from. It is a sad city, where

people are subjected to the oppressive tradition of colonial heritage. It is thus not

surprising that, when Fernanda arrives in Macondo, the relative ease and freedom from

rules pester her. She needs to set down rules and conform to them in her daily

activities. After marriage, when she moves to live in the Buendia house, she tries to

impose regulations and protocols in everyday routines. For instance: ―She put an end to

the custom of eating in the kitchen whenever anyone was hungry, and she imposed the

obligation of doing it at regular hours at the large table in the dining-room, covered

with a linen cloth and with silver candlesticks and table service‖ (OYS 216). Even

though the rest of the family members tolerate her idiosyncrasy, they do not understand

her. This is because, before Fernanda‘s arrival, Macondo is still a relatively new town,

founded by Jose Arcadio Buendia and Ursula Iguaran, in an attempt to free themselves

from the constraints of the town where they had been living. In this aspect, what

happens in Macondo or, to be exact, in the Buendia family, is a replaying of what

happens at the macrocosmic level: Macondo is a microcosmos, in which various

sources of interventions and forces all play their roles in determining the course of the

town, not unlike the birth and evolution of a nation like Colombia itself, especially

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when taking into account colonial and neo-colonial impositions upon its establishment

at large. This interplay between the microcosmic and the macrocosmic is also

suggested by Homi K. Bhabha who argues for ―redrawing the domestic space as the

space of the normalizing, pastoralizing, and individuating techniques of modern power

and police: the personal-is-the political; the world-in-the home‖(11). The main crux of

portraying these colonial characters is to show that the culture of Colombia is

contaminated and that the innocent arcadia created by Jose Arcadio Buendia has lost

its indigenous traits with the arrival of the colonial people.

After its independence, Colombia had been subjected to a series of political

conflicts, as the Conservatives and the Liberals struggled for absolute power in their

never-ending tug of war. This resulted in the War of a Thousand Days and La

Violencia. The significance of political uncertainties can be seen in Stephen Minta‘s

claim that ―perhaps the single most important aspect of Colombian history since the

country gained independence from Spain has been the nature and extent of the political

violence it has experienced‖(5). If the War of a Thousand Days caused an estimated

100,000 deaths (in a country whose total population then amounted to less than four

million), La Violencia led to the tragic demise of roughly a quarter of a million people.

The Conservatives wished to restore to Colombia its ‗Catholic Arcadia‘, with its policy

to support Spanish traditional legacy and Catholicism. The Liberals, on the other hand,

sought to modernize the country which they considered ‗backward‘.

It was after La Violencia, that One Hundred Years of Solitude was first

published. Thus it would not be too far-fetched to argue that the novel is, in part,

steeped in immediate political concerns, as Garcia Marquez attempts to make sense of

what his country has experienced. This inevitably leads to his contemplation of the

nationhood of Colombia after its independence from Spanish domination. War and

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violence then become an integral part of the novel, as they function as an integral part

of the history of his country. In other words, if history plays an important part in

constructing nationhood, war and violence certainly become part of Colombian history,

with which the author needs to reckon in his reflections on nationhood. For him, war

and violence seem to yield a disparate impact in Colombia: if they tend to signify a

sense of progress in the western world, marking a demise of oppressive regime and a

recognition of the demand of the oppressed, its counterparts in Colombia appear to

convey a sense of vicious cycle, a manifestation of things coming back full circle and

ready to start all over again. This view is supported by the endless, repetitious wars

between the Conservatives and the Liberals, which lead to no absolute, clearly defined

progress.

In One Hundred Years of Solitude, these wars are also significant and become

part of the historical backdrop against which the Buendia family and Macondo are set.

It all begins with the arrival of Don Apolinar Moscote, a magistrate appointed from

Bogota to govern Macondo. As a unified embodiment of the Conservatives, the

representative of the current central government, he asks the locals to paint their houses

blue (i.e. the colour of the Conservatives) to celebrate national independence. It can

thus be argued that Don Apolinar Mascote brings national politics to the microcosmic

scene of Macondo, where, before his arrival, the boundaries between the Conservatives

and the Liberals or the connotations of blue and red had not been known. Colonel

Aureliano Buendia, for instance, needs to ask Don Apolinar Mascote to tell him the

differences between the two parties, since, for him, the boundaries between the two are

very vague. While Colonel Aureliano Buendia and his leftist supporters roam the

various regions of Colombia, trying to revolt against the oppressive regime, he asks his

nephew Arcadio, who is also a champion of Liberal causes, to impose order upon

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Macondo. However, in doing so, Arcadio ironically becomes a harsh, cruel ruler, who

is drunk with power. At one point, he is tempted to give the order to kill Don Apolinar

Mascote, whose daughter, Remedios Mascote, is Arcadio‘s own aunt. Colonel

Aureliano Buendia himself starts to feel the blurred boundaries between the

Conservatives and the Liberals when he is capture and sent to Macondo to be executed.

He perceives ―how the town has aged. The leaves of the almond tress were broken. The

houses painted blue, then painted red had ended up with an indefinable coloration‘‘

(OYS 127). The fact that the houses end up with a mixture of blue and red paints,

attests to the fact that perhaps the clear boundaries between the two parties do not exist.

This leads to Colonel Aureliano Buendia‘s gradual recognition that the belief that

people fight for their ideologies is absurd, as these ideologies cannot be defined in their

own terms. In order to define their ideologies, both the Liberals and the Conservatives

need to construct the image of their opposite party and base their dogmatic beliefs on

such image formation. In a conversation with his friend Colonel Gerineldo Marquez,

Colonel Aureliano Buendia asks:

―Tell me something, old friend: why are you fighting?‖

―What other reason could there be? Colonel Gerineldo Marquez answered. ―For

the great Liberal party.‖

―You‘re lucky because you know why,‖ he answered. ―As far as I‘m concerned,

I‘ve come to realize only just now that I‘m fighting because of pride….‖

―Or fighting, like you, for something that doesn‘t have any meaning for

anyone.‖ (OYS 139)

Colonel Aureliano Buendia perceives that the underlying force for both the

Conservatives and the Liberals is pride, i.e. the belief that one‘s ideology is superior to

that of the other and, therefore, the need to dominate the other. This leads to the

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Colonel‘s recognition that the wars between the two sides are futile and that they are

not completely over until both of the parties cease taking arrogant pride in their

ideologies. As for as their ideologies are concerned, there is no difference between the

two parties. The irrelevance of ideology appears on several levels. Moscote identifies

the Conservative Party with the church, but it is the Conservatives who brutalize a

priest and the church. The Liberals, in the person of Arcadio, are anti-clerical. As

Amaranta remarks with sardonic wonder to Gerineldo Marquez, the Liberals go to war

to destroy the church and give prayer books as presents. ―They spend their lives

fighting against priests and then give prayer books as gifts‖ (OYS 106). The Liberals

rebuild the church destroyed by Conservative bombardment. Another example for

ideology vacuum is Colonel Aureliano Buendia, whose ideological base at the

beginning of the conflict is nil. Moved by a vague humanitarianism, offended by the

stealing of elections, Colonel Aureliano Buendia takes his twenty-one men to war after

a series of atrocities committed by the Conservative forces occupying the town, the

summary execution of Dr.Noguera, the brutal beating of Father Nicanor, the murder of

a woman by pounding her to death with rifle butts. The response is, to the brutality of

power, not for or against any abstract ideas or threats to liberty. When the Liberals

possess power, their atrocities are less only because they are weaker; Arcadio is

prevented from murdering Moscote only by the superior force of his grandmother.

When they are not weaker, they are fully as brutal. Colonel Aureliano Buendia

connives at the murder of a general who threatens his position as the leader of the

Liberal forces. Vargas allows the execution of General Moncada and destroys the house

of Moncada‘s widow. In the background, the politicians in black frock coats negotiate

and compromise jockey for places in Conservative administration and alter the

ideological terms of the struggle. The Colonel himself finally embraces the conflict as a

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struggle for power alone, with which the terms of ideological conflict have nothing to

do. With this realization, he brings the war to an end and withdraws from political life.

The disillusioned Colonel Aureliano is filled with an acute sense of life‘s

futility. After undertaking thirty-two armed uprisings, he comes to the conclusion that

he has squandered twenty years of his life to no purpose and withdraws to his

workshop, where he devotes himself to making the same little golden ornaments over

and over again. This routine represents recognition of the vanity of all human

enterprise: it is completely senseless, but for the Colonel it is no more absurd than his

previous activities and it is a means of filling in the time, while he waits for death. A

few moments before he dies, a circus parades down the street, and in it he sees a

tableau of his own life, a showy, ridiculous spectacle that has given way to an

emptiness as bleak as the deserted street. Garcia Marquez shows the futility of the civil

wars through the Colonel‘s life.

Garcia Marquez is deeply hurt by the hypocrisy of the leaders of the two parties

who fight for pride and power without any ideological base. But the innocent people

fanatically follow their leaders in ignorance. Garcia Marquez lays the crooked and

cunning nature of the leaders of the two parties bare before the people of his nation,

who hitherto have been identifying themselves with either of these two parties. It is

time for them to come out of the clutches of these parties and form a new identity for

themselves. The reconstruction of events related to the two major political parties will

bring the people to light, who would, hereafter, strive for the unity of the people, and

thereby make their nation march towards a new identity.

Garcia Marquez highlights the fact that neither the Conservatives nor the

Liberals manage to gain a firm foothold in Colombian politics, and it seems as if time

did not yield any progress but supported the belief that Colombia was locked up in its

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own stagnant political whirlpool, sinking yet deeper into bouts of violence and

bloodshed. This negative sense of unproductiveness can be seen in a dialogue between

Colonel Aureliano Buendia and his mother, Ursula, after he perceives that the town of

Macondo has considerably changed since he left to fight for the Liberal cause: ‗What

did you expect?‘ Ursula sighed. ‗Time passes.‘ ‗That‘s how it goes,‘ Aureliano

admitted, ‗but not so much‘ (OYS, 127). For Colonel Aureliano Buendia, even though

the whole town has changed, it is still unclear which party gains the upper hand and the

progress of his country is hanging by a thread. Years later, Ursula is able to reach the

same conclusion. When she sees Jose Arcadio Segundo locking himself up in

Melquiades‘s room, she is surprised, not as much owing to his haggard looks, as

because she perceives that Jose Arcadio Segundo is repeating the pattern to which her

husband Jose Arcadio Buendia and her son Colonel Aureliano Buendia have chosen to

commit themselves. To her surprise, the identical dialogue takes place: ‗What did you

expect?‘ he murmured. ‗Time passes.‘ ‗That‘s how it goes,‘ Ursula said, ‗but not so

much‘ ( OYS 341). If Colonel Aureliano Buendia‘s acute perception of stagnation is

generated by the nature of war and violence, Ursula‘s route to such recognition is

different. As a central character of the novel literally trying to hold the family together,

Ursula lives long enough to see both the birth and death of her numerous children and

grandchildren, as well as the prosperity and decline of her own town Macondo. Finding

herself repeating the same dialogue that she had with Colonel Aureliano Buendia many

years ago, Ursula comes to realize that there cannot be any progress. Colonel Aureliano

Buendia and his mother are not the only two characters in the novel who are able to

perceive that there is stagnation. Jose Arcadio Buendia, Ursula‘s husband, also

experiences the same feeling. After he sees the ghost of Prudencio Aguilar, the man

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whom he killed before moving to settle in Macondo, he starts wondering about the

progress of Macondo. Talking with his son Aureliano, he asks:

―What day is today?‖ Aureliano told him that it was Tuesday. ―I was thinking

the same thing,‖ Jose Arcadio Buendia said, ―but suddenly I realized that it‘s

still Monday, like yesterday. Look at the sky, look at the walls, look at the

begonias. Today is Monday too.‖[...] On the next day, Wednesday, Jose

Arcadio Buendia went back to the workshop. ―This is a disaster,‖ he said.

―Look at the air, listen to the buzzing of the sun, the same as yesterday and the

day before. Today is Monday too.‖(OYS 80)

Like the Colonel and Ursula, who believe that there is stagnation, Jose Arcadio

Buendia believes that nothing has changed.

Garcia Marquez‘s burden is to present the true nature of the two major political

parties of Colombia to the people of his nation and thereby make them aware of the

futility of the civil wars fought by these two parties. He exposes the hypocrisy of the

Conservative Party through its underhand works of rigging the elections. ―That

night…he (Apolinar Moscote) ordered the sergeant to break the seal in order to count

the votes. There were almost as many red ballots as blue, but the sergeant left only ten

red ones and made up the difference with blue ones.‖( OYS 99). In yet another

incident, Arcadio Buendia, as the Governor of Macondo, behaves like a petty dictator,

and the deal that he strikes with the second Jose Arcadio, whereby he legalizes the

latter‘s right to that lands that he has usurped in exchange for the right to levy taxes,

exemplifies and reinforces the traditional pattern of oligarchic domination and,

significantly, is later ratified by the Conservatives. Committed to a programme of

radical reform, Colonel Aureliano Buendia finds himself not only fighting the

Conservatives but also at odds with his own party. The Liberal landowners react to the

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threat to their property by entering into secret alliances with the Conservatives,

financial backing is withdrawn, and eventually the party strategists drop all radical

policies from their program in order to broaden their support. When Arcadio of the

Liberal Party gets power in his hands, he becomes one of the cruelest rulers of

Colombia; the reign of the Liberal Party does not bring any peace or progress in

Colombia. Garcia Marquez wants to drive home the point that the two parties are not

different from each other. When Garcia Marquez says that it is not ideology but pride

which is the cause for the civil wars, it goes straight into the minds of his people. With

the civil war going on for several years, the people understand that there is no place for

progress. Garcia Marquez, by retailing the dark side of the civil wars, makes his people

understand that unless they wriggle out of the menace of the civil wars, it is next to

impossible for them to achieve national identity. He reconstructs the past so that his

people can carve out a new identity for their nation in future.

Garcia Marquez, in his own inimitable style, reconstructs the events which

show how Latin America was desperately dependent on the United States, for its

economic development. In the beginning, Jose Arcadio articulates the dream of a world

transformed by scientific and technological progress. In fact, it is the dream of

Colombia since independence, the aspiration to modernize on the model of the

advanced industrial nations, in order to achieve a similar level of development. In the

event, Macondo does come to enjoy a period of economic growth. But what worries

Garcia Marquez is that the modernization does not come about as the result of internal

development but is imported from the outside. Thus Jose Arcadio‘s original dream of a

city of mirrors, takes on an ironic significance in that Macondo‘s role becomes that of

reflecting the developed world. Though Macondo does undoubtedly prosper and

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progress, it continues to trail behind the rest of the world, and, furthermore, it finds

itself the victim of foreign economic and cultural imperialism.

Through the story of the later Macondo, Garcia Marquez illustrates Colombia‘s

neo-colonial status as an economic dependency of international capital, particularly

North American. No sooner had Macondo embarked on a phase of autonomous

economic development than it falls under the domination of North American capital

and incorporated into the world economy, as a source of primary products, becomes

subject to cycles of boom and recession, determined by the fluctuations of the

international market. Aureliano Segundo accumulates a fantastic fortune quite

fortuitously, thanks to the astonishing fertility of his livestock, and the whole

community enjoys an equally fortuitous prosperity generated by the banana boom.

Macondo‘s or Colombia‘s experience of prosperity is not due to any real economic

development but to the amazing richness of the region‘s natural resources and to

international demand for those resources. Hence, it is defenseless against sudden

slumps in the market. A symbol of such slumps is the great deluge that ruins Aureliano

Segundo by killing his stock. The extent to which the Colombian economy is

manipulated by foreign capital is indicated by the suggestion that the crisis was

deliberately engineered by the Banana Company, whose directors were so powerful that

they were able to control the weather. In the wake of his ruin, Aureliano Segundo is

reduced to running a lottery to make ends meet and is nicknamed Don Divina

Providencia. He comes, in fact, to personify Colombia or Latin America, whose

economic role in the world is passively to wait for the stroke of good fortune that will

bring it another period of prosperity. By portraying the economic dependency of Latin

America on the United States, Garcia Marquez wants his countrymen to stand on their

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own feet. He does not want his country to hide behind powerful nations but bring it to

the limelight with a new radiant face.

The episodes of the Banana Strike and military repression in One Hundred

years of Solitude constitute the highest point in Garcia Marquez‘s extensive chronicle

of Macondo. They are among the most forceful and dramatic in the entire saga of

Macondo. The whole episode is a vivid and dramatic scene, packed with socio-political

suspense, capped with sanguinary horror and followed by uncanny official silence and

a fantastical rain. It is the last occasion in which the Macondons and their Buendia

leaders collectively resist the meddling of a high-handed central government. With the

army occupation and repression, the townspeople lose once for all the scant political

autonomy still remaining with them. With the five-year cloudburst, courtesy of the

Banana Company, the decline of Macondo as a historical subject and vital entity is

greatly accelerated. The biblical windstorm that sweeps everything off, completes the

inexorable cycle of physical and spiritual degradation. Banana Strike is one incident

which makes Garcia Marquez lose control over his emotion and he bursts out. This is

unusual for Garcia Marquez. He narrates any event, be it tragic or comic, with a ‗brick‘

face. He maintains an unwavering, almost matter-of-fact tone throughout the novel. For

him, there is no difference between what is likely and what is not; he fulfills his

mission by telling as naturally of the dead as he does of the living, associating with the

greatest of ease the intangible with the tangible. His steadfastness reveals itself in his

unchanging, constant tone. From the first page to the last, he maintains the same tone

levels, without fluctuation or variation. But, this narrative tone loses its control and

results in a burst of emotion. In the last line of the description of the Banana incident,

Garcia Marquez‘s brick face crumbles down:

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The child saw a woman kneeling with her arms in the shape of a cross in an

open space, mysteriously free of the stampede. Jose Arcadio Segundo put him

up there at the moment he fell with his face bathed in blood, before the colossal

troop wiped out the empty space, the kneeling woman, the light of the high,

drought-stricken sky, and the whorish world where Ursula Iguaran had sold so

many little candy animals. (OYS 312)

The term ―whorish world‖ comes out of Garcia Marquez‘s agitated heart, because he is

not able to control his emotion.

Garcia Marquez reconstructs the banana events with a vengeance to show the

true history which was manipulated by the authorities of the Banana Company and the

government. He vehemently demystifies the history of the subcontinent by rewriting

the events surrounding the Banana Company. He exposes the ruling establishment‘s

tradition of manipulating history, because the authorities hush up the massacre of the

striking banana workers and the roundup and disappearance of all potential subversives,

claiming that Macondo is a peaceful and contented community where social harmony

reigns. Later, young Aureliano, brought up by his uncle to regard Macondo as the

victim of the Banana Company‘s imperialist exploitation, discovers that the school

history books portray the company as a benefactor which brought prosperity and

progress. Enraged by the official manipulation of the Banana incidents, Garcia

Marquez is set out to debunk official myths by offering an alternative history. The

banana strike and its bloody aftermath were the major events in the area in which he

was born. He has said that he remembers getting conflicting reports of the strike from

friends and neighbours, some of whom claimed there were no dead; others said an

uncle, a brother had died. The banana episode in One Hundred Years of Solitude

integrates the memories of childhood with the adult‘s outrage at the combined forces of

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foreign imperialism, domestic injustice and military repression, exerted against the

legitimate desires of the people. Garcia Marquez wants to reconstruct this past, because

it is threatened with oblivion. Minta cites three issues with which Garcia Marquez is

concerned in his depiction of the massacre. First is his obvious sympathy for the

strikers and their position. The second concern is his desire to rescue, from a continuing

conspiracy of silence, an important event in the history of Colombia, ―for once you fail

to admit the existence of something important in your past, you are close to denying the

past any significance at all; and, from then on, it is easy to deprive the present and the

future of all significance too‖ (Minta 15). Garcia Marquez' third concern is to question

the reliability of historical accounts and records. The military leader against the strikers

at Cienaga, Cortes Vargas, presents a version of the occurrences that differs from that

of a strike leader, Alberto Castrillon; newspaper reports also vary from the

investigations of Colombian lawyer Jorge Eliecer Gaitan. Marquez's version of the

events, serves as a reminder that all versions of the past are incurably fictitious.

Garcia Marquez‘s narrative traces the history of the banana company in

Macondo from the arrival of the company and its physical and social transformation of

the town, through the organization of the workers against the company, to the strike,

the massacre at the station, the final ―mopping up‖ operation conducted by the army

afterwards, and the expunging of the events from the secondary school history books.

The United Fruit Company was incorporated in New Jersey in 1899, in the merger of

the Colombia Land Company and the Boston Fruit Company. In the first decades of the

twentieth century, it established itself as a state within a state in the ―banana zone‖ on

the Atlantic coast of Colombia. The company constructed an irrigation network,

maintained its own railroad, telegraph network, retail stores, and fleet to carry its

cargoes to U.S. ports. The company owned 30,000 acres in the region and employed

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about 18, 000 men. In addition to the company, there were independent growers, all

Colombian nationals, dependent on the company‘s irrigation network and transport

facilities. The development of the banana industry produced an influx of workers both

domestic and foreign that acquired the contemptuous nickname ―la hojarasca‖ from the

longtime inhabitants.

The period was a boom period, but the position of the workers was not

altogether advantageous. Workers were paid on a piece-work system, by the number of

bunches of bananas cut or the amount of land cleared. For the most part, they were not

employed directly by the company or by individual growers, but worked under

foremen-contractors and migrated from one plantation to another. Part of their wages

was paid in scrip, for exchange at the company‘s commissaries, kept stocked by the

ships of the banana fleet, that must otherwise have returned empty from New Orleans.

The system of contract labour allowed both native growers and United Fruit to evade

the provisions of Colombian law intended to protect the workers by requiring

employers to provide medical care, sanitary dwellings, collective and accident

insurance. Since the contractors lacked capital, they were not legally required to

provide those benefits; since the growers did not employ the workers directly, neither

were they. In 1918, the workers of the region had exerted enough pressure on the

company to persuade it to promise to consult its Boston home office on the complaints

raised by the workers, principally demands for wage increases and the elimination of

scrip payments, as well as fulfillment of the company‘s obligations under the labour

laws for workers‘ conditions. Ten years later, the workers raised their demands again,

and the company refused to bargain, but again promised to consult.

In his account, Garcia Marquez gives us two strikes, though they do not seem to

be separated by ten years. The first occurs on Fernanda‘s return from incarcerating

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Meme and when Jose Arcadio Segundo comes out of the houses of French whores into

political action. The second phase of the strike begins after a period of demonstrations,

agitation and the fruitless pursuit of the authorities of the banana company that had

begun when Aureliano, Meme‘s son, was a year old. To be precise, the banana strike

broke out on 12 November 1928, after the United Fruit Company refused to meet the

demands of the workers. The next day, General Carlos Cortes Vargas, the newly

appointed military commander of the banana zone, arrived with a regiment of troops

from Santa Marta and Barranquilla. News of sabotage against the railway moved the

army into action; some 400 strikers were arrested. However, most of them were soon

freed by the civilian authorities to the dismay of Cortes Vargas. According to Ignacio

Torres Giraldo, a contemporary union leader and co-founder of the Socialist

Revolutionary Party, that none of the major leaders of the strike had been arrested by

4 December, gave the labourers hopes for a settlement regarding the demands. The

government indeed took some action against the strikers, but there was little evidence

of strong repressive measures before 6 December. Moreover, the authorities did not

seem to be in a position to enforce law. At the end of November, for example, the

Magdalena governor issued a decree forbidding meetings that could obstruct public

roads. Similarly, an arrest warrant against the leaders of the strike could not be

enforced. There was no shortage of propaganda during the strike. Cortes Vargas was

accused of censuring the press. However, any attempt to silence the press was not

effective. Raul Eduardo Mahecha, the prominent leader of the strike and an active

figure in the Colombian labour movement during the 1920‘s, particularly in the oil

industry, made good use of his own printing machine. The newspapers which supported

the strike were circulated in the banana zone as well as in Bogota. The newspapers

created a big impact on the incredulous crowd of illiterates. The fact that the strike

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enjoyed the widespread support of the merchants and the newspapers in the region, is

signified by Father Antonio Isabel‘s approval of the workers‘ demands: ―The workers

demanded that they not be obliged to cut and load bananas on Sundays and the position

seemed so just that even Father Antonio Isabel interceded in its favour, because he

found it in accordance with the laws of God‖ (OYS 302). In spite of the public support,

the company was non-committal in its actions. Garcia Marquez presents the incredible

evasions by the banana company by the disappearances and multiple disguises of Mr.

Jack Brown.

As soon as he found out about the agreement, Mr. Brown hitched his

luxurious glasses-in coach to the train and disappeared from Macondo

along with the more prominent representatives of his company.

Nonetheless, some workers found one of them the following Saturday in

a brothel and they made him sign a copy of the sheet with the demands

while he was naked with the women who had helped to entrap him. The

mournful lawyers showed in court that that man had nothing to do with

the company and in order that no one doubt their arguments they had

him jailed as an impostor. Later on, Mr. Brown was surprised travelling

incognito in a third-class coach and they mad him sign another copy of

the demands. On the following day he appeared before the judges with

his hair dyed black and speaking flawless Spanish. The lawyers showed

that the man was not Mr.Jack Brown, the superintendent of the banana

company, born in Pratville, Alabama, but a harmless vendor of

medicinal plants, born in Macondo and baptized there with the name of

Dagoberto Fonseca. (OYS 306, 307)

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In the higher court, the lawyers skilfully argued that the workers‘ demand lacked

validity because the company did not have, and never would have, any workers in its

service, because they were all hired on a temporary and occasional basis. Agreeing with

this position, the court solemnly decreed that the company did not have any workers.

When the Company did not come forward for the talks, the thirty-two thousand

workers went out on strike. The response of the Conservative government in distant

Bogota was a military occupation of the Banana Zone. The soldiers themselves were

eventually put to work cutting and shipping banana bunches as strike-breakers. In spite

of the repressive laws and constant intimidation, the workers stood fast and the

government declared a state of siege.

In his account of the strike proper, Garcia Marquez conflates a few events and

does not disguise the incipient violence in the workers‘ confrontation with the army. In

his account, the army arrives to break the strike, martial law is declared, the workers

gather at the station to await a mediator, are fired upon by the army after having had

read to them Decree No.4. which is signed by General Carlos Cortes Vargas and his

secretary, Major Enrique Garcia Isaza, and in three articles of eighty words he declares

the strikers to be a ―bunch of hoodlums‖ and authorizes the army to shoot to kill:

…the row of machine guns opened fire. Several voices shouted at the same

time: Get down! Get down! The people in front had already done so, swept

down by the way of bullets. The survivors, instead of getting down, tried to go

back to the small square, and the panic became a dragon's tail as one compact

wave ran against another which was moving in the opposite direction, toward

the other dragon's tail in the street across the way, where the machine guns were

also firing without cease. They were penned in, swirling about in a gigantic

whirlwind that little by little was being reduced to its epicenter as the edges

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were systematically being cut off all around like an onion being peeled by the

insatiable and methodical shears of the machine guns. The child saw a woman

kneeling with her arms in the shape of a cross in an open space, mysteriously

free of the stampede. José Arcadio Segundo put him up there at the moment he

fell with his face bathed in blood, before the colossal troop wiped out the empty

space, the kneeling woman, the light of the high, drought-stricken sky, and the

whorish world where Ursula Iguaran had sold so many little candy animals.

(OYS 312)

When the massive barrage of gun fire broke out, the proprietor of a nearby hotel heard

someone screaming ―AY MI MADRE‖, a common Spanish exclamation, roughly

equivalent to ―Oh my God‖. Several witnesses reported having seen the bodies thrown

into trucks, which then headed toward the sea. A few months later, Miguel Urrutia

reveals that ―the Fruit Company had been directly paying off the military, lodging the

officers in hotel rooms and sending complimentary beer, food, and cigarettes to the

grunts‖(99).

In One Hundred years of Solitude, Jose Arcadio Segundo wakes up to find

himself on a nightmare train ride, with thousands of corpses and returns to a Macondo

in which no one believes anything has happened. The workers‘ demands have been

reduced and accepted, but the rains have begun and the search for the assassins and

incendiaries of Decree No.4 continues, until the union leaders are eliminated. The exact

number of casualties will probably never be known. There are various estimates given

by contemporaries and historians ranging from 47 to 2000. Cortes Vargas took

responsibility for 47 casualties.

What irks Garcia Marquez most in the entire history of Banana incidents is the

number of people killed in the strike and the United Fruit Company‘s ability to

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obliterate the entire happenings from the consciousness of Colombia. But his

conscience is awake and he wants to tell the truth to the world. He estimates the

number of casualties to be 3000. He himself admits that it is an exaggerated figure.

What makes him register such a boosted number? Garcia Marquez is shocked to learn

that the Banana Company is able to distort the number of casualties. The truth will

never come to light. Now it‘s time for Garcia Marquez to give a startling shock to the

authorities and the imperialists by recording an overstated number. Moreover, Garcia

Marquez expects that the number would perform a magic in the minds of the people of

Colombia. The number might make the Colombians to think that their own fellow-

Colombians were once killed in large numbers like cattle because of the disunity

among themselves. The magic number, Garcia Marquez believes, would bring his

people together. The stain on Colombia, that the country is a house divided against

itself, would be wiped out once for all. A new Colombia will be born, which would be

like the paradisiacal Macondo founded by Jose Arcadio Buendia.

What pains Garcia Marquez is not the physical pain that is inflicted on the

Colombian workers but the attempt to fool the Colombians with a perverted history;

with a conspiracy of silence.

―There must have been three thousand of them,‖ he murmured.

―What?‖

―The dead,‖ he clarified. ―It must have been all of the people who were at the

station.‖

The woman measured him with a pitying look. ―There haven‘t been any dead

here,‖ she said. ―Since the time of your uncle, the colonel, nothing has

happened in Macondo.‖(OYS 313, 314)

Even the official statement echoed the same feeling of the woman.

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The official version, repeated a thousand times and mangled out all over the

country by means of communication the government found at hand, was finally

accepted: there were no dead, the satisfied workers had gone back to their

families, and the banana company was suspending all activity until the rains

stopped. (OYS 315).

A careful revision of the Banana Massacre reveals that the casualties were too high;

that Cortes Vargas and the army behaved ruthlessly; that in the final analysis the

arrogance of the United Fruit Company and its reluctance to come to terms with labour

demands were ultimately responsible for the tragic outcome. Even Jorge Eliecer Gaitan

comes out with many charges against the army: that the action of the army was

cowardly and planned; that the wounded were hopeless workers; that the dead bodies

were thrown into the sea; that the officers, including Cortes Vargas, were drunk; that

the women from Cienaga were forced to attend orgies; that the army acted not to

protect Colombian but US interests. Gaitan arrived in the banana zone on 18 July 1929

and stayed there for a few days. He held a mass interrogation and gave speeches before

the crowds. On his return journey to Bogota, he stopped whenever he could tell the

growing crowd about the massacre. Later he started a debate in the Lower House,

which lasted for fifteen consecutive days. Gaitan‘s serious allegations were widely

publicized by the contemporary press. Among Gaitan‘s witnesses in the 1929 hearings,

was the treasurer of Aracataca, Mr. Nicolas R. Marquez, maternal grandfather of the

baby boy Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Like Gaitan there were others who made the events

related to the Banana massacre public. Alberto Castrillon, one of the leaders of the

strike, sent from prison a full report giving his version of the strike to the Congress,

soon published in book form. The Alcalde (the Mayor) of Cienaga, Victor Fuentes, who

had been accused by Cortes Vargas of supporting the strike, also published his own in

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July 1929; so did the Magdalena Governor, Jose Maria Nunez Roca. In 1931, Gregorio

Castaneda Aragon, a Magdalenense poet who held an official position during the strike

published his papers on the strike which contained accusations against Cortes Vargas.

But in spite of all the efforts made by persons of the various sections of the whole

nation, the Banana Company and the government authorities successfully enforced the

conspiracy of silence. The deluge ―decreed‖ by Mr.Brown, effaces any recollection of

the slaughter, just like the insomnia plague, which wiped out memory in the early

epoch of Macondo.

What irks Garcia Marquez more is not the banana massacre itself but the

portrayal of Banana Company in the school history books as the benefactor, which

brought prosperity and progress to the country. He was totally crushed upon learning

that the army did not support the Colombian but the US interests. The fact that the

government betrayed its own people is something indigestible to him. It has been

lingering and pestering in his mind ever since he came to know of this incident. He

unburdens this emotional torment by setting the record straight in One Hundred Years

of Solitude. He wants to defeat the conspiracy of silence by thinking the incident aloud.

It was the Colombian elite that was responsible for the suppression of the truth from the

collective memory of the people. As a member of the Colombian elite, Garcia Marquez

wants to atone for the wrongdoing committed by his people. With a vengeance, he

reconstructs all the incidents pertaining to the banana massacre with minute details to

show the truth to the world, and, thereby, he wants to give a new face to Colombia. He

plunges into the nightmare of neo-colonial Colombian history, as a strategy of

liberation: his task is to annihilate a past consuming itself from within and create a new

history free from any imperial traces.

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Linked with the Banana massacre is the arrival of the train at Macondo. Garcia

Marquez expresses his deep anguish that the railroad in his country has been controlled

by the imperial agents and used against the people of Colombia during the Banana

incident. Under the dictatorship of General Rafael Reyes ―British capital was, for the

first time, invested in Colombian railways in substantial amounts‖ (Frank 220). Not

surprisingly, this period saw the completion of the railway between Bogota and the

Magdelena River. Macondo was irreversibly linked to the outside world. But, of

course, that was only the start. ―As the transportation improvements of 1904 to 1940

began to knit together a national market, significant innovations occurred in other

economic sectors‖(Frank 232) and it was the nationalization of Colombia‘s railways

that made many such innovations possible. In the period of the strike against the United

Fruit Company, in particular, the reorganization of the railroads was a central issue of

American diplomacy in Colombia. The National City Bank and the First National

Bank of Boston refused to extend short-term credit until a railroad bill was passed. By

1931, they demanded, in their negotiations with the Colombian government, an even

greater control: ―that the railroad system be taken out of the hands of the government

and placed under the direction of professional management‖(Randall 25). In his

description of the banana strike, Garcia Marquez makes the implications obvious: the

same trains that send bananas and profits to the north, transport the murdered bodies to

the sea. There—both the government and the ‗professional management‘ hope---they

will disappear, even from history.

For the Colombians, the Banana incident is ever important. Today, in Cienaga‘s

central plaza, there is an impressive memorial to the victims of the United Fruit

massacre, a fifty-feet statue of an Afro-Colombian field worker, matchete in hand. For

simple reasons of accessibility, few non-Colombians will ever set eyes on that

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commemorative sculpture. But millions worldwide have read and will read about the

Banana strike and the repression in One HundredYears of Solitude and understand the

true history of Colombia.

Garcia Marquez reconstructs in his writings, the gory past related to the

Conservatives and the Liberal Parties and the resultant decadence of the nation.

Another major influence on Colombia was the Catholic Church, supported by the

Conservatives. Beginning with the ―spiritual conquest‖ of the New World by the clergy

who accompanied the explorers and conquistadors, the church played a dominant role

in the Spanish colonial system. The church aspired to and usually attained a ubiquitous

presence in the Spanish American society. The omnipresence of the church in the daily

lives of the colonialists was the result of the transfer of the Spanish symbiosis of Crown

and Church to the New World. Under the colonial system of Latin America, the church

ruled, while the state governed. Tannenbaum Frank provides an overview of the

church‘s role even in the daily affairs of the colonialists.

The church ruled the most intimate and personal needs of the individual from

the cradle to the grave and beyond. The church in the large city, in the small

town, in the village, and even on the pathways over the mountains was ever-

present, for there would be cross or small chapel at every difficult passage, at

the top of every hill one climbed. The church was everywhere even when the

priest was absent. (56, 57)

Yet the cultural reality of Spanish America was quite heterogeneous. A variety of

factors were attributed to the heterogeneity of the Spanish American colonial society:

the cultural diversity of the European immigrants, Spain‘s regional diversity, the

immigration of Portuguese Jews fleeing from the Inquisition, the diverse social levels

of the immigrants, the culture of the clergy, the growing number of creoles, the

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importation of African slaves, the varieties of indigenous peoples and, of course, racial

mixtures resulting from the intermingling of the various ethnic groups. The influence of

the eighteenth century Enlightenment filtered into the Spanish American through the

Spanish officials and the ecclesiastics, and the colonial culture became even more

heterogeneous, and consequently, more conflictive. One of the chief tasks of the

Inquisition was to ensure that Enlightenment ideas did not stain the purity of the

Christian faith. ―The Inquisition in America never attained the widespread violence that

characterized it in Spain‖ (Crow 210). By law, African slaves were supposed to be

converted to Christianity at their port of entry, but with perfunctory instruction and

baptism impracticable, they assimilated Christian doctrines in a very imperfect fashion,

fusing elements of their African religion with Catholicism.

Against this intensified clash of cultures and ideologies in New Granada, Garcia

Marquez sets his Of Love and Other Demons. The novel is a sustained, direct and

complex exploration of colonialism. In addition to the direct and prolonged focus on

the theme of colonialism in Of Love and Other Demons, he deals more pointedly with

the role the Church played as a major accomplice in sustaining colonialism in Spanish

America. Garcia Marquez reconstructs the role of the church in colonial Spanish

America, because he has a deep concern for his people who follow their religion with

blind faith. He wants to create awareness among people that their faith in religion

should not be misused by the church. The novel differs from his previous treatment of

colonialism in that it presents significant positive forces to counter the enslaving forces

of colonialism. These positive forces are presented as both signalling and hastening the

decadence of colonialism. In Of Love and Other Demons, a distinction is made between

colonial mentality and certain legacies of the Old World which are potentially life-

affirming and productive of freedom. The political and religious institutions of the

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ancient regime are shown in a negative light, while certain currents of other European

traditions, such as the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, are shown in a positive

light.

In the novel‘s foreword, the author-narrator explains that as a young reporter he

was assigned to the exhumation of the remains of those buried in the ancient cemetery

of the convent of Santa Clara, where workers opened a crypt from which flowed more

than twenty-five metres of beautiful copper-coloured hair attached to the skull of a

twelve-year old girl. Through this exhumation, Garcia wants to dig out the hideous side

of the church. This exhumation is nothing but the reconstruction of the events

surrounding the death of Sierva Maria through which Garcia Marquez wants to show

the other side of the church. He wants his people to have a new understanding of the

church.

Sierva Maria, a twelve year old girl, is the protagonist of this novel. Garcia

Marquez uses the relation between the girl and the church as the principal means to

explore the implications of the conflicts among the various cultural traditions present in

the colony. His focus is chiefly on the role of the Catholic Church and, perhaps, that of

Christianity itself, in the colony. Even more specifically, Garcia Marquez turns his

spotlight on the operations of the Inquisition in America as a means of illuminating the

fundamental tenets of the Church, the mindset of the officials and the consequences of

its practices.

In Of Love and Other Demons, Garcia Marquez presents colonial Christianity as

a religion of death. The church, not only brings about the death of Sierva Maria, but its

cruel treatment of her in the process of exorcising what it imagines to be her demons is

tantamount to producing death in life. She does not die from the rabid dog‘s bite; she

dies rather at the hands of the church. Logically, then, in her case, falling a victim to

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the church resembles the consequences of being bitten by a mad dog. In his last

conversation with Cayetano, Abrenuncio, the Portuguese Jewish physician, refers to

Christianity as a religion of death. The church is multifaceted and manifests its

presence in various ways. The power of the church is best symbolized in the bishop of

the diocese, Don Toribio. His residence in the oldest palace in the city, now decayed,

affords him an overview of all the church towers and the roofs of the principal houses

and military fortifications, as well as the view of the sea. Hence, just as the Church

plays a dominant role in colonial life, so does its highest official in the colony, enjoy a

commanding view of the city. The image of an ancient palace in ruins occupied by an

ancient prelate, who is chronically afflicted by severe attacks of asthma, symbolizes the

church‘s decadence. The bishop always appears as an asthmatic person. His excessive

weight and bad health suggest that the church exercises too much power for its own

good and for the good of those it was established to serve. Though imposing and

impressive in many ways, as is the bishop, it no longer serves but rather oppresses and

destroys those it should help. The church has abandoned its spiritual mission to pursue

worldly power instead, as the following characterization of the bishop indicates: ―The

Bishop was not a man given to celestial visions, or miracles, or flagellations. His

kingdom was of this world‖ (OLD 79).

Ironically, the church, whose task in Sierva Maria‘s case is to exorcise the

demons she is believed possessed by, not only creates the demons through its

tendentious interpretation of her acts, but makes her life a hell on earth. Although

Sierva Maria herself is not burned, her long hair, a symbol of beauty and vitality, is

unceremoniously cut and consigned to the flames: ―Sierva Maria saw the golden

conflagration and heard the crackle of virgin wood and smelled the acrid odor of

burned horn and did not move a muscle of her stony face‖(OLD 139,140). An imagery

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of death appropriate to those consigned to hell is also present there. Constrained by a

straitjacket, Sierva Maris is carried to the chapel by two naked slaves: at the end of the

mass she is uncovered and stretched out on a catafalque as if she were dead. Later,

When Sierva Maria described the experience to Cayetano, she identifies the ―devil‖

who presided over that hell:

Sierva Maria recounted her terrible experience in the chapel. She told him

about the deafening choirs that sounded like war, about the demented shouts of

the Bishop, about his burning breath, about his beautiful green eyes ablaze with

passion. ‗He was like the devil,‘ she said. (OLD 142)

Garcia Marquez‘s deep concern is that the church should give life to those who are in

the death bed; it should not kill people in the name of religion.

Sierva Maria, neglected by her parents, is brought up in the slave courtyard. She

learns three African languages and assimilates African customs. She is consecrated to a

Yoruban deity. Despite her white skin and her status as the daughter of a Creole

aristocrat, she has an African soul. This identity explains why she habitually lies: the

slaves, it is said, lie to whites, but not to each other. The tribal necklaces she wears are

an expression of her African identity, which is why she becomes disorderly and violent

when anyone tries to take them away from her. It is largely such overt manifestations of

her African identity that lead Josefa Miranda and others to perceive her as possessed by

demons. Her heresy, simply put, is a product of their ignorance and rigidly held

ideology, a fanatical institutionalized intolerance of otherness. Moreover, just as an

array of physicians, healers and barbers reopen and inflame the wound in Sierva

Maria‘s ankle, so do the sessions of exorcism produce the symptoms the bishop

interprets as demonic possession. The bishop also interprets Sierva Maria‘s reaction to

the abuse of the healers as a clear sign of satanic presence. He calls the marquis to his

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palace to advise him of the matter: ―It is an open secret that your poor child rolls on the

floor in obscene convulsions, howling the gibberish of idolaters. Are these not the

unequivocal symptoms of demonic possession?‖ (OLD 57). The bishop makes this

statement shortly after the narrator has described at some length the prelate‘s chronic

and severe asthma, ―He was, moreover, a man assailed by poor health; his stentorian

body permitted him to do very little on his own and was corroded by a malignant

asthma that put his faith to the test‖(OLD 53). That his asthma is incapacitating is

confirmed when he suffers an attack during a session of exorcism:

Sierva Maria, beside herself with terror, shouted too. The Bishop raised his

voice to silence her, but she shouted even louder. The Bishop took a deep

breath and opened his mouth again to continue the exorcism, but the air died

inside his chest and he could not expel it. He fell face forward, gasping like a

fish on land, and the ceremony ended in an immense uproar. (OLD 141)

The juxtaposition of the bishop‘s charges that the humanly induced illness of Sierva

Maria is a sign of demonic possession with the pointedly lengthy description of his

illness suggests that the real demons are the church officials, who possess the simple

souls in their clutches.

Throughout the text, Garcia Marquez gives the evidence that demonic

possession is the result of Sierva Maria‘s upbringing on the slave courtyard. When the

bishop reviews Sierva Maria‘s conduct, such as her singing of ―demonic‖ songs,

mimicking other voices and making herself invisible to the abbess alone, Cayetano

responds succinctly, summing up the true explanation of Sierva Maria‘s acts: ―‘I

believe, however,‘ said Delaura, ‗that what seems demonic to us are the customs of the

blacks, learned by the girl, as a consequence of the neglected condition in which her

parents kept her‘‖(OLD 97). Abrenuncio, referring to the cruelty of the process of

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exorcism, comments on the Inquisition‘s ferocity in comparison with the benign

religious practices of the black slaves:

‘There is not much difference between that and the witchcraft of the blacks,‘ he

said. ‗In fact, it is even worse, because the blacks only sacrifice roosters to their

gods, while the Holy Office is happy to break innocents on the rack or burn

them alive in a public spectacle.‘(OLD 76)

In his reconstruction of the colonial church of Spanish America, Garcia

Marquez shows the dark side of the church. He exhorts the Colombians to use their

reason in following their religion and cautions them against blind faith. He wants to

give a new meaning to the religion by combining it with knowledge and reason.

Abrenuncio stands for knowledge and reason. As a Portuguese Jew on whom the

Inquisition maintains a file, he represents the ever fragile tradition of freethinking and

rationality. As a physician, he is also an empiricist and pragmatist, concerned with

observation and consequences. He is open to experience and capable of forming

judgments that do not fall clearly into any tradition. But his association with reason is

evident from the books he keeps in his library. His name Abrenuncio, composed of the

Spanish words abre (―he opens‖) and nuncio (―papal messenger‖) refers to the role

Abrenuncio plays in opening Cayetano, the ―papal messenger‖, to more ample

perspectives. His name also carries the word ―renuncio‖ which means in Spanish ―to

renounce‖. What he renounces is the blind faith in Christian religion which leads to

death. His conversations with Cayetano reveal both the traditional aspects of the

priest‘s ideology and his potential for liberation from the most inhumane of the

church‘s doctrines. Thus, it is through the character of Abrenuncio, that Garcia

Marquez wants to demonstrate that blind faith in religion results in death, whereas

religion combined with reason and knowledge affirms life.

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Garcia Marquez deplores that church sometimes becomes the supporter of

certain superstitious beliefs. The eclipse symbolizes the extension of medieval religious

values into the colonial period. Ironically, the bishop, who is the maximum

representative of such values, perceives the eclipse as a special occasion, and he invites

Cayetano to witness the event with him at his palace. ―Father Cayetano Delaura was

invited by the Bishop to wait for the eclipse beneath the canopy of yellow bellflowers,

the only place in the house with a view of the ocean sky‖(OLD 95). The young priest

stares too long at the eclipse and afterwards wears a patch over one eye. The

description of the eclipse and its effect on Cayetano alternate with his efforts to

persuade the bishop that what has been interpreted as demonic possession in Sierva

Maria‘s case is simply the result of neglect by her parents, her upbringing in the slave

courtyard and her mistreatment at the hands of the church. This is the occasion when he

suggests that the convent records are more useful in revealing the abbess‘ mentality

than Sierva Maria‘s condition. The bishop‘s rejection of these arguments and his

insinuation that Cayetano is bordering on rebellion dramatizes the lack of light, the

intellectual and moral darkness that the church typifies. When Cayetano suggests that

the common people err in associating society‘s ills with the eclipse, the bishop

conjectures that they may be right. Garcia Marquez is anguished that the church that

should stand for the life of the people, kills Sierva Maria because of its superstitious

beliefs. The reconstruction of events related to the colonial church will create a new

awareness in the minds of the people who would, hereafter, follow religion with reason

and faith.

From the very moment of contact between Europe and the Americas, the history

of the peoples of the Americas began to be rewritten using a European interpretive

framework. As Jose Hernan Cordova has pointed out, ―the absence of reciprocal

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understanding with the Indians left Columbus free to impose his own meanings on

everything‖ (66). Thus one of the earliest historical documents of the Americas,

Columbus‘s journal, speaks not of the true history of the Americas, but of a European

interpretation of that history. Garcia Marquez explores this phenomenon in Autumn of

the Patriarch, when the moment of contact is retold from the perspective of the

indigenous peoples of the Americas. As an anonymous indigenous witness to the

contact explains to the Patriarch:

―… we didn‘t understand why the hell they were making so much fun of us

general sir since we were just as normal as the day our mothers bore us and on

the other hand they were decked out like the jack of clubs in all that heat … and

they shouted that they didn‘t understand us in Christian tongue when they were

the ones who couldn‘t understand what we were shouting.…‖ (AOP 39)

The Europeans make fun of the natives because they are unable—or unwilling—to

interpret Latin America‘s reality with any lens other than that which is based on a

European framework. Therefore, early historical documents such as Columbus‘ journal

characterize the indigenous Americans as different or ―other‖ based on a European-

centered world view, and this indigenous ―otherness‖ becomes ingrained in the history

of the Americas. During the colonial period, efforts to rewrite the history of the

colonized, took place all over the world. Frantz Fanon writes of this effort on the part of

the colonizer in his book The Wretched of the Earth: ―Colonialism is not satisfied with

snaring the people in its net or of draining the colonized brain of any form or substance.

With a kind of perverted logic, it turns its attention to the past of the colonized people

and distorts it, disfigures it, and destroys it‖ (149). This colonial effort to manipulate

history was done with the intention of convincing ―the indigenous population that it

[colonization] would save them from darkness‖ and that if ―the colonist were to leave

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they [the indigenous population] would regress into barbarism, degradation, and

bestiality‖ (Fanon 149). What Fanon is implying, and what colonial governments

recognized, is that without a clear sense of their true history, the colonized cannot rebel

against the colonizer. Because their pre-colonial history has been manipulated, the

colonized have no basis for imagining a positive postcolonial future, and thus the

possibility of revolution is remote.

One of the important truths which the nation‘s textbooks seek to cover up, in

The Autumn of the Patriarch, is the truth of the Patriarch‘s origins. For example, when

the school textbooks mention the history of the Patriarch‘s birth, they ―attributed [to his

mother Bendicion Alvarado] the miracle of having conceived him without recourse to

any male …‖ (AOP 44). Beyond this reference to the Patriarch‘s apparently

miraculous conception, it is said that ―all trace of his origins had disappeared from the

texts …‖ (AOP 44). In fact, much of the Patriarch‘s effort to manipulate the history of

the nation involves obscuring his own origins and creating a false past for himself. One

of the most prominent examples of this takes place during the very same scene of

contact previously mentioned between Europe and the Americas. The key to

understanding the Patriarch‘s use of colonial techniques in the domination of the people

in this scene is the fact that the Patriarch himself is present—and not only present but in

power—at the moment of first contact. The Patriarch is described as ―evok[ing] again

and reliv[ing] that historic October Friday when he left his room at dawn and

discovered that everybody in the presidential palace was wearing a red biretta …‖

(AOP 38). Unable to understand what has happened to his nation, the Patriarch finally

finds someone ―to tell him the truth general sir that some strangers had arrived who

gabbled in funny old talk;‖(AOP 39) and, being ―so confused that he could not decide

whether that lunatic business came within the incumbency of his government,‖ (AOP

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40) the Patriarch apparently allows the colonization to begin. So as not to dispute the

nation‘s official history which places the Patriarch at the scene of Columbus‘s landing,

the regime obscures the Patriarch‘s past by creating multiple birth certificates for the

dictator. At one point, three separate birth certificates are found for the Patriarch, ―and

on all three he was conceived three times on three different occasions, given a bad birth

three times thanks to the artifices of national history which had entangled the threads of

reality so that no one would be able to decipher the secret of his origins …‖ (AOP 141).

This passage explicitly reveals the way in which history has been manipulated by the

regime. The Patriarch‘s origins have been destroyed so as not to refute the official

history which dictates that the Patriarch has ruled for hundreds of years.

According to Fanon, the regime has distorted the history in order to make it

impossible for the people to imagine a time before the Patriarch. The Patriarch has no

origin, he has simply always been, and thus it is nearly impossible for the people to

imagine that he will not simply always be. Just as the manipulation of history by

colonial powers prevents the colonized from imagining a potentially bright post-

colonial future, so too has the regime‘s manipulation of history impeded the people‘s

ability to imagine a positive post-Patriarch future. It could, perhaps, be argued that the

Patriarch‘s description of the contact does not represent the official history of the nation

as constructed by the regime; that it does not represent an attempt to manipulate

history, but rather expresses the addled workings of a mind which has crumbled under

the weight of absolute power. However, there is some evidence to indicate that

whatever the Patriarch conceives to be the history of the nation becomes, before long,

the nation‘s official history. This can best be seen at a later point in the novel when the

Patriarch, reflecting on a distant memory, realizes that ―not even he himself could have

been sure with no room for doubt whether they were his own memories or whether he

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had heard about them on his bad nights of fever …or whether he might have seen them

in prints in travel books … but none of that mattered, God damn it, they‘ll see that with

time it will be the truth …‖ (AOP 161). Thus the Patriarch transforms his own

memories into the truth— into the official history of the nation—regardless of the

source or accuracy of those memories. And, it seems, the Patriarch‘s version of history

is rarely challenged:

… he [the Patriarch] put an end to all disagreement with the final argument that

it didn‘t matter whether something back then was true or not, God damn it, it

will be with time. He was right, because during our time there was not one who

doubted the legitimacy of his history, or anyone who could have disclosed or

denied it because we couldn‘t even establish the identity of his body, there was

no other nation except the one that had been made by him in his own image and

likeness where space was changed and time corrected by the designs of his

absolute will, reconstructed by him ever since the most uncertain origins of his

memory as he wandered at random through that house of infamy…. (159)

In this way, the Patriarch‘s presence at the moment of contact can be understood as

both a distortion of memory caused by the corruption of power, as well as a

representation of the official history which the regime constructs for the people in order

to impede their ability to form a revolutionary movement. There is no difference

between the Patriarch‘s memories and the official history of the nation, and therefore

the Patriarch‘s memory of colonial contact is historically accurate, according to the

official version of events. By tracing his origin back to the moment of contact, the

Patriarch becomes the beginning of the nation. According to Fanon: ―The colonist

makes history. His life is an epic, an odyssey. He is invested with the very beginning:

‗We made this land‘ ‖ (14). The nation, in its modern form, begins with the Patriarch.

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Therefore he, like the colonist, ―is the guarantor for its [the nation‘s] existence: ‗If we

[the colonists] leave, all will be lost, and this land will return to the Dark Ages‘ ‖

(Fanon 14). The Patriarch echoes this very sentiment, saying ―when I finally die the

politicians will come back and divide up the mess the way it was during the time of the

Goths‖ (AOP 159). Not surprisingly given the level of historical manipulation achieved

by the Patriarch‘s regime, the people come to believe that the Patriarch really is the

beginning and the end, at times questioning ―what‘s going to become of us without him

…‖ (AOP 27). The people are kept in the dark as to the true history of their nation, and

because of this they come to believe that the Patriarch really is the beginning and that

his reign ended the time of the Goths; in fact, they cannot imagine the nation without

him. This inability to imagine the future without understanding the past is not unusual.

As Ngugi wa Thiong‘o writes:

An oppressed class, or nation, that believes in itself, in its history, in its destiny,

in its capacity to change the scheme of things, will obviously be stronger in its

class and national struggles for political and economic survival. Similarly an

oppressed class or nation that loses faith and belief in itself, in its history, in its

capacity to change the scheme of things, becomes weakened in its political and

economic struggles for survival. Such a class or nation can only work out its

destiny within the boundaries clearly drawn by the dominating class and nation.

(54)

In Autumn of the Patriarch, the people cannot believe in themselves or their history

because they are prevented from understanding their true history and are instead fed

lies about the past. Because of this, the Patriarch is ―the only one among us [the people]

who knew the real size of our destiny …‖ (AOP 97) The Patriarch controls the destiny

of the people—and thus naturally controls their ability to form a revolutionary

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movement—by preventing the people from having access to their past. Ngugi wa

Thiong‘o writes of the subversive power of history. He says that ―Change, movement,

is … the eternal theme in history.… Therefore no society is ever static.… History is

ever reminding The Present of any society: even you shall come to pass away‖ (96). By

perpetually wearing the gold spur which official history records as a gift from

Columbus, the Patriarch is attempting to create the image that history is, in fact, static.

History tells the story of change, but, as Ngugi wa Thiong‘o explains, official history

does just the opposite:

Tyrants and their tyrannical systems are terrified at the sound of the wheels of

history.… So they try to rewrite history, make up official history; if they can

put cotton wool in their ears and in those of the population, maybe they and the

people will not hear the real call of history, will not hear the real lessons of

history. (96, 97)

Evidence of change—of the dynamic nature of history—is a source of hope and a call

to revolution in an authoritarian state. In light of this, the Patriarch‘s decision to ―chop

down all trees in village squares to prevent the terrible spectacle of a Sunday hanged

man … [prohibit] the use of public stocks, burial without a coffin, everything that

might awaken in one‘s memory the ignominious laws that existed before his power,‖

(AOP 161) can be seen as an attempt to erase all evidence of change. Despite the fact

that evidence of the ―ignominious laws‖ of the past could potentially improve the

image of the dictator‘s regime, the Patriarch recognizes that all evidence of change is

potentially subversive. Thus he adorns himself and the pages of the official history with

evidence of stasis, while destroying all evidence of history‘s dynamic nature. The

people are unable to recognize that the potential for change always exists; they are

unaware that history proves this fact, because the only history which they have been

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exposed to is the one which has been manipulated and distorted by the regime, and

therefore they are unaware of their own potential to bring about the change they so

desperately need. In distorting the past, the regime seems to have created a real fear

amongst the people that, without the Patriarch, the nation would ―regress into

barbarism, degradation, and bestiality‖ (Fanon 149). Following the death of the

Patriarch‘s perfect double, Patricio Aragones, the Patriarch is described as having

watched as one woman ―embraced the perfumed corpse sobbing aloud that it was him,

my God, what‘s going to become of us without him …‖ (AOP 27). This sentiment is

echoed later in the novel when the people say of the dictator‘s rumoured death that ―we

no longer wanted it to be true, we had ended up not understanding what would become

of us without him, what would become of our lives after him …‖ (AOP 207). History

has been distorted and destroyed to such an extent that, in the minds of the people, life

before and after the dictator is equally unimaginable. The regime‘s policy of historical

manipulation has been so effective that, in the end, the people cannot even bring

themselves to wish for the Patriarch‘s death, let alone create a revolutionary movement

to bring that death about. Unfortunately for the people of the nation, the Patriarch‘s

death does not necessarily imply an end to the manipulation of history by the

government. In fact, following the Patriarch‘s supposed first death, one of the first acts

of those who step in to lead in the absence of the Patriarch, is to destroy the history of

his existence: ―… he watched the ferocious leaders who dispersed the procession with

clubs and knocked down the inconsolable fishwife, he watched the ones who attacked

the corpse… ‖ (AOP 24). Patricio Aragones appears primarily in the initial pages of

the novel. The incredible physical resemblance between the Patriarch and Patricio

Aragones, allows the Patriarch to use Aragones as a stand-in at public events. This

continues until Aragones is mistakenly assassinated in place of the Patriarch :

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...they were destroying the lair of power forever, knocking over the papier-

mache Doric capitals, velvet curtains and Babylonic columns crowned with

alabaster palm trees … annihilating that world so that in the memory of future

generations not the slightest memory of the cursed line of men of arms would

remain… (AOP 25)

It is not clear whether the leaders mentioned in this passage are acting on their

own or on the orders of the heirs to the regime, but what is clear is that an attempt is

being made to destroy the memory of the Patriarch‘s reign. Once again history is being

destroyed, and therefore the people are being robbed of their opportunity to learn from

the Patriarch‘s reign and draw strength from the proof of his mortality. Although the

passage above describes events which take place after the Patriarch‘s first death, there

is no reason to think that the same series of events will not be carried out following his

actual death at the end of the novel. After all, in many other respects the nation‘s

reaction to the Patriarch‘s actual death is identical to their reaction to his first, and thus,

it is in fact probable that the heirs to power will destroy any memory of the Patriarch‘s

reign of infamy before continuing their exploitation of the people as if nothing has

happened. Unless the people find a way to reconnect with the true history of their

country, they will be just as powerless under the new regime as they were under the

Patriarch.

Understanding one‘s history is vital to the formation of revolutionary

movements in neocolonial societies, and unless the people of postcolonial nations

immerse themselves in their history and draw strength from that history, they are

doomed to repeat the same neocolonial pattern enacted under the Patriarch indefinitely.

The immobility to which the colonized subject is condemned can be challenged, only if

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he decides to put an end to the history of colonization, in order to bring to life the

history of the nation, the history of decolonization.

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Chapter IV

Violence: A Colonial Legacy in Postcolonial Nations

Colonialism, the most complex and traumatic relationship in human history, has

left its mark on international relations, the social relationships within nations, and the

ideologies and imaginaries of virtually all the peoples of the world. The collective

memories that members of the formerly colonized and the formerly colonizing

countries hold about the colonial times, and particularly about colonial violence, still

permeate their current relationships. On the one hand, these memories certainly weigh

on diplomatic contacts between the formerly colonized countries and their former

colonizers. On the other hand, they also undermine the inter-group relationships within

societies or nations. This violent past also has enduring consequences on the former

colonized people‘s wellbeing. The way this violent past is collectively remembered

today, is therefore a crucial factor for understanding the contemporary instances of

inter-group conflict, prejudice, stigmatization, and racism.

In Colombia, violent conflicts and crimes of violence have become a permanent

characteristic of its society and it can be said that violence is anchored in the culture of

the society. A culture of violence includes all socio-cultural structures and symbols that

are connected with, produced by, and perpetuate violence. Obviously, in a country like

Colombia, with a long history of civil wars and violence, almost every aspect of life has

been shaped and marked by this in one way or another. In addition to numerous illegal

violent actors, counteracted in the sphere of legality by the state security forces and

legal private security services, this system includes a highly complex network of

coalitions and confrontations between these actors, along with never-ending

negotiations of pacts and compromises. It also features a market order adulterated by

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pressure and coercion and a legal system devoid of its enforcement component, that is

essentially amputated. It is said that violence and coercion are now fixed components of

Colombia‘s social and political machinery and can no longer be simply removed from

it. This means that, along with all social sub-systems, violence too is constantly

replicated in that country.

There are three indicators that point to a culture of violence in Colombia. These

are structural indicators that arise from the nature of violence in Colombia (frequency,

intensity, etc.); mental indicators that suggest that there is a widespread propensity to

violence; and a lack of taboos and prohibitive rules that would limit the use of violence.

As for as the structural factors are concerned, it must be noted that violence is

ubiquitous in Colombia.

There is hardly a single social sphere, geographical location, or group that has

not been affected by violence. Be it in the cities or remote rural areas, the social

microsphere of the family or the macro sphere of politics, the lower, middle, or

upper class, the judiciary or any business sector, violence is everywhere.

(Sanchez 45)

The striking thing about Colombia is that a host of organizations and groupings

operate outside the law and employ coercion and violence in pursuit of their aims. In

doing so, they generally operate in a way that is both coldblooded and professional.

This professionalism is partly the result of mutual imitation and learning processes. For

example, it is obvious that the paramilitary forces learned different forms of violence

from the guerrilla organizations, which already had years of previous involvement in

partisan struggle and dubious sources of funding, before the paramilitaries came into

existence. In any case, the development of a wide range of techniques of violence,

whether based on personal experience or adopted from others, presupposes a socio-

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cultural ambience that does not stigmatize the unauthorized use of violence but accepts

it as one of several ways of attaining esteem and success.

People resort to extreme forms of violence even for insignificant conflicts that

can be solved with an act of compromise. There is a glaring discrepancy between the

brutality of means and the modesty of the ends pursued, along with torture, mutilation

of corpses, and the like, which are by no means exceptional in this country, but an

everyday occurrence. Such excesses, sometimes, escalate into orgies of violence. This

is possible only in the context of a society in which the taboo, limiting the unauthorized

use of violence, has not only been broken but, in some social groups and sectors, has

been practically removed and replaced by a cult of annihilation of enemies. The

annihilation of enemies leads to the violence--promoting patterns of thinking which is

anchored in their collective consciousness: first and foremost the friend-foe dichotomy

that enjoys a central place in the Colombian realm of imagination, in all social classes.

Originally associated with the rivalry between the two traditional political parties,

conservatives and liberals, thinking in terms of friend and foe, has now become a

matter of course and permeates social discourse on all social planes, from micro to

macro. There is no urban district, region, or village, without a sworn enmity between

two or three main actors, be they individuals, family clans, or organized groups, that

shapes the life of society and compels the remaining actors to take sides and fall in line.

Even in new settlements founded by war refugees far away from the central civil war

action, the well-known pattern of division is reproduced almost automatically, resulting

before long in confrontations and moves by mutually hostile groups to disassociate

themselves from one another. According to Gonzalo Sanchez, in Colombia, ―the

historical continuity with which enmities are cultivated and war is repeatedly waged is

sufficient to identify the existence of a culture of violence‖ (76). Massacres,

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abductions, the circulation of lists of victims before the actual act of violence is

committed, and the key role played by informers are not new phenomena spawned by

the most recent wave of violence but patterns of behaviour and role models that can be

traced far back into the past. What is remarkable is that these have survived almost

unchanged through the transition from a colonial rule to a highly urbanized social

structure and the associated radical transformation in values, from a highly religious to

a largely secularized society. This can only be explained by their being firmly anchored

in the Colombians‘ cultural memory. Many young men are unable to forget that they

lost their fathers in an arbitrary act of violence. Even if they do not know the killers, the

recollection of this crime is stored in their memory and fills them with a dull, aimless

hatred that can discharge at random.

Killing someone because of an insult to one‘s honour is not only considered

legitimate but is essential in some groups and circles, if one wishes to avoid

jeopardizing one‘s reputation. A further consequence of dividing the social

environment into friends and enemies, is the tendency to be intolerant, to think in

categories of black and white and to disdain nuances and compromises. On the one

hand, this leads people to seek the solution to problems in direct confrontation with the

opponent, rejecting outside mediation. On the other, it casts a dubious light on all those

who fail openly to take the side of one party or the other. Those who don‘t attack their

enemies are termed as ‗traitors‘. Another phenomenon that promotes the arbitrary use

of violence is the macho cult that is widespread in Colombia. Reverence for imperious

and brutal individuals is common in the rural areas of Colombia. Special deference is

paid to people who had gained reputations as cruel butchers and inhuman monsters,

during their lifetime. Studies on the Violencia period describe ―how gang and guerrilla

leaders who committed repeated massacres not only inspired fear and terror among the

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peasants, but were also admired by them‖ (Sanchez 53). Generally, on perusing the

literature in search of motives and attitudes that stimulate violence, one gains the

impression that the broad strata of Colombia society have little regard for either life or

death. For example, the sicarios or the professional killers are prepared to kill any

stranger for even small sums; there are frequent massacres and kidnappings that often

end in the death of the kidnapped person; homicide is the most common cause of death

among young men between the ages of 15 and 35. Yet this disregard for life,

somehow, extends to death as well. That explains why in the Violencia period, the

mutilation and desecration of corpses was nothing unusual, or why after massacres the

dead were often left lying on the ground or buried hastily in a pit, that is, without any

kind of funeral rite.

Another factor that encourages the spread of a culture of violence is the lack of

restrictive taboos and informal sanctions against the unauthorized use of violence. This

shortcoming is apparent in Colombia in the way the subject of violence is treated, both

generally in public discussion and in relation to specific individuals. First, as far as

general discussion, in public and especially in the mass media, is concerned, the

absence of systematic efforts to criticize and delegitimize the illegal use of violence is

striking. It may be possible to explain this as a reaction of fatigue to the never-ending

series of kidnappings, and murders, and it may reflect a certain resignation and

submission to the inevitable. Anyhow, the fact is that the media adopts a critical tone

only in exceptional cases of particularly brutal or spectacular acts of violence. They are

more preoccupied with and pay more attention to the conflict narrative than to the use

of violence. They warn against possible further escalation and polarization, speak about

an increased willingness to negotiate and compromise on all sides, and give expression

to the general longing for peace by calling for an end to the hostilities. However, they

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hardly question the use of violence as such, which is the mode in which the conflict is

played out. This has two consequences. Since acts of violence are reported only in a

routine tone, no public discussion takes place on the extent to which they can be

described as fair or unfair, courageous or cowardly, legitimate or illegitimate. Whether

certain minimum rules of engagement are adhered to, whether the violence is directed

at innocents or combatants, whether people are attacked frontally or shot dead from

behind, is all seemingly uninteresting. The only thing that matters is the outcome of the

fighting. Who won, who is the victor in a zone, who must vacate it? The second

consequence is that fixing attention on negotiations and a possible peace deal, lead to

past injustice being largely blanked out and played down. Somehow, the inflation of

illegal acts of violence and the swift forgetting of them are two sides of the same coin.

Where all hope is directed towards an early end to a violent conflict, little space is left

for reviewing, analyzing, and expiating past crimes. Naturally, dispensing with punitive

justice involves the risk that some time later the violent monster, which has been lulled

by a peace deal but by no means stripped of its lethal claws, will reawaken and strike.

Thus in Colombia, the unauthorized use of violence is neither an emphasized right nor

a generally decried outrage. Basically, there is no public discourse on violence.

Garcia Marquez is worried that there is not even a general discourse on the

subject of violence. People are generally aware of it, primarily because it is constantly,

and not infrequently excessively, perpetrated. This, in turn, is only possible because of

a widespread tacit tolerance and acceptance of the use of physical force to solve private

and social problems, an attitude that can be certainly described as a culture of violence.

This is based on mental stereotypes and models that stimulate aggression and the

independent, unauthorized enforcement on the one hand and on the absence of taboos

and informal norms that inhibit or limit violence on the other.

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Massacres and Sicarios are two forms of violence in Colombia which differ

from one another in their processes and the aims they serve. Massacres spread terror

and are a form of show of strength, while the sicario, or contract killer, offers violence

as a service for sale. However, they have a number of features in common, the most

important of which is that they constitute extreme forms and each carry a specific

motive for violence to its extreme. Acts of violence in which more than four people die

are termed massacres. The dead may be a family, a youth group, or an entire village.

Sometimes the number of victims can run into hundreds. The death squads and

paramilitaries in particular have a reputation for spreading fear and terror by means of

selective massacres. Massacres often follow a specific sequence of events. They do not

befall the unsuspecting victims out of the blue but announce themselves, or are

announced through vague rumours, threats, and forewarnings. The collective act of

violence often takes place in the evening, when the inhabitants of a farm, several

houses, or a village are surprised over supper or when engaging in some other

communal activity. Not infrequently, the attackers wear uniform, and they are always

heavily armed. In the countryside, the targeted group of houses is often surrounded so

that no-one can escape. All the occupants are then herded into the central square and a

list of names provided by informers is read out. The accused, usually men, are singled

out and taken elsewhere. Shots and cries of pain signal to the remaining villagers that

these men have been butchered. When the attackers have made off and the survivors

make their way to the scene of the murderous events, what awaits them is a heap of

lifeless, often badly disfigured, corpses. In an isolated settlement, it can be days before

neighbours notice that a massacre has taken place. In addition to this ―normal‖ pattern,

there are versions involving even greater cruelty. Sometimes, the butchers take their

time and torture victims before killing them. While women and children are generally

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spared, there are instances of women being raped and children being killed, to prevent

the possibility of revenge when they grow up.

The violence of the sicarios, on the other hand, usually takes the form of the

assassinations of individuals rather than large-scale carnage. In the cities, victims are

generally attacked with firearms from the back of a motorcycle. Sicarios are young men

between the ages of 15 and 25 – working in groups – who specialize in earning their

money from contract killings. The institution of contract killing originated in Medellin,

but spread to most Colombian cities. The gangs of young men who actually perform the

violent business, are only the tools of people behind the scenes who organize and

coordinate the entire action. These may be individuals, but often an agency is behind

the attacks. These agencies – which are disguised to a greater or lesser degree

depending on their geographical location and social affiliation – act as mediators

between the ―customers‖ and the sicarios who perform their murderous wishes. They

arrange the assassination contract, fix the fee, usually payable in advance, in line with

the anticipated difficulties, and identify among the gangs of young killers which is best

suited to undertake the violent transaction in question. Every sicario‘s dream is to be

hired for a ―mega attack‖ that would allow him and his family to live without worries

about the future. Yet his wages are only a fraction of the sum paid for the contract

killing. The lion‘s share goes to the middlemen and the people behind the scenes, who

plan the assassination and ensure its smooth execution. The poor state of affairs in

Colombia, in this regard, is attributed to many reasons. Generally, the lack of the state‘s

control over violence is one of the main reasons for violence running out of hand in

Colombia. The scope of the central state enforcement and security apparatus, has

remained decidedly modest. Evidently, the state‘s leaders shunned the cost of

maintaining stronger armed forces, preferring, instead, to wage conflicts using ad hoc

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militias recruited on a voluntary basis. The Colombian state is certainly present in

public consciousness as an intellectual and physical entity, but it has remained a weak

state incapable of enforcing the laws it passes and incapable of disciplining its own

officials and citizens. Though it may be able to establish a certain degree of public

order, its power is insufficient to guarantee public security. The main initiative within

Colombia‘s political system, still lies with the two traditional political parties, the

Conservatives and the Liberals. Generally speaking, the dominant axis of conflict in

this country is ―horizontal‖ (conflict between the political parties, between armed actors

such as guerrilla organizations and paramilitary associations, etc.) as opposed to the

―vertical‖ relations of power between the state and its citizens.

Yet another complex reason for violence and a culture of violence in Colombia

is the tension between the upper and the lower classes, combined with an inadequately

developed middle class and urban middle-class culture.

In rural areas where the state is hardly present – both the big landowning class

and the class of small farmers and agricultural labourers share a predominantly

instrumental, pragmatic understanding of violence. Colombia‘s agrarian history

has seen numerous violent confrontations within these classes in which legal

considerations certainly carried weight but the availability of means of coercion

determined the ultimate outcome (Le Grand 46).

In Latin America, in general, consistent condemnation of violence and its

banishment from public life, did not come about until urbanization processes

established the urban lifestyle, and, in many cases, this applied only in the cities for a

long time. Within the cities, in turn, it was primarily the middle classes who, due to

their specific resources, their socialization and their general orientation, had the greatest

interest in the emergence of non-violent spaces, governed by the rule of the law.

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However, one cannot avoid the impression that many lower class migrants from the

countryside have only completed the urbanization process half-heartedly and that their

mentality has remained rural and parochial in some important respects. Class struggles

in the city are still fought in a rough, physical manner. As yet, no typically urban

middle-class political party exists. The traditional parties – born in a predominantly

rural context – along with their clientelist appendages, still have the say. The

urbanization process the country has undergone in recent decades, has not actually

suppressed violence as a means of conflict resolution, but has only changed its

appearance. It is no longer openly on show and no longer employed visibly as a means

of domination and strength. Nobody in the central districts of the big cities disputes the

right of the state and the local authorities to keep the public peace and general order.

Yet violent plots are still hatched covertly in back rooms. In the cities, people are killed

or kidnapped on a daily basis, while in areas on the urban periphery, the law of the

jungle prevails, in any case. Violence has become more anonymous and selective, but

whether it has declined during the course of the urbanization and modernization

process, is an open question that should probably be answered in the negative. Thus the

incidence of violence in Colombia cannot be comprehended without understanding the

existence of a culture of violence as expressed in high homicide rates, the existence of

institutionalized violent actors, the prevalence of certain norms, such as those of the

macho and of revenge, and the absence of other norms, taboos, and prohibitive rules.

The culture of violence in Colombia, has its roots in the Spanish colonial rule.

The state has become synonymous with violence, because of the attitude of the

colonizers towards the subjects of Colombia. Like any other colony, Colombia was also

subjected to the dictum of ‗divide and rule‘ by the colonizers. During the Hispanic

colonial period, racial boundaries defined the formal social stratification, which served

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as a source of social tension in Hispanic cities. Spanish law formally divided the

population into the blanco (European) and indio (Indian) categories, each with different

rights and obligations. The Indians, for example, had to live in an Indian community

and were excluded from the urban traza, a zone in which only the Spaniards could live.

Enslaved Africans occupied a subordinate category dependent on the Europeans.

However, racial miscegenation created a fourth group--the castas--which included the

mestizos (Euro-Indian offspring), the free blacks, the mulattoes (Afro-Indians), and the

Indians who had left their legal communities. As creators of the system of castas, the

Spaniards occupied the highest rung on the hierarchy, using their position as a

mechanism of social control. The Castas, for their part, attempted to ―whiten‖

themselves by marrying higher on the social hierarchy as a means of social mobility, a

process that often was facilitated by cultivating ties with the blancos and the other

social superiors. Factions within the colonial elite frequently manipulated members of

the casta groups to enhance their own political interests. According to Richard Morse,

―by the eighteenth century, these formal boundaries were giving way to social

stratification that divided the plebe, or las clases bajas from the gente decente, although

the casta system still influenced social labelling‖ (10). By the end of the nineteenth

century, distinct groups were increasingly visible in incidents of violence, suggesting

the social differentiation that accompanied increased urbanization and the capitalization

of production.

In the late 19th

century, Colombia was ruled by the Spanish Colonial elite. Great

social and economic inequality, with the mixed race and indigenous Indians were

relegated to the poorest strata of society. In 1849, the colonial ruling class split into two

formal political parties: the federalist Liberals and the Centrist Conservatives. A

prolonged series of regional battles followed, when both sides took up arms. Since then

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violence has become the order of the day in Colombia. There may be different kinds of

human beings in Colombia, but there are only two kinds of political beings viz., the

Liberals and the Conservatives. Liberalism and Conservatism in Latin America, have

unique historical roots. Latin America‘s struggle for independence began in 1808, after

the French Revolution and after the French revolutionaries, in the 1790s, began an

intellectual awakening, called the Enlightenment. The period of Enlightenment opened

the door for ideas of positivism in the Latin American society. The people in Latin

America turned to liberal ideologies. Liberalism clashed with conservative views. The

Liberals wanted to see changes in the ruling systems of Latin America. They wanted to

―step out of the box‖ of tradition, meaning that the Liberals wanted to open the boxes

of the church system, cultural background inequalities, and slavery. These issues, for

many years, strongly affected the way the Latin American society was organized. The

Liberals wanted to see the kings no longer in power. The majority of the Liberals

believed in a democratic system of government. This system created many changes and

much confusion in the Latin American communities, in the early 19th century. On the

other hand, conservatism was the pre-existing dominant system that was rooted in Latin

America. The Conservative governing systems consist of kings and the ruling blood

lines. Unlike in liberalism, the conservatives wanted to stay inside the box. They didn't

want to step out and try a new ruling system; they felt that chaos and disorder would

break out in the society. The Latin American Conservatives greatly believed in the

existing class stratification. In a nutshell, the Conservatives didn't want to see any

change of government in Latin America.

The contest between the Liberals and the Conservatives in Latin America, was

largely fought among the members of the landed white or the Creole elite. The systems

in place from the colonial period—such as slavery, patronage by the elite, and debt

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peonage—meant that the great mass of Indians, Africans, and people of mixed race,

had little power compared to the very small Creole ruling class. Thus, the concern that

liberalization would lead to the ―disorder‖ that the conservatives spoke about, was often

a veiled or transparent fear of race war.

These two parties, like two races, lived side by side but hated each other

eternally. The ideological difference between them has always been clear and distinct,

viz. armed conflict, bloody and recurrent. It was an axiom of Colombian historiography

in the early twentieth century, that, unlike the revolutions in other parts of Latin

America and other parts of the world, violent conflicts and intestine broils in Colombia

were caused not by conflicting economic interests or by brutal drive for power, but by

the opposition of political ideals. Abstract and principled, Colombia‘s conflicts were

bloodier and longer lasting than those of the other nations, because they could not be

satisfied with blood or bread or any material thing. Conflict has its roots in the colonial

period itself, and with the nation embattled over abstractions there was no room for

compromise.

Two historical phenomena are fundamental to the understanding of the

conflict. The first is the colonization of peripheral areas, which throughout Colombian

history, has served as an escape route from the tensions created by the highly

concentrated rural land ownership. In contrast to the other Latin American countries,

Colombia failed to implement the agrarian reform to redistribute land ownership.

Instead, a constant expulsion of the poor towards areas of unclaimed frontier,

occurred, where the presence of the central state's regulatory institutions and their

interaction with the rest of the society and the national economy were minimal.

Secondly, in political terms, this dynamic was reflected in a gradual state-building

process, in which, the staggered incorporation of territories and populations, resulted

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in an uneven state presence in the regions. Both processes had their roots in the

history of the settlement of the country from the colonial times to the present day.

Since the beginning of the sixteenth century, the most isolated and inaccessible

territories were inhabited by marginalized groups, such as the poor whites, mestizos,

Afro-Colombians and the mulattoes. In these areas of peripheral colonization, the

organization of social relations was left to the individuals and social groups, and the

state lacked total control on justice and the legitimate use of force. Even in more

integrated territories, the presence of state structures was uneven or the state was part

of a dual power structure whereby its control was exercised through the local elites.

The combination of the colonization process with this dependency on local powers,

made the integration of the recently settled territories into the rest of the country,

highly hazardous. From the end of the Spanish rule, until the consolidation of the

present-day Colombia, many of the rural and political structural problems inherited

from the Spanish colony, deepened. One group of people, the Liberals, fought for the

autonomy of these peripheral areas, free from the power of the centre. The other set of

people, the Conservatives, fought for a strong central government. The often violent

confrontation between the Liberal and the Conservative Parties dominated political

life during the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth centuries.

At the same time, the relations between the two parties cannot be explained in

simple terms. The parties have consistently joined ranks to expel the dictators; factions

of one party had aided factions of the other in fomenting civil wars; both parties had

joined together not only to oust dictators who threaten the hold of either party on

political power, but also to quell the social unrest rising from below. Perhaps the most

bizarre arrangement anywhere in recent political history, was the formation of the

National Front in 1957, by which the two parties agreed to alternate in power for

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sixteen years with a Conservative president for one term and Liberal president for the

next and with balanced cabinets. Such an arrangement was possible only among those

with a common class interest transcending ideology. The ideological question that first

divided the parties was the structural one: federalism versus centralism. Even Garcia

Marquez lists the differences between the two parties in One Hundred Years of

Solitude:

The Liberals, he said, were Freemasons, bad people, wanting to hang priests, to

institute civil marriage and divorce, to recognize the rights of illegitimate

children as equal to those of legitimate ones, and to cut the country up into a

federal system that would take power away from the supreme authority. The

Conservatives, on the other hand, who had received their power directly from

God, proposed the establishment of public order and family morality. They

were the defenders of the faith of Christ, of the principle of authority, and were

not prepared to permit the country to be broken down into autonomous entities.

(OYS 98)

The Liberals wanted the New Granada to be united in a loose federation, with a high

degree of local autonomy and the Conservatives wanted a strong central government

with a powerful executive exercising significant control over the state governments.

Both the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party became organized parties around

1850 after Colombia had been a sovereign nation for about thirty years. The support for

the Liberal Party came from the merchants, artisans and manufacturers. The odd thing

is that the merchants of the Liberal Party favoured free trade and the artisans and

manufacturers in the Liberal Party supported protectionism. The Conservative Party

was supported by the large landowners and the clergy of the Catholic Church. The

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small landowners tended to support the Liberal Party. The peasants tended to identify

themselves with the political party of their patrons.

In the early 1850's, a liberal constitution was adopted, which separated the

church and the state and gave substantial autonomy to the sub-regional political units

and limited the power of the central government. There was a military takeover of the

Liberal-dominated government in 1854 and, later, a civil war, in which, the Liberals

won. The Liberal Party controlled the government, which later enacted a new

constitution that placed more restrictions on the power of the central government. The

Liberal Party expropriated church lands but when those lands were sold, they went to

the merchants and the wealthy so that the concentration of the ownership of land was

not reduced; but instead it was increased. A radical faction within the Liberal Party,

took over power in 1867 and further reduced the legal power of the central government.

The central government was to have only those powers which were explicitly given in

the constitution.

In a backlash against the radicals in the Liberal Party, the electorate of

Colombia voted for the Conservatives in 1884. The Conservative‘s President, Rafael

Nunez, led the legislature to adopt a new constitution in 1886, which gave the

presidency strong powers, including the appointment, rather than the election, of

departmental (provincial) governors. It was a major victory for the centrists. The

Liberals chafed under the concentration of power in the central government and

eventually split into two factions, the War Faction which advocated armed rebellion

against the centrists and the Peace Faction which did not. The War Faction of the

Liberal Party rebelled three times; in 1893, in 1895 and finally in what was called the

War of a Thousand Days, from 1899 to 1902. The War of a Thousand Days cost a

hundred thousand lives, but ultimately failed to overthrow the Conservative Party

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government. The horror of the War of a Thousand Days convinced the Conservatives

that cooperation with the Liberals would be necessary and the Liberals were included in

the cabinets of the government. The conservatives continued in power until 1930 when

the effects of the worldwide Great Depression convinced the Colombian electorate of

the need for change. The Liberal government of Alfonso Lopez Pumarejo enacted

legislation for land reform, recognition of labour unions and public welfare assistance.

The Liberals continued in power until 1946, when a moderate Conservative

named Mariano Ospina Perez was elected. Both parties had their moderate and

extremist factions. Perez was perceived to become more authoritarian in office and

raised fears of what the future would bring about. In 1948, a prominent Liberal leader,

Jorge Eliecer Gaitan, was assassinated in Bogota. Gaitan had originally come to

prominence in 1929, by exposing the brutality of the army‘s suppression of the banana

strike in Santa Marta. Named the ‗bogotazo‘, the riots that followed the assassination,

levelled large parts of the city, burned down the pension of a law student named Garcia

Marquez, and left thousands dead. Riots broke out in Bogota which the government

was able to suppress only with the deaths of 2,000 and the destruction of much of the

city. The riots and rebellion spread to the countryside where the government could not

contain it and it continued for eighteen years. This period of 1948-1966, known as La

Violencia, resulted in 200,000 deaths, a figure which amounts to 2.79% of the

population aged 15 years or older.

After Gaitan‘s assassination, the government systematically purged the police

force of the Liberals, thus creating a politically homogenous police who resorted to

terrorist tactics and to the harassment of the Liberals. In addition, the Conservative

counter-guerrillas began serving as paramilitary forces against the Liberal guerrillas

and the political gunmen, invested with legal immunity, initiated a wave of

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assassinations of the leaders of the Liberal resistance, as well as any other individuals

labelled Liberals. The conflicts between the executive branch of the government which

was controlled by the Conservatives and the Congress which was in the hands of the

Liberals, became so acute that they produced a collapse of the constitutional structure

of the government. Consequently, La Violencia spread with fierce intensity to all areas

of Colombia, with the exception of Narino and the Caribbean coast. People call La

Violencia with a capital V and it is not given the name of the Civil War of the 20th

century. Ricardo Penaranda explains that the

‗Violence‘ is the term that Colombians have adopted to describe the complex

political and social phenomenon--a mixture of official terror, partisan

confrontation, political banditry, pillage and peasant uprising---that the country

endured for nearly twenty years between the 1940s and the 1960s. Passionate,

enigmatic, and savage are the adjectives usually used in referring to this period

… (293, 294)

During La Violencia, the aim of both the parties was not just the control over

the perceived enemies but their complete eradication. In all cases, a specific discourse

or rhetoric preceded the violence. People were first convinced of the necessity of their

acts before taking up their weapons and massacring. Further, state-sponsored genocide

was the most devastating manifestation of political violence, but in many other

instances, ethnic, class, or political groups engaged in efforts to eliminate the other in

their midst, without direction from the state. From 1946 to 1964, members of the

Liberal and the Conservative parties, usually acting outside of the official state

apparatus, committed assassinations and massacres against their partisan rivals,

murdering entire families and burning thousands of farmhouses.

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As part of their strategy, both the parties indulged in the creation of a poisonous

atmosphere of intense distrust and suspicion between the militants of the two parties.

During this period, both the Liberal and the Conservative politicians increasingly made

inflammatory accusations connecting the opposition to an international plot to subvert

Colombia. Both sides perpetuated conspiracy theories involving international cabals,

while the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) became a metaphor for the partisan struggle

in Colombia for both the Liberals and the Conservatives. These new interpretive

discourses encouraged and deepened a sense of suspicion and distrust, contributing to

an overall expectation of violent interparty conflicts. Everyone in both the parties

believed this rhetoric, because there is a basic discursive structure that existed almost

since the establishment of the two parties. The parties maintained separate traditions,

symbols, and heroes that were so deeply embedded among the party faithful that the

differences can best be compared to two competing nationalisms within the same

nation. Benedict Anderson describes,

nationalism as more akin to religious belief than to an ideology, which

effectively describes the emotions expressed by Liberals and Conservatives in

Colombia, where politicians routinely spoke of their respective party‘s ideals.

The result was two separate ideas of ―nation‖, which competed with one

another. Throughout the world, public civic rituals, such as celebrating national

holidays and erecting monuments in public plazas, were important in

strengthening the idea of the nation; in Colombia, these rituals were based more

on the local party in power rather than on a nationalist consensus of all

citizens. (5)

Anderson also points to the importance of sacrifice in building nationalism. In

Colombia, battlefield sacrifices were made in the name of one of the two parties during

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the civil wars of the nineteenth century; this collective partisan experience continued to

inspire the rank and file in the twentieth century, especially at election time. Not only

did this reinforce the separate nationalisms represented by the two parties, but it also

glorified and legitimatized a degree of political violence so that nearly every contested

election resulted in a number of deaths.

Another issue that consistently separated the two parties from the time of their

emergence, was the role of the Church in the Colombian society. Debates over this

issue had been the cause of several civil wars and rebellions in the nineteenth century,

and it still stirred powerful passions in the first decades of the twentieth century.

Conservative politicians, with the support of the local and the national clergy,

frequently claimed that the Liberal Party was bent on putting the Church under its heel

and destroying religion in the Colombian society and they could back up their

assertions by citing the anti-clerical policies of the nineteenth-century Liberal

governments, as well as the official condemnations of liberalism by the Church

hierarchy at home and abroad. Liberals, for their part, claimed that religious fanatics

controlled the Conservative Party and would lead Colombia back into the Dark Ages, if

given the chance, stymieing any hopes of modernization and progress. They also drew

upon the rhetoric from the European radicals, in order to strengthen their

anticlericalism. Again, leaders on both sides were confirming their worldliness and that

of their party, by drawing on the rhetoric from abroad, especially from Europe.

La Violencia took its lessons from the Spanish Civil War. In both Spain and

Colombia, rising suspicions between political antagonists resulted in a conflict in which

civilians were both victims and victimizers. It is not coincidental that events in Spain

resonated in Colombia during the thirties and the forties. The political rhetoric of the

two countries was similar in certain ways, and it is not surprising that Colombian

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politicians took their cues from their Spanish counterparts, to a certain extent, after the

Spanish Republic was declared in 1931. The left in Spain, from the radicals and the

socialists through the communists and the anarchists, all generally agreed that the

Church had too much power, especially in education, and needed to be muzzled. The

right, for its part, felt that the Catholic religion was integral to Spanish identity. All

parties from the parliamentary right, through the traditionalists and monarchists

basically agreed on that point. Both sides had their echo within Colombia‘s two

traditional parties in the 1930s. The Liberal legislators pushed for anticlerical

legislation similar to that passed during the Spanish Republic, while after 1936, the

Conservatives proclaimed that an international leftist conspiracy was afoot in

Colombia, similar to that which was supposedly corrupting Spain, on the eve of its civil

war.

For almost twenty years, rural violence harried the Colombian countryside. In

the names of traditional political parties, small and large landowners were dispossessed,

properties burned, men murdered and women raped. Some called the perpetrators

guerrillas; others called them bandits. Quelled in the city, violence spread to the

countryside where, in widely separated geographical areas, independent bands of

guerrillas rose in rebellion. Some of the bands were Conservative; some ten to fifteen

percent were, it is estimated, Communist led; but most were Liberals who rose against

the Conservative regime, the local authorities, and the traditional enemy, Conservatives

of all classes, from campesinos to landowners. For ten years, the toll of civilian dead

alone rose, reaching over 300 a month in 1958, when it levelled off at 200 a month for

four years until 1963, and the rate began to fall. While some groups received support,

material and moral, from Liberal leaders in the cities, they were for the most part

disowned by the national Liberal directorate, which joined the Conservatives to

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repudiate the ‗bandits‘ or the ‗antisociales‘. In 1952, a national Conference of

Guerrillas convened to formulate a program including agrarian reform and other radical

goals, but the movements remained a guerrilla movement composed of largely

autonomous bands. The atrocities committed by both sides, guerrillas, army and police,

were horrific. Regina Janes quotes an anonymous witness who thus describes the

actions of the Conservative authorities:

My eyes have seen many sights. I have seen men coming into the cities

mutilated, women raped, children flogged and wounded. I saw a man whose

tongue had been cut out and people who were lashed to a tree and made to

witness the cruel scene told me that the policemen yelled, as they cut out his

tongue: ―You won‘t be giving any more cheers for the Liberal Party, you

bastard‖. They cut the genitals off other men so that they wouldn‘t procreate

any more Liberals. Others had their legs and arms cut off and were made to

walk about, bleeding, on the stumps of their limbs. And I know of men who

were held bound while policemen and Conservative civilians took it in turns to

rape their wives and daughters. Everything was carried out according to a

preconceived plan of extermination. And the victims of these bloodthirsty

policemen were poor, humble country people who were members of the Liberal

Party. Their wives, their old folk and their children were shot in the full light of

the day. The official police took possession of the property of Liberal farmers,

killed the owners, requisitioned their barns and disposed of their money, their

livestock; in a word, of all that had been the livelihood of their families. At

times these atrocious crimes were committed under the cover of night, with the

encouragement of high government officials. And all this in the false name of

God, with holy medals jingling around their necks and without remorse. (43)

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The common practice during La Violencia was that of making a cut with a

machete under the mandible, through which the tongue of the victim is pulled to hang

like a tie. It is known as the ‗Colombian tie‘. The fear associated with La Violencia

was not solely the fear of being killed or wounded; it was the fear of being torn apart.

Atrocious crimes included elaborated forms of dismemberment, crucifixions,

aggressions on fetuses and babies, vampirism, widespread rape and other sexual

offenses, massacres, many forms of torture, profanation of corpses, etc. Such acts

exceed the legal framework, in the sense that, there is no typification of felony that can

match them, and fines or time in prison or the death penalty--which Colombian law

does not approve of--do not seem to offer a satisfactory social reparation. Their offense

goes beyond that of crime; it enters the realm of what one would want to call the

infrahuman, when, in fact, it is rooted in an all-too-human cruelty.

Long before the end of La Violencia, the leaders of the Liberal and

Conservative Parties recognized the need for some political solution to the problems of

Colombia. In 1958, the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party agreed to share

political power in, what was called, the National Front. Under this arrangement the two

parties would alternate in the control of the presidency every four years and equally

share the numbers of the appointed and elected offices in government. The National

Front arrangement continued from 1958 to 1974. Not everyone was happy with the

National Front arrangement. Under it, the office of President went not to the choice of

the electorate but, instead, to the candidate of the party, the Conservative Party or the

Liberal Party, whose turn it was to rule. The supporters of third parties, particularly the

leftist, felt excluded under the arrangement.

The traces of La Violencia in Garcia Marquez‘s fictions are relatively slight, a

few situations, an atmosphere, an intimation of guerrilla activity, but no direct

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grappling with the violence of La Violencia. He may not have written a full fledged

novel on La Violencia, but if at all he has written, ‗it would be about the living and not

about the dead‖ (Hoyos 18). In spite of this, there is an atmosphere of violence

prevalent in most of his novels. This is because the violence which has its roots in the

colonial past, moulds the representations, ways of thinking, and behaviours of those

who lived through it. In addition, even after the decolonization process, this influence

continues to permeate the social and cultural identities of the populations formerly

involved in the colonial experience, still deeply affecting the once colonized people.

Violence inherited from the colonial past, must be stopped, for it impedes the

development of a nation. Violence, which has almost become the culture of Colombia

because of the separatist-attitude of the Hispanic colonizers, must be completely wiped

out, in order to take the country in the path of progress.

Both the Conservatives and the Liberals wanted to remain in power at any cost.

They would go to any extent to achieve their aim. When the Conservatives were in

power, they indulged in all kinds of unethical practices, to retain or grab power. Don

Apolinar Moscote who is the Conservative Magistrate of Macondo in One Hundred

Years of Solitude, conducts the election in a seemingly free and fair manner.

On the eve of the elections, Don Apolinar Moscote himself read a decree that

prohibited the sale of alcoholic beverages and the gathering together of more

than three people who were not of the same family. The elections took place

without incident. At eight o‘clock on Sunday morning a wooden ballot box was

set up in the square, which was watched over by the six soldiers. The voting

was absolutely free, as Aureliano himself was able to attest since he spent

almost entire day with his father-in-law seeing that no one voted more than

once. (OYS 99)

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But, behind this seemingly fair and free election, there is the conspiracy of the

Conservatives, who would indulge in an unfair means, in order to win the elections.

Don Apolinar Moscote rigs the election in his own style in order to ensure the victory

of the Conservatives.

At four in the afternoon a roll of drums in the square announced the closing of

the polls and Don Apolinar Moscote sealed the ballot box with a label crossed

by his signature. That night, while he played dominoes with Aureliano, he

ordered the sergeant to break the seal in order to count the votes. There were

almost as many red ballots as blue, but the sergeant left only ten red ones and

made up the difference with blue ones. Then they sealed the box again with a

new label and the first thing on the following day it was taken to the capital of

the province. (OYS 99)

On the other hand, because of the atrocities of the Conservatives, the Liberals lead a

hopeless life. Dr. Alirio Noguera, who represents the Liberalist fervour, understands

that the elections are a farce. ―The only effective thing,‖ he would say, ―is

violence‖(OYS 101). Under his leadership, the Liberals conspire to assassinate

Conservatives. In order to liquidate the Conservative regime, they plan to kill all the

functionaries of the regime ―along with their families, especially the children in order to

exterminate Conservatism at its roots. Don Apolinar Moscote, his wife and his six

daughters, needless to say, were on the list‖ (OYS 102). When the Liberals thus plan to

exterminate the Conservatism, war breaks out. The only person who knows about the

war is Moscote. But he does not give the news even to his wife. An army platoon enters

Macondo noiselessly and sets up its headquarters in the school. They drag out

Dr. Noguera tie him to a tree in the square and shoot him without any due process of

law. Father Nicanor tries to impress the military authorities with a miracle of levitation

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and his head is split open by the butt of a soldier‘s rifle. The soldiers kill a woman

bitten by a mad dog with their rifle butts. On seeing the atrocities committed by the

Conservatives, Aureliano takes Twenty-one men under his command and kills the

Conservative captain and the soldiers who killed the woman. Thus, the two parties are

bloodthirsty without any concrete ideological base for their conflict. The hatred which

originated in the colonial era, continues to this day and the two parties treat each other

as their enemies, trying to exterminate the opponent at the first available opportunity.

What worries Garcia Marquez is that both the parties are equally atrocious.

When the Liberals possess power, their atrocities are less only because they are weaker.

When they are not weaker, they are fully as brutal. Colonel Aureliano Buendia

connives at the murder of a general who threatens his position as the leader of the

Liberal forces, Teofilo Vargas. ―But two weeks later General Teofilo Vargas was cut to

bits by machetes in an ambush and Colonel Aureliano Buendia assumed the main

command‖(OYS 170). His hunger for power makes him and his men further violent.

His orders are carried out even before they are given, even before he thought of them,

and his men always go much beyond what he expected them to do. Lost in the solitude

of his immense power, he starts losing his direction also. He even kills General

Moncado and destroys the house of Moncada‘s widow. Moncada was a Conservative

General, but he developed friendship with his counterpart in the enemy camp, Colonel

Aureliano Buendia. He is an antimilitarist and he does not like bloodshed. He writes

two letters to Aureliano. In the first letter, he invites him to join a campaign to make

the war more humane. The other letter is for his wife, who is in the Liberal territory.

From then on, even in the bloodiest periods of the war, the two commanders often

arrange truces to exchange prisoners. When there is no war, General Moncada teaches

him how to play chess. In due course, they become great friends. They even think about

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the possibility of coordinating the popular elements of both parties, doing away with

the influence of the military men and professional politicians, and setting up a

humanitarian regime that would take the best from each doctrine. Thus Aureliano

knows his good heart and his affection for everyone. But when Moncada is taken as a

prisoner by the revolutionaries, when the military court sentences him to death,

Aureliano refuses to show him any mercy; in spite of Ursula‘s violent recrimination, he

refuses to commute the sentence. He kills him and when Moncada‘s widow insults him

he destroys her house. ―Colonel Aureliano Buendia did not show any sign of anger, but

his spirit only calmed down when his bodyguard had sacked the widow‘s house and

reduced it to ashes‖(169). Through Colonel Aureliano Buendia, Garcia Marquez

suggests not only the corrosive effects of power, but also the brutalizing effects of

ideology, even radical ideology. No direct connection is drawn between radicalism and

brutality, but the two are consistently juxtaposed. As a youthful widower and

sentimental liberal, Aureliano Buendia could not understand shedding blood for things

that could be touched with the hands and he rejected Dr.Noguera‘s politics of

assassination as the politics of a butcher. As he becomes more effective as a military

leader and an instrument of political change, his humanity evaporates and he goes to

the extent of killing a good friend, General Moncada.

Attacking the weak is the most common form of violence. Colonizers perceive

the native people as vulnerable and target them as the centre of their violence. For

them, the natives are child-like, primitive and lacking in intelligence, morality and

emotional control. This ‗colonial mind‘ continues even after independence, and the new

indigenous regime continues to oppress the weak. In Colombia, if the weak belong to

the enemy camp, the oppression is double-fold. In a state of martial law, the weak do

not have much to say. This statement holds true in the novel, No One Writes to the

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Colonel. It discusses the political climate of one man, the Colonel, who after fighting to

create the government in power is being controlled by the bureaucracy. A corrupt

government can ruin a man, sap his will, and drive him mindless with hunger; although

the times are hard, the Colonel keeps his dignity and pride. He represents all those who

suffer under the military regime. He does not have a name, which shows that everyone

who is oppressed is a Colonel himself. The background of No One Writes to the

Colonel is La Violencia and the Colonel‘s problems stem from being the member of the

losing party in the civil war.

The government, through the use of martial law, controls the people quite

readily. The government maintains itself through the ―Big-Brother‖ tactics, that include

the use of censors, the secret police, and ordinances like ―TALKING POLITICS

FORBIDDEN‖ (Penaranda 290). The sweeping control that is present under this

martial law, is evident in the every day life of the Colonel and the people of his town.

The first example of the nature of their lives is shown through the funeral. A poor

musician has died of natural causes; the funeral is supposed to pass in front of the

police barracks. But it is stopped by the mayor, who is all powerful when the state is

put under the martial law. Though the dead mad is a poor musician and the death

procession is not a procession of any revolution, it is not allowed to pass in front of the

police barracks and the cortege has to change the direction. Even a poor dead man‘s

freedom is curbed when the state is under the curfew.

Garcia Marquez‘s subtle way of presenting the violent oppression of the regime

is evident throughout this novel. The Colonel and his asthmatic wife are living their

day-to-day life as best as they can. The Colonel is entitled to get a pension. Every week

he heads to the post office in the hope that there will be a letter for him, bringing the

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pension that he expects. But he has been waiting for more than fifteen years and no

letter has ever arrived or looks likely to, but he stumbles on with optimism:

The following Friday he went down to the launches again. And, as on every

Friday, he returned home without the longed-for letter. ‗We‘ve waited long

enough‘, his wife told him that night. ‗One must have the patience of an ox, as

you do, to wait for a letter for fifteen years‘. The colonel got into his hammock

to read the newspapers‖. ‗We have to wait our turn,‘ he said. ‗Our number is

1823.‘‗Since we‘ve been waiting, that number has come up twice in the lottery,‘

his wife replied. (NWC 23)

The long wait during La Violencia has almost driven the Colonel to the point of

poverty. Violence, which is present in the atmosphere of the novel, echoes through the

life of the colonel. The poor Colonel is not able to fight against this invisible violence.

Life becomes hard from him. He has to struggle even for a mug of coffee, everyday.

The colonel took the top off the coffee can and saw that there was only one little

spoonful left. He removed the pot from the fire, poured half the water onto the

earthen floor, and scraped the inside of the can with a knife until the last

scrapings of the ground coffee, mixed with bits of rust, fell into the pot.

(NWC 1)

The Colonel makes coffee and gives it to his asthmatic wife, lying that there is still

enough coffee powder left in the can. He doesn‘t have a mirror for a long time. ―After

shaving himself by touch-since he‘d lacked a mirror for a long time-the colonel dressed

silently‖ (NWC 4). In the words of his wife, the Colonel and his wife are ‗rotting alive‘

in the military regime. They live at the edge of the town, in a house with a palm-

thatched roof and walls whose whitewash is flaking off. The house leaks during the

rainy season. This symbolic economic decadence during La Violencia is evident as

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Garcia Marquez mentions the same kind of economic decadence in one of his short

stories, ―One of these Days‖. The story depicts with sheer realism the bitter social and

economic consequences of this turmoil. Without mentioning any political parties,

Marquez presents two ideological antagonists, a dentist and a patient, who happens to

be the Mayor, a representative of the oppressive regime. The dentist, who presumably

is one of the people, is sympathetically portrayed. He is an early riser, and a man

dedicated to his job, although he is preoccupied with matters other than his work. He

seems to be fearless, because the mayor‘s death threats have no effect upon his

determined attitude. On the other hand, the Mayor is seen as a violent man and, in one

sentence, the writer communicates that barbarism was the style of the times: ―He says if

you don‘t take out his tooth, he will shoot you‖ (CS 108). Thus the short story not only

portrays social erosion in this nameless town, but also reveals the economic decadence

of the entire community, through metonymical devices. The poor dentist‘s office with

―the crumbling ceiling and a dusty spider web with spider‘s eggs and dead insects (CS

110) and two pensive buzzards on the house next door, point to the material stagnation

of the community. It is evident from these incidents that La Violencia has brought this

town to economic prostration.

During La Violencia , the crude and the cunning flourished at the cost of the

poor and the ignorant. In No One Writes to the Colonel, Sabas is a character, who gets

prosperous by cheating the innocent and the vulnerable. While everyone lives in

poverty, Sabas lives in a ―a new building, two stories high, with wrought-iron window

gratings‖ (NWC 9). He has a secret understanding with the Mayor and pretends himself

to be a patriot. He is Agustin‘s godfather and a total contrast to the colonel. Agustin,

the only son of the colonel, was killed for distributing clandestine literature against the

military regime. Don Sabas is a corrupt businessman who will siphon off money from

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any source or person without blinking an eye. Although everyone knows that he is a

traitor and has accumulated wealth through illegal means, they also know that

corruption is so widespread that to take on Sabas may actually create more political

repression. Callous, mean, obese and a thorough product of La Violencia, he is not

above cheating the colonel, his godchild‘s father. He knows the predicament of the

colonel. He also knows the worth of the Colonel‘s rooster. He is aware that Colonel

would never part with it; he keeps the rooster in remembrance of his son, Agustin. But

Sabas tempts the colonel by offering a good price of nine hundred pesos for the rooster.

After much discussion with his wife, the colonel decides to sell the rooster to Sabas.

When the colonel takes the rooster to Sabas, he treats the colonel with a kind of

contempt and indifference. At the end he offers to buy the rooster only for four hundred

pesos. He tries to exploit the poor situation of the colonel. The doctor‘s words clearly

explain the evil nature of people like Sabas during La Violencia : ‗―The only animal

who feeds on human flesh is Sabas.‘‖the doctor said. ‗I‘m sure he‘d resell the rooster

for the nine hundred pesos‘‖(NWC 55). La Violencia has made him so selfish and

ruthless that he never shows compassion to anyone. ‗―Don‘t be so naïve,‘ he said.

Sabas is much more interested in money than in his own skin‘‖ (NWC 55). Such

characters flourished during La Violencia, feeding on the blood of the poor people.

Garcia‘s hatred for such people is evident, as he presents such a character even in his

short story ―Montiel‘s Widow‖. Jose Montiel is a despicable character and a product of

La Violencia . Right from the first sentence of the story, the whole community is

contemptuous towards him. ―everyone felt avenged except his widow‖ (CS 147).

People are not able to believe that this shrewd individual is dead because he is capable

of ―playing dead‖(CS 147). What makes his death more incredible is that he dies of

natural causes and ―not shot in the back in an ambush‖ (CS 148). Jose Montiel has

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made his immense fortune by causing the expulsion of those who owned property and

by acquiring their land at prices set by him, which was a common practice during the

worse years of La Violencia . He is the informant to the Mayor who has come to the

town to eradicate the opposition and as the narrator explains, Montiel ―segregated his

enemies into rich and poor. The police shot down the poor in the public square. The

rich were given a period of twenty four hours to get out of the town‖ (CS 151). After

Montiel‘s death, the community retaliates by boycotting his family‘s business and their

fortune rapidly begins to deteriorate. Montiel‘s children are sent to Europe and

although their mother is in a precarious situation, they refuse to return to Colombia. His

son, who is in a consular post in Germany, fears that he would be shot if he returns

home. His daughters are in France. They claim that they would like to continue to live

in a country where there is civilization. In the letters to their mother, they reveal that

―It‘s impossible to live in a country so savage that people are killed for political

reasons‖ (CS 153). Through the characters of Sabas and Montiel, Garcia Marquez

focuses on the inhuman nature of the Colombians who exploit their own countrymen.

Exploitation is a phenomenon practised by the colonizers. They do not show any mercy

to the colonized and, in a selfish manner, they exploited both man and material of the

colonized country. They show their allegiance to their mother-nation and they exploited

inhumanly the country they have forcibly occupied. This phenomenon continues even

after the colonizers leave the country. The local leaders wear the robe of the Europeans

and continue to exploit their own countrymen. The native leaders become selfish in

their attitude sacrificing the interests of the nation. They ruthlessly oppress their own

people in order to accumulate more wealth. They do not bother about the welfare of the

nation or its people. The legacy of the colonizers continues even after the independence

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in most of the colonized countries. In Colombia, it was evident especially during La

Violencia.

Garcia Marquez‘s Chronicle of a Death Foretold is based on a real incident that

happened in his friend‘s life. Early morning in 1951, Garcia Marquez‘s best friend,

Cayetano Gentile, was hacked to death by two men in front of his house in Sucre. They

were the brothers of a woman married the day before who, having been returned by the

bridegroom on their wedding night, because she was not a virgin, had falsely named

Gentile as her secret lover. The brothers had washed their family‘s honour with his

blood. Behind the superficial sensationalism of the crime, there is a deeper meaning

that can be easily sensed. How could such savagery, erupt, almost unpredictably, in the

midst of a peaceful celebration? Where had it come from? And how was it possible that

the whole town, which knew that the crime was about to happen, had been unable to

prevent it? Is Latin America doomed to this sort of everyday civil war on its streets and

in its bedrooms? Does violence occur in their lives over and over again, in their

relationships with one another or with their rulers? It is obvious that the forces of

colonial violence that has incessantly obsessed the country, are at work in the lives of

the Colombians. The novel is obviously a political parable that hints at the way in

which the cyclical wheels of violence that determines the Latin American history.

Chronicle of a Death Foretold brings out the collective consciousness of the

people of a town, who have become insensitive to horrible violence. The whole town is

inactive before a violent action. Violence has become part of their life and they simply

sit as spectators to watch a violent murder taking place in front of them. Right from the

colonial period, violence has been in their blood and it has become part of their

character. From the beginning of the novel, everybody knows that the Vicario brothers

intend to kill Santiago Nasar. ―Many of those who were on the docks knew that they

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were going to kill Santiago Nasar‖ (CDF18). Everyone knows how they mean to do

it—with a pair of butcher‘s knives—and why. It is the murder of Santiago Nasar, a

young man who is thought to have taken the virginity of Angela Vicario. On her

wedding night, after discovering that she was not a virgin, Angela‘s husband, Bayardo

San Roman, returns her to her house. ―Angela Vicario, the beautiful girl who‘d gotten

married the day before, had been returned to the house of her parents‖ (CDF 20).

Angela's twin brothers, Pedro Vicario and Pablo Vicario, ask her who took her

virginity, and she tells them that Santiago Nasar did. The brothers find Santiago and

kill him. The day on which Santiago is murdered is a significant day in the town

because the Bishop is coming by boat to bless the marriage of Angela Vicario and

Bayardo San Roman. Many people are heading over to the dock to see the boats. Pedro

and Pablo Vicario are sitting in the local milk-shop, which is en route to the dock, so

that they could see Santiago Nasar either going or returning in order to track him down

and kill him. Bayardo San Roman has come to town to find a bride. After deciding on

Angela, the courtship is short. As Bayardo comes from a prestigious, wealthy family,

and the Vicarios are relatively poor, Angela does not really have a choice, even though

she does not love Bayardo at the time of their wedding. The night before the murder,

there had been lots of wedding revelry that had continued into the early morning at a

local whorehouse run by Maria Alejandrina Cervantes, where Santiago Nasar had been

carousing with the twins until early in the morning. After returning home and finding

their sister in disgrace, the Vicario brothers set out to avenge her honour by murdering

Santiago Nasar.

Honour is the main cause for the violence in Colombia. It is the ego of the two

parties which has torn the country into pieces. The division of the political system into

two parties during the colonial period, is the main cause for the conflict between the

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parties. The country is soaked in blood because of the colonizers who had split the

psyche of the Colombians into two parts inimical to each other. Ever since this cunning

machination of the colonizer, violence has become an everyday affair in the life of the

people. In the culture of the Colombia, honour is taken very seriously. It is evident in

the novel Chronicle of a Death Foretold, because nobody ever questions any action

that is taken to preserve someone's honour, since it is commonly believed to be a

fundamental moral trait, that is vital to keep intact. A person without honour is an

outcast in the community. Even Nasar‘s maid Victoria Guzman, fails to warn him

because she wants to save the honour of her daughter. She wakes him as ordered at 5.30

in the morning but does not warn him because she thinks that Vicario brothers are

boasting in their drunken mood. But, in fact, Nasar has asked her to send her daughter

Divina Flor, a nubile girl, whom Nasar has manhandled many times, to wake him. But

Guzman who herself had suffered the advances of Nasar‘s father, decides to go in her

daughter‘s place. Guzman wants Nasar dead, because she does not want him to repeat

his father‘s conquest. In order to save the honour of her daughter, she maliciously

withholds the warning that would easily have saved the life of Nasar. Like Guzman, all

of the characters in the novel are influenced by this powerful construction of honour.

The defense of this ideal is directly responsible for Santiago Nasar's murder. The

Vicario brothers kill Santiago in order to restore the honour of their sister. She

dishonours her family by marrying another man when she had already slept with

someone else. For this wrong to be righted, her brothers must kill Santiago, the man

who supposedly took her virginity, in order to clear her name. Though a few people in

the community, like Clothilde Armenta and Yamil Shaium, try to prevent the death

from occurring, most people turn the other cheek, because they believe that the severity

of the crime deserves a cruel punishment. The fact that death is considered a reasonable

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retribution for the crime of taking a girl's virginity, indicates how awful the culture in

Colombia is. If Santiago Nasar is doomed, it is not because his life is a circle that an

oracle has pronounced its end. He dies because of the sum total of rituals, habits,

misconceptions and prejudices that crisscross and corrupt the society ever since the

colonial period. People refuse to interfere, because they think that it is a rite—the

taking back of honour spilled the blood of the violator—with which they agreed. The

concatenation of misunderstandings and hesitations that spun Nasar‘s death are the

expressions of a culture that needs, expects and creates death and that stands by

passively while it is enacted. The real cause of the murder is the unproclaimed law of

war between two men or two parties or two powers.

The Vicario brothers in the Chronicle of a Death Foretold broadcast or

announce or advertise their intention of murdering Santiago Nasar. The brothers are

committed to a course of action that has been determined for them—honour can only be

redeemed publicly by their killing of Santiago. Once they have broadcast their

intentions to the whole community, everyone, by failing to stop them, participates in

the crime. Attempts to warn Santiago are half-hearted; people pretend that the threats

are empty; that the twin brothers bent on his death are drunk, incapable, unwilling; that

it is all a joke. Even though they repeatedly announce their intent to murder him, the

butcher, the police officer, and the Colonel all think that the Vicarios are largely

bluffing. After Angela Vicario reveals Santiago's name to her brothers, they

immediately go to the pigsty. They pick out the two best knives, wrap them in rags, and

have them sharpened at the meat market. Faustino Santos, a butcher, wonders why they

are coming—he thinks that they are heavily drunk and they may not know what time or

what day it is. They talk about the wedding, and Pablo declares that they are going to

kill Santiago Nasar. Because the twins are known to be good people, nobody pays any

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attention to them. After they leave, Faustino reports the conversation to a police officer

who comes by.

Meanwhile, the police officer informs Colonel Lazaro Aponte about the Vicario

brothers' plan.The Colonel goes to Clothilde Armenta's shop, takes the knives away

from the boys, and tells them to go home. He explains later that he thought the twins

were bluffing. The Vicario brothers go home, get two different knives, and go to have

them sharpened.

Clothilde Armenta, the proprietor of the milk shop, informs the local priest

about what the Vicario twins are threatening to do. However, in the excitement

surrounding the arrival of the bishop, he forgets about her warning. Those who rush

after the victim to warn him, are unable to find him. Those who could have warned him

do not do so for a variety of reasons. One man is dead and hundreds have murdered

him.

The consequences of the indifference of the people to violence, spread like a

disease through the village. The crime is simply a late symptom of an illness that had

already wasted everyone. Those people—lovers, enemies, friends, family—who were

unable to act during the murder, act with bitter, impulsive, self-punishing foolishness,

becoming old maids and worn whores, alcoholics and stupid recruits etc. For example,

Divina Flor—the servant meant for Santiago‘s furtive bed—is now fat, faded and

surrounded by the children of other loves. Santiago Nasar‘s fiancée runs away

immediately after the crime with a lieutenant from the border patrol, who then

prostitutes her among the rubber workers in a nearby town. And. Finally, after more

than twenty years, Angela Vicario is reunited with the husband who is the main cause

of the crime. Through this novel, Garcia Marquez gives the message to the rival

political parties of the colonized countries, that violence in the name of ‗honour‘ comes

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to nothing at the end. The machination of the colonizer--dividing the nation and causing

violence to disrupt the growth--must be defeated.

Garcia Marquez‘s The Autumn of the Patriarch is a political novel concerning

the nature of the paradigmatic Latin American dictator. But it is not about particular

political realities; it is about the most universal truth that underlies the nature of the

political reality in the erstwhile colonized nations: the truth of absolute power. The

concept of absolute power derives from the concept of colonization. The colonizer

enjoyed absolute freedom over the colonized nations. This concept continues even after

the colonizers leave the colonized nations. Mostly, the dictators are the machinations of

the imperialistic nations which enjoy vicarious power through the dictator. Garcia

Marquez takes up the figure of the dictator, particularly the ageing dictator, as the

subject of this novel. This is because, he wants the tribe of dictators to be eliminated

once for all, from the soil of Colombia and the other Latin American countries. He

doesn‘t want any representative of imperialism or any traces of imperialistic violence

finding place in his country. That‘s why he begins the novel with the discovery of the

dead body of the aged Patriarch, pecked by vultures and sprouting parasitic animals.

Although the Patriarch‘s entire life—from birth, to ascendancy to power, to marriage,

to suspected coups, to examples of his autocratic and magical rule – is recounted in

detail, the primary plot line focuses on the twenty-four-hour period from the discovery

of the body to the final celebration and jubilation at the end of the book. Like the

colonial rule, the dictator‘s reign is also full of violence and grotesquely brutal events.

Like the colonizers, the dictators do not like any revolt against them. They

eliminate it ruthlessly. For example, the Patriarch executes General Rodrigo de Aguilar

on the suspicion of instigating an attempt on his life. General Aguilar is the

artilleryman, the right hand of the Patriarch, who serves as the minister of defence, the

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director of state security and the commander of the presidential guard. His loyalty and

friendship to the Patriarch make him a stable reference point in the swirl of conspiracy

and cabal that surrounds the government; he even has been granted the privilege of

beating the Patriarch at the dominoes. During a period of political unrest, he is late for a

palace dinner held in honour of the high command. The dictator takes his late arrival as

a signal of revolt against him. After the officers fret for a while, General Rodrigo de

Aguilar is brought in on a silvery tray, cooked and stuffed; the Patriarch doles out equal

portions to each officer present. The Patriarch enjoys supreme power and sometimes

behaves like a mad man. On the night when he is to be the honoured guest at a banquet

for the palace guards, he makes his entrance on a silver platter decorated with

cauliflower and laurel branches, marinated in spices, browned in the oven, then carved

and served up with the order to eat heartily. After the death of Bendicion Alvarado, his

mother, who rots away of some mysterious disease, he preserves and displays the dead

body throughout the country and attempts to have her canonized as a saint. Leticia

Nazareno, the Patriarch‘s wife, and his small son, Emanuel, are devoured piece by

piece by a pack of trained dogs. After this murder, Jose Ignacio Saenz de la Barra, who

is hired to find the killers, sends the Patriarch numerous bags of what appear to be

coconuts but which really contain the heads of some of his enemies, until, finally 918

heads are delivered, many of which decay in a filing cabinet. There are two thousand

children who have been used by the Patriarch as a way to cheat on the national lottery.

…they opened the balcony at three o‘clock, they brought up the three children

under the age of seven chosen at random by the crowd itself so that there would

be no doubt concerning the honesty of the method, they gave each child a bag of

a different colour showing trustworthy witnesses that there were ten billiard

balls numbered from one to zero inside each bag…each child with his eyes

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blindfolded will take a ball from each bag….felt at the bottom nine balls that

were just alike and one that was ice-cold, and following the orders we had given

them in secret they chose the ice-cold ball….(AOP 90,91)

The children, because of their innocent complicity in the lottery, are called by

placing them in a ship filled with concrete which is then exploded:

…but he got up irate, that‘s enough, God damn it, he shouted, either them or

me, he shouted, and it was them, because before dawn he ordered them to put

the children in a barge loaded with cement, take them singing to the limits of

the territorial waters, blow them up with a dynamite charge without giving them

time to suffer as they kept on singing…(AOP 95).

The ruthlessness of the Patriarch resembles the attitude of the colonizers. The absolute

power invested in the hands of the Patriarch emboldens him to do what he wants.

Sometimes, the Patriarch resorts to underhand activities in order to keep the people

under his control. This is worse than the open violence unleashed on his people.

García Márquez ends his novel, The Autumn of the Patriarch with an optimistic

statement that, upon the death of the dictator known as the Patriarch, ―the uncountable

time of eternity had come to an end‖(AOP 229) . But there is no indication in the novel

to suggest that the unnamed nation will be able to break free of the bonds of

dictatorship. The legacy of the dictator continues even after his death, just as the legacy

of the colonizer continues even after the independence of the colonized nation. Here the

dictator is the colonizer who enjoys absolute power. The Patriarch‘s death does not

guarantee the full decolonization of the nation, and thus a great deal of uncertainty

exists as to whether or not the nation has truly escaped the shackles of military

dictatorship and neocolonial oppression. The question then is, why, in light of the

unending cruelties perpetrated by the Patriarch and his regime, does the indigenous

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people fail to take up arms against the dictator and ―thoroughly challenge the colonial

situation‖ (Fanon 2) established by the West and enabled by the Patriarch?

The Patriarch uses the techniques of the colonizers. He prevents the people from

forming a revolutionary movement. This type of appropriation of colonial techniques

by the Patriarch speaks to both the knowledge which neocolonial empires pass on to

loyal dictators as well as the Patriarch‘s role as the colonizer of his own people. The

Patriarch, in a cunning and deceitful manner, brings the people under his control. He

uses the classrooms for this purpose. According to Fanon, this method is not

uncommon:

In capitalist societies, education, whether secular or religious, the teaching of

moral reflexes handed down from father to son … those aesthetic forms of

respect for the status quo, instill in the exploited a mood of submission and

inhibition which considerably eases the task of the agents of law and

order. (3, 4)

This is precisely what the Patriarch seeks to do through the public school

system. He orders a free school established in each province

…to teach sweeping where the pupils fanaticized by the presidential stimulus

went on to sweep the streets, after having swept their houses and then the

nearby highways and roads so that piles of trash were carried back and forth

from one province to another without anyone‘s knowing what to do with it in

official processions with the national flag and large banners saying God Save

the All Pure who watches over the cleanliness of the nation… (AOP 35).

The main goal of the schools is to teach the people to be docile and to create a

generation of citizens who are brainwashed into believing that the Patriarch has the best

interests of the nation at heart. Within the public school system, children study the

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official history of the Patriarch in textbooks created by the regime, for the purpose of

making the Patriarch appear god-like and invincible:

Contrary to what his clothing showed, the descriptions made by his historians

made him very big and official schoolboy texts referred to him as a Patriarch of

huge size who never left his house because he could not fit through the doors,

who loved children and swallows, who knew the language of certain animals,

who had the virtue of being able to anticipate the designs of nature, who could

guess a person‘s thought by one look in the eyes, and who had the secret of a

salt with the virtue of curing lepers‘ sores and making cripples walk… (AOP

44).

The Patriarch‘s manipulation of textbooks is important, for, the events, ideas,

and institutions which are not recorded in the official history of the nation simply cease

to exist: ―he had them tear the pages about the viceroys out of school primers so that

they would not exist in history …‖ (AOP 131). The act of removing information about

the viceroys from the official textbooks of the nation is enough to cause viceroys to

disappear completely from the history of the nation. The deliberate failure of the public

school system to teach the people about the true state of the nation protects the

Patriarch‘s reign and impedes the people‘s ability to form a revolutionary movement.

The Patriarch, as a colonizer of the people, denies the people access to the truth about

their country because ―Truth is what hastens the dislocation of the colonial regime,

what fosters the emergence of the nation. Truth is what protects the ‗natives‘ and

undoes the foreigners‖ (Fanon 14). The Patriarch does not resort to any open violence

to bend his people according to his wishes. Like a colonizer, he brainwashes the people

into accepting his dictates. He hides the truth from the people and makes them to accept

a forged truth in order to make the people docile and submissive. At the end, the people

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forget their true nature, lose their spirit to fight against any injustice done unto them

and simply tow the line drawn by the dictator.

Garcia Marquez wants the colonized nations to understand that the violence in

their lands is the legacy left by the colonizers. They should realize that it is the

violence that mars the growth of the colonized nations into becoming formidable

powers. They should know that it is a ploy by the colonizer to make the colonized

nations powerless. Garcia Marquez exhorts the colonized the people to avoid violence,

get united, live together and work hard in order to make their nations a power to reckon

with.

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Conclusion

Postcolonial Studies have been gaining prominence since the 1970s. It is the

study of the interactions between European nations and the societies they colonized.

The European empire is said to have held sway over more than eighty five per cent of

the globe by the time of the First World War, having consolidated its control over

several centuries. The sheer extent and duration of the European empire and its

disintegration after the Second World War, have led to widespread interest in

postcolonial literature and criticism, from 1970 onwards. The list of the former colonies

of European powers is a long one. They are divided into settler (e.g. Australia, Canada)

and non-settler countries (India, Jamaica, Nigeria, Senegal, Sri Lanka). Countries such

as South Africa and Zimbabwe which were partially settled by colonial populations,

complicate even this simple division between the settler and the non-settler. Of late, the

formation of colony through various mechanisms of control and the various stages in

the development of anti-colonial nationalism have become a major study in literature.

By extension, in postcolonial studies, temporal considerations give way to spatial ones

in that the cultural productions and the social formations of the colony long before the

colonization are used to better understand the experience of colonization.

The process of colonization affected every aspect of indigenous life. The

colonial powers have left its traces on culture, education, science, technology, etc.

Colonial education and language have deeply influenced the culture and identity of the

colonized. Western science, technology, and medicine have completely changed the

existing knowledge systems of the natives. Colonization, in short, has distorted the

identity of the colonized. In this context, all the colonized individuals should become

aware of subjects like ‗imperialism‘ and ‗Euro-centrism‘ and the western ways of

knowledge production and dissemination in the past and the present. They must also

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know the processes such as, formation of the empire, the impact of colonization on

postcolonial history, economy, science, and culture, the cultural productions of

colonized societies, and the agency for marginalized people etc. The aim is to regain

the lost identity. The dilapidated history must be reconstructed. The colonial legacies

and traces must be wiped out; especially the legacy of violence must be stopped. This

process of decolonization would dismantle all colonial structures and create a new

nation that would be truly independent in all aspects.

An attempt has been made in the thesis, to examine select novels of Garcia

Marquez, from a postcolonial perspective. The aim of Garcia Marquez‘s novels is to

create a new identity for Colombia and Latin America, as mentioned in his Nobel

speech.

Why is the originality so readily granted us in literature so mistrustfully denied

us in our difficult attempts at social change? Why think that the social justice

sought by progressive Europeans for their own countries cannot also be a goal

for Latin America, with different methods for dissimilar conditions? (290)

The study concentrates on three methods which Garcia Marques uses to

construct a new identity for Latin America. With ‗magic realism‘, he has successfully

created a new identity for Latin America. His ‗reconstruction of past‘ serves two

purposes. He brings out to light, through this, the true history of Latin America which

was distorted by colonization; he creates awareness in the minds of the people that the

past errors should not be repeated. His portrayal of violence signifies that ‗violence‘ is

a legacy of colonial rules, which mars the growth of the colonized nations and which

should be stopped at any cost.

Garcia Marquez uses magic realism in his own inimitable style, in order to

create a new identity for Latin America in the field of literature. His use of magical

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realism marks a hybridized re-appropriation of a literary style, to reflect the post-

colonial conditions of Colombia and Latin America. In the language of narration in his

magic realist text, a battle between two oppositional systems takes place, each working

toward the creation of a different kind of fictional world, different from the other. Since

the ground rules of these two worlds are incompatible, neither one can fully come into

being, and each remains suspended, locked in a continuous dialectic with the ―other,‖ a

situation which creates disjunction within each of the separate discursive systems,

rending them with gaps, absences, and silences. He adapts the realist mode to the

fantastic elements. The mixture of the western realistic and the eastern fantastic

elements is the most striking feature of his magical realism. He drives home the point

that the aspects which are considered fantastic in the rational-empirical western world

may be completely unproblematic, realistic and normal in other cultures. Thus his

magical realism incorporates, into a basically realistic world, elements which,

according to the standards of literary realism, would be considered highly implausible,

impossible or even disturbing intrusions from another realm. Further, he goes to the

extent of presenting realistic elements as fantastic in his magical realism. He presents

items or occurrences, that, from a realist perspective, are perfectly ordinary, and as

astonishing and marvellous or, by contrast, as threatening and supernaturally horrific.

Especially, technological innovations are frequently treated as instances of magic. Thus

he upsets the categories ―realistic‖ and ―fantastic‖. His magical realist techniques

highlight the cultural contingency of the categories within which reality is perceived

and represented, and the literary and social conventions upon which they are based.

They promote a certain degree of scepticism about all-too-assured assumptions about

the ―real‖ and the ―unreal‖. There may be, it is implied, more things between heaven

and earth than have been dreamt of, and the rational-empirical paradigm may not be the

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only path by which knowledge is to be gained. Especially, if one wants to understand

human actions and the reactions, it becomes necessary to take into account other

approaches to reality as well.

Through his magical realism, Garcia Marquez critically evaluates the roles of

some irrational approaches. His use of ex-centric focalizers to focalize the narrative

through characters who adhere to a magical world-view, greatly facilitates the

representation of the fantastic as realistic and vice versa. For magical-realist focalizers,

there is nothing incredible about the various strange occurrences that happen in their

world; the ‗other‘ perspective becomes the norm and adherents to a rational-scientific

world-view are seen as sadly deficient. In aligning the ex-centric with the magical or

the marvellous, magical realism cleverly exploits long standing social and cultural

constructs of the dominant world view, only at the same time to undermine them.

While the Western constructions of the ‗other‘ as primitive and irrational are apparently

affirmed, these ‗other‘ perspectives are then accepted as equally valid ways of seeing

the world. In short, the magical world-view symbolically stands for an ex-centric

perspective. Thus the magical realism of Garcia Marquez levels the hierarchy between

‗margin‘ and ‗centre‘, arguing that alternative outlooks must be taken into account and

sounded out as to their epistemological potential. It unsettles the received ideas about

how reality is to be perceived and portrayed and explores alternative approaches to

view the reality of the ‗other‘. At the same time, his magical realism does not amount

to an unqualified endorsement of magic, myth or irrationality. His fictions quite

critically reflect on the harm that unwarranted superstition and false beliefs may cause.

While magical beliefs must be taken seriously to the extent that they may determine

human action and therefore shape reality, the important point is to keep an open mind

and always be prepared to revise one‘s ideas and ways of seeing the world.

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It is perfectly possible for the magic realist characters to have power over even

death. The characters struggle to create and define their own worlds; their fight is

against time, history and fate. It could be said that Marquez‘ endowment of his

characters with special power is an illustration of their powerlessness against forces

which remain outside their control. By crossing the border of normal possibility,

Marquez reminds the Colombians of the limitations of man‘s ‗real‘ lives, but also of the

possibility of viewing the world in an entirely different way. Marquez‘s characters

struggle to create their own world. It is through this act of creation that they can truly

escape the forces in life over which they have no control. Garcia Marquez suggests that

magical realism is the means by which a new understanding of a world-view can be

gained, which is different from the regular one. While politics and ideology have the

power to de-humanize, magical realism has the power to make everyone human.

Magic realism allows for a kind of political, cultural, and even religious

leniency, since it combines the realistic aspects of the everyday world with aspects

from indigenous culture. Stories about ghosts and spirits are given as much credence as

those about everyday concerns and the melding of the two is like a melding of

cultures—the indigenous and the modern. As Hart notes,

Occurrences seen as supernatural in the First World such as ghostly apparitions,

human beings with the ability to fly, disappear, etc. are presented as natural

from a Third World perspective, while other occurrences seen as normal in the

First World such as magnets, science, and trains are presented as supernatural.

(Hart 115)

Garcia Marquez takes the aspects of folk culture and, instead of evaluating them

against the modern standard of reason, he gives them equal value and by doing so,

validates them. Since he was raised on the stories of his grandmother, who often spoke

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of ghosts and supernatural events occurring within the framework of a ‗logical‘ story,

he learned that both ways of thinking about the world are correct. His attempt to

incorporate both the real and the fantastic into the same work shows his social and

political ideas, wherein both the ‗centre‘ and the ‗other‘ are equal to each other.

In One Hundred Years of Solitude and Chronicle of a Death Foretold, time does

not follow the Western pattern of linear time. Sometimes it is possible to see time in

magical realist novels as simultaneous presence. In the last chapter of One Hundred

Years of Solitude, Garcia Marquez encapsulates the theory of time in the whole book in

a sentence: ―Melquiades had not put events in the order of man's conventional time, but

had concentrated a century of daily episodes in such a way that they coexisted in one

instant.‖ (OYS 421) Gullon agrees that in magical realm, events and worlds appear

with a simultaneity and density that may be "captured only at the moment of death‖

(Gullon133). He says that it is no accident that Melquiades‘ parchments guard their

secrets, which may be deciphered only when the narrative concludes. The characters in

magical realism can even live in a time prior to their own existence. This contradictory

property of time occurs at the end of both Jose Arcadio Buendia's and Ursula's final

days. In his retreat into delirium, Jose Arcadio Buendia loses all sense of temporal

measurement, reverting to ―a state of total innocence‖ (OYS 81), in which Jose Arcadio

Buendia falls into the past and speaks a foreign language. In the same way, Ursula,

during the time of the deluge, gradually loses her sense of reality and confuses the

present time with remote periods, in her life. She even converses ―with her forebears

about events that took place before her own existence‖ (OYS 334). The future in the

novel, also carries a different meaning from the daily clock time. The future in the

novel is a period in which an event has not yet happened, but may not be unknown to

the present or the past. That is why reading into the future, is an act as ordinary as

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remembering the past in the novel. To explain it in linear terms, the future events would

appear in the form of flash forwards, foreshadowing or deja-vu. In this way, a future

event of history is remembered by both the characters and the readers before its

happening, and when the actual event plays out in the present, the characters or readers

relive the experience again. Right from the beginning in the first sentence, the novel has

set down this unusual tone. Two future events are ‗re-membered‘ in the present time of

the narrative, namely, ‗facing firing squad‘ and ‗discovering ice‘. Later in the novel, it

is learnt that the future information about the firing squad is not entirely correct. It is

literally correct but Colonel Aureliano Buendia does not die as a result, as anyone

would predict when reading the first sentence of the book. The ultimate twisted fate

sarcastically questions the accuracy of re-collection and the fundamental ability to

recall at all.

Sometimes, when events are occurring, time stands still, because the characters

concerned are caught in their own self-absorption or self-dissipation and so, in a sense,

are completely cut off from the daily clock time. For example, when Colonel Aureliano

Buendia shuts himself up to make gold fishes in his old age; or when Rebecca lives like

a ghost in her broken house, their time does not progress. In the magical chamber pot

room, where Melquiades‘ spirit occasionally appears, parchments are well-preserved

and dust does not settle, as if time were an external element not applicable to the room.

Time is not necessarily infinite in the novel. In fact, the narrative time of the story stops

sharp at the moment when the last Aureliano decodes the secrets of Melquiades‘

parchments. Finally, the conventional linear clock time also plays its part in the novel,

entailing the linear development of the history of Macondo, from its Utopian founding,

to its becoming a flourishing modern town, with trains and cinemas etc., to its decline

and ultimate destruction. In the light of the many twists and turns of various concepts

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of time in One Hundred Years of Solitude, the traditional-western linear understanding

of time seems to lose its reliability and persuasive power.

In Chronicle of a Death Foretold also, Garcia Marquez follows circular time

instead of the western canon of linear time. The arrangement of events in the novel is

not in the chronological order. The first paragraph of the novel ―foretells‖ many of the

concerns that Garcia Marquez develops throughout the novel. For instance, he focuses

on time--mentioning that Santiago woke at 5:30 a.m., that he was killed on a Monday

and that the narrator is speaking from twenty-seven years in the future. Specific

mentions of time continue throughout the story. Garcia Marquez complements this

concern with an unusual structure: instead of unfolding chronologically, the novel is a

kind of spiral. Each chapter has its own system of time, tending to circle back on itself.

This obsession with time, coupled with Garcia Marquez' unusual structure, suggests the

paradox that however journalistically the events of Santiago's death may be recorded,

human knowledge can never be certain. Garcia Marquez's descriptions of events almost

always include specific times, but they often contradict one another, suggesting that

each account "believes" in its own accuracy--though none is wholly accurate.

Characters consistently respond in an intuitive way to the coming murder. For instance,

Santiago's recoil at the sight of the butchered rabbits (a sight that he, a hunter, is well

accustomed to and doesn't usually mind) anticipates his own evisceration at the end of

the novel. This tendency to foretell the future also reinforces the treatment of time in

the novel: time is not a linear thing, but rather cyclical--hence the spiralling structure of

each chapters. Santiago's death is present before it happens and many signs point to it;

the characters simply fail to read these signs before it is too late.

Garcia Marquez reconstructs the history of Colombia in order to bring out its

true history which is distorted by its colonial rulers. He wants to teach his readers that

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the knowledge of their country‘s history is essential to create a new identity in the

postcolonial scenario. In One Hundred Years of Solitude, through the plague episode,

he emphasizes the importance of remembering the past. When the plague attacks, the

Macondons lose the ability to recollect their childhood, names and functions and all

manner of objects. Then, slowly, their identities begin to vanish; people do not

recognize one another, and some even lose a sense of their own being. Jose Arcadio

Buendia who is terrified that he cannot remember the word ―anvil‖ for one of his own

crucial tools, frantically places labels on everything in his house in the hope he will not

lose all memory. He labels animals and plants, furniture and windows — a cow, a pig,

a banana. ―Little by little,‖ writes Garcia Marquez, ―studying the infinite possibilities of

the loss of memory, he realized that the day might come when things would be

recognized by their inscriptions but no one would remember their use‖(OYS 48 ).So, he

began to write longer and longer descriptions of function: ―This is the cow. She must

be milked every morning so that she will produce milk, and the milk must be boiled in

order to be mixed with coffee to make coffee and milk‖(OYS 48).

Buendia becomes traumatized by the prospect of living a life of endless

labelling to survive with a sense of humanity. He tries to develop a memory machine

that will store written entries of all experiences and all knowledge in each villager‘s

life. After placing thousands of entries into his machine, Buendia is mercifully saved

from his nightmare by a friend who cures him miraculously from the plague. Buendia

recovers his full power of memory. But he had seen this world without memory, a

world of despair and incurable confusion, a world where people lost their humanity in

the anarchy of ignorance. There is no personal identity and all forms of symbolic

communication have come to an end. Remembering the past, Garcia Marquez implies,

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is essential for the colonized nations to establish their identity, as it is a known fact that

colonization obliterates the past.

Garcia Marquez‘s treatment of history and time signals dangers, if one takes for

granted the simplistic subversion of Western conceptual frameworks in an attempt to

create local narratives of the postcolonial nationhood. Both the issues of reality and

history show how the processes of post-colonial search for national or continental

identity, are highly complex, as they are reliant upon the re-appropriation, subversion,

and demystification of the Western conceptual frameworks. Thus the task of One

Hundred Years of Solitude is to counter the history that Garcia Marquez calls ―the false

one that historians had created and consecrated in the school books‖ (OYS 296). The

liberal rebellions that Aureliano Buendia leads against the conservative forces, the

strike on the banana plantations that end with the gunning down of workers and many

other incidents from history are recovered from oblivion and retold from the point of

view of the defeated. The repressed ‗other‘ returns to haunt the ‗expurgated‘ and

‗censored‘ real in these instances. Repressed memories suddenly take a ghostly form,

testifying to an essential indelibility of historical trauma and calling for remembrance

and atonement. Like the gaps and silences of dreams, One Hundred Years of Solitude is

filled with the unaccountable presences of those who are not supposed to inhabit them,

the ‗banished‘ voices which return in the guise of ghosts, hallucinations, grotesque

figures and surreal apparitions. This postcolonial ―rhetoric of haunting‖ (Punter 79)

shows how the characters are filled by the history they cannot escape, by the memory

of their pasts. The language of Garcia Marquez‘s writings remains forever split,

schizoid, in a state of self-alienation, haunted by the vanished voice, which resurfaces

and tries to break through again and again, in a permanent ―revisitation of the site of

trauma‖ (Punter 98). In One Hundred Years of Solitude, the ―remembrance of things

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past … is not primarily nostalgic‖ and historical representation ―foregrounds the gaps

and absences occulted by hegemonic discourses. They presuppose the organic

integration of the levels of the past and archaic human consciousness that are no longer

available to Western culture, and that can therefore only be conjured as ‗images‘,

fetishes, ghosts‖( Faris163).

In One Hundred Years of Solitude, Garcia Marquez reconstructs all the major

events of Colombian history. By reconstructing the pre-Hispanic life of Colombia,

Garcia Marquez drives home the point that the European ―self‖ and the Colombian

―other‖ were present together in the land of Latin America right from the days of

discovery. He creates Macondo on the model of Chibcha clan. Thus, he yearns for the

return of pre-Hispanic life to Colombia. Before the arrival of the Spaniards, the

Chibchas led a peaceful life. In the same way, the Macondons led an idyllic, peaceful

and self-contended life before the arrival of Melquiades and Don Apolinar Mascotes.

The Buendia family and their home town become the foundation for Garcia Marquez to

reconstruct the history of the colonization of Colombia. Macondo, with its mirror walls,

reflects Colombia. The two characters, Father Nicanor Reyna and Fernanda del Carpio

represent the colonizers. These colonial characters are portrayed by Garcia Marquez to

show that the culture of Colombia is contaminated and that the innocent arcadia has lost

its indigenous traits with the arrival of the colonial people. Garcia Marquez continues

his reconstruction of Colombia in its post-independent state. Two violent incidents

namely, the War of a Thousand Days and La Violencia, become the backdrop of some

of his novels.

The reconstruction of events related to the two major political parties, brings

out the hypocrisy of the leaders who fight only for pride and not for their ideology. The

conservatives and the liberals fight for the sake of fighting without any ideology. The

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repetitious wars between them lead to no absolute or clearly defined progress. Both the

conservatives and the liberals become oppressors when they are in power. Garcia

Marquez finds that the reason for the tension between the two parties is pride. They

fight for power and not for any ideology. The disillusioned Colonel Aureliano

understands the futility of wars. Garcia Marquez wants his fellowmen to understand the

futility of civil wars, through the character of the Colonel. With the two governments in

power, there cannot be any progress. Colonel Aureliano Buendia, Jose Arcadio Buendia

and Ursula, believe, through various experiences in their life, that there will be only

stagnation and there cannot be any change at all. Garcia Marquez‘s burden is to present

the true nature of the two major political parties, and the rest is in the hands of the

people to draw their own conclusions.

In Of Love and Other Demons, Garcia Marquez reconstructs the incidents that

are related to the Catholic Church right from the time of colonization. The novel takes

place in Cartagena in the eighteenth century, when the city was one of the centres of the

Spanish slave trade and a colonial headquarters of the Inquisition. The Church played a

major role in sustaining colonialism in Spanish America. Garcia Marquez reconstructs

the colonial church in order to bring awareness among the people who follow their

religion with blind faith. The novel is an astonishing portrait of the violence and abuse

heaped upon an innocent and helpless 12-year-old girl, Sierva Maria, by an intolerant

and cruel Catholic church, during the 1740s. It is about the exhumation of a body that

was buried in the ancient cemetery of the convent, Santa Clara. Through this

exhumation, Garcia Marquez digs out the hideous side of the church and shows it to his

people, so that they may have a new understanding of their church. Garcia Marquez

presents the colonial church as a religion of death. It brings death to Sierva Maria, the

protagonist of the novel. Through Sierva Maria‘s free and powerful sensuality, Garcia

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Marquez shakes the very foundation of the inquisitorial, intolerant and guilt-ridden

world of colonial life. He also uncovers the flaws and fears of those around her and of a

crumbling political and religious system. The portrayal of the slaves, the Church

authorities, the nobility and the Inquisition reveal a colonial Latin America, fraught

with fear and vulnerability. The bishop‘s excessive weight and bad health shows that

the church exercises too much power for its own good, and not for the people. The

bishop is equated to a devil. Garcia Marquez juxtaposes the bishop‘s charges that the

illness of Sierva Maria is a demonic possession, with the long descriptions of the

bishop‘s illness. This shows the real demons of the church. Garcia Marquez presents

Abrebuncio, a Portuguese Jew, as a man of knowledge and reason. Through this

character, Garcia Marquez wants to educate his people that blind faith in religion leads

to death, whereas religion combined with reason and knowledge affirms life.

In the recuperation of history, Garcia Marquez uses only mild hyperbole:

―Colonel Aureliano Buendia organized thirty-two armed uprisings and lost them all. He

had seventeen male children by seventeen different women and they were exterminated

one after the other‖ (OYS 94). The prodigious violence and the prodigious sexuality,

bear witness to the unfinished business of consolidating a nation and an identity on

ideals other than the censorships and official pieties of the colony retained in the

oligarchy. One Hundred Years of Solitude criticizes both the conservatives and the

liberals. The endless civil wars between them, represented by Aureliano‘s insurrections,

lead to little stability and less change. Further, the dynasty that lives out the pained

history of Colombia and Latin America, is the liberal Buendia clan, not unelitist itself;

for all their progressiveness, the liberals, who also had their turn at leadership, are

hegemonic as well. Yet, it is the conservatives who embody the worst feature of

oligarchic repression, which they justify under the banner of a God-given power to

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establish ―public order and family morality‖ (OYS 97). Garcia Marquez advocates an

end to all forms of elite ascendancy.

Garcia Marquez has the burden of bringing into light the truth behind the

banana incidents. While One Hundred Years of Solitude recreates Spanish colonization,

the power of the Roman Catholic Church, the enlightenment, the Independence and the

Thousand Days War, its most striking historical commentary is its depiction of the

banana strike of 1925. With the arrival of Banana Company, Macondo has been

transformed from a crude rusticity to a wonderful modern town. But, for Garcia

Marquez, the arrival of new machines and farming techniques do not make Macondo a

better place to live in. In fact, things only get worse instead of providing prosperity and

order to the inhabitants of Macondo. The banana company brings ruin and devastation

upon the people. All that remain of the former wired-in city are the ruins. The only

human trace left there was a glove belonging to Patricia Brown in an automobile

smothered in wild pansies. The school books portrayed the Banana Company as the

benefactor which brought prosperity and progress to the country. Garcia Marquez

rewrites this history written in the school text books.

Garcia Marquez reconstructs the banana incidents with a vengeance, to bring

out the conspiracy behind them. The army favours the plantation owners and terrorizes

the town. Martial law comes into effect. The army enters the town noiselessly before

dawn, with two pieces of light artillery drawn by mules, and sets up the headquarters in

the school. The army men drag out Dr. Noguera, tie him to a tree in the square, and

shoot him without any due process of law. The workers battle them using guerrilla

techniques. At last, pretending to seek a resolution, the government invites the striking

employees and kills all of them at the train station. This tragic massacre of the workers

is the novel‘s emotional and spiritual centre. It is the book‘s strongest statement against

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the distortion of truth by the colonial powers. As a child living near the banana

plantation, Garcia Marquez witnessed the massacre of the striking banana workers. The

dead bodies were then systematically removed from the town and thrown into the

ocean. When he was in high school, Marquez realized with shock that the incident had

been erased from his history text book. Knowing the importance of history, he decides

to tell the true history, to the people of Colombia. With the reconstruction of the banana

episode, Garcia Marquez creates a new history which, in, turn creates a new awareness

in the minds of fellow Colombians.

As Krapp notes, ―No amount of passionate denunciation can rouse the

Macondons from their indifference, even as the Banana Company effectively

inaugurates the clearest identity disparity witnessed in the novel: the Company owners

and the banana workers‖ (Krapp 403). This is important because, Garcia Marquez

forces himself to look beyond the decaying state of the family and the central

characters, to consider the larger historical implications of this small village. Although

it is somewhat utopian, further influences from outside keep causing more problems

and Garcia Marquez seems frustrated at the reaction of the characters, just as he might

have been with his own people when after the Banana Strike Massacre, an official

statement was released that made the event no longer seem violent—a lie in which

many in Columbia were willing to believe. Just as in real life, the author expresses his

thoughts about social and political responsibility when after the false report comes out,

―There were no dead, the satisfied workers had gone back to their families, and the

banana company was suspending all activity until the rains stopped‖ (OYS 332).

Garcia Marquez wants his fellow countrymen to find a voice in the political chaos of

the years since active colonialism. He also wants to gently scold or warn them about the

dangers of allowing atrocities to continue, when peace could be possible. This is a

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particularly potent political and social message, coming from a man who has seen and

reported on one of the worst and most devastating periods in the history of Columbia.

Colombia has become synonymous with violence. It has been engulfed in a

complicated civil war for more than a century, and most of the victims of the violence

have been civilians. They are killed by soldiers at roadblocks, taken hostage and

tortured by paramilitary death squads, blown up by land mines, shot by drug traffickers,

because they are in the wrong place at the wrong time and massacred because they are

thought to sympathize with one side or the other. The Human Rights Watch issued a

chilling appraisal of life in Colombia which concluded:

Violations of international humanitarian law -- the laws of war -- are not

abstract concepts in Colombia, but the grim material of everyday life....

Sometimes, armed men carefully choose their victims from lists. Other times,

they simply kill those nearby, to spread fear. Indeed, a willingness to commit

atrocities is among the most striking features of Colombia's war. (182)

Garcia Marquez is worried about the present status quo of Colombian violence.

He began his life as a writer during the early years of a bloody conflict, La Violencia.

Between two hundred thousand and three hundred thousand people, most of them in the

countryside were killed during La Violencia, which lasted roughly until the early

sixties. In Colombia, there are many possible sources of violence; violence may erupt

from either drug traffickers or guerrillas. The paramilitary armies are at war with both

drug traffickers and guerrillas. A victim in Colombia is always confused about his

oppressor. Nearly two hundred people are kidnapped and more than two thousand are

murdered every month. Even Garcia Marquez has to travel in a bulletproof car with

several security personnel. The roots of Colombian violence can be traced back to the

Spanish colonial rule. The Spaniards adopted the dictum of ‗divide and rule‘ to keep

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the nation under their control. Gradually, there came into being two major political

parties which started hating each other. The hatred continues to this day.

In One Hundred Years of Solitude, the political violence characteristic of

Colombian national history is paralleled in the life of Colonel Aureliano Buendia, who

wars against the treasonous Conservatives, facilitating the politico-economic power of

foreign imperialists in the national affairs of Colombia. The banana plantation owners

possess a private police force with which the business corporation attacks the

Colombian citizens at will. In One Hundred Years of Solitude, Garcia Marquez shows

Latin America which suffers from the absence of purposeful political organization and

the will required for progress. The tragedy of Latin America is the lack of a definitive

national identity, without which there is only self-destruction, not preservation. This

might be partly attributed to five centuries of Spanish colonialism; subsequently, the

continual violence, repression, and exploitation, rob the Colombian of a definite

identity. The historical reality of the Latin American countries occurs as the recurring

fantastical world of Macondo. The desire for change and progress exists in Macondo as

in the countries of Latin America; however, the story's temporal cycles symbolize the

nationalist tendency for repeating history. The result is there is no progress in Latin

America.

No One Writes to the Colonel is set in the background of La Violencia. Garcia

Marquez presents the violent oppression of the regime, in a subtle way. The

government, like the colonizers, oppresses the weak. The Colonel‘s sufferings are

endless in the military rule. He waits endlessly for his pension which he never gets.

Even the funeral procession of a poor musician cannot take place in a peaceful manner.

The crude and cunning people like Don Sabas flourish during La Violencia. People like

him get prosperous by cheating the innocent and the vulnerable. Garcia Marquez is

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concerned with the continuation of oppression and exploitation even after

independence. The local leaders, like the Europeans, continue to exploit their own

people, without any concern for the welfare of the nation.

Chronicle of a Death Foretold is about the collective violent consciousness of

the people of a town, who have become insensitive to violence. Right from the colonial

period, violence is in their blood and hence they do not react to the violent death of

Santiago Nasar. They become passive spectators to the violent murder committed by

the Vicario brothers. Honour is the main cause for violence in Colombia. The political

system of Colombia is divided into two parties, and the psyche of the people is also

split into two parts. The people are ready to do anything for the honour of their party.

Thus, honour is taken seriously in the culture of Colombia. The Vicario brothers kill

Santiago Nasar in order the save the honour of their sister, Angela Vicario. Garcia

Marquez ends the novel with a warning that indifference to violence will ruin the life of

the nation.

The Autumn of the Patriarch is about absolute power and the violence

associated with it. The colonizers enjoyed unlimited freedom over the colonized

nations. This concept of absolute power continues even after independence, in the form

of dictators. The dictators are the machinations of the imperial nations. The dictators‘

reign, like the colonial rule, is full of violence and oppression. They do not like any

revolt against them. Garcia Marquez wants the tribe of dictators to be eliminated from

the Latin American countries. He wants to wipe out any traces of imperialistic violence

in the form of dictators. In Autumn of the Patriarch, while Gabriel Garcia Marquez

stresses the need to understand one‘s history in order to put an end to colonization or

formation of absolute power, he also brings out the truth that the ruled are also implicit

collaborators in the construction of the dictator‘s absolute power. The construction of

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authority or the dictator's rise to power depends on the way in which his subjects

interpret his - and their - story. The latter follow their leader blindly, thereby

collaborating in the establishment of his authority. This unwritten contract between the

ruler and the subjects, sheds light on the nature of political authority in the aftermath of

Latin American independence, and on the role which the people played in establishing

and sustaining that power. The legacy of absolute power continues even after the

independence.

The youthful patriarch founds his nation modelled on the Caudillista regimes

which existed in the post-independent Latin America. But the ―truth‖ of the nation's

founding, as conceived by the patriarch and ―revealed‖ to the people, is in fact a

fabrication. The dictator here does not base his story on experience nor even on

reportage or textual interpretation, as he is illiterate, but rather on the prints and

illustrations made by European travellers to the New World, at the end of the

eighteenth century. This explains that the construction of the authoritative power and

the resulting dependence of the people on the Latin American caudillos, is based on the

designs of colonization. The patriarch establishes a paternalistic relationship with his

people. In paternalism, there is a hierarchical link between an authority figure who acts

as proxy father, such as disciplinary institutions like the state, the nation, the classroom,

the family, and an imaginary audience of figured children, such as the people of the

nation, the students and children. One of the effects of paternalism is the infantilization

of the children by the father. Infantilization results in ‗docility‘. This is the ‗illness‘ that

colonizers generally attribute to the colonized. The infantilized people of the nation are

forced to accept the repressive nature of the dictator. Thus Garcia Marquez‘s The

Autumn of the Patriarch is different from other dictator novels of Latin America. In the

other Latin American dictator novels, the people are forced to suffer under the power of

203

irrational dictators, whose hold on power is beyond the people‘s control. But Garcia

Marquez brings out a new notion that the people are also collaborators in the

construction of dictator‘s power. As long as the people are docile and blind, there will

not be any dearth for dictators with absolute power. If they stand against him with

courage, the dictators and their absolute power will disappear once for all from the

minds of the people.

For Garcia Marquez, the search for national or continental identity in the post-

colonial light is no longer an innocent business of subverting the colonial heritage. It

becomes a deconstructive enterprise which shows how colonialism is constructed and

how the processes of ideological domination function. This can be seen in the ending of

the novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude, when the Buendia family and Macondo are

wiped out by the apocalyptic wind. The demise of the Buendia family, for Garcia

Marquez, signals how people who are obsessed with themselves and their own kin to

the extent that they commit incest, are not allowed to live. The incestuous solitude that

marks the first generation of the Buendia family in Macondo in the marriage between

Jose Arcadio Buendia and Ursula Iguaran, comes back to haunt them again in a nuptial

bond that holds Aureliano and Amaranta Ursula together. While Jose Arcadio and

Ursula are lucky since their children are not cursed with a pig‘s tail, Aureliano and his

aunt are not so fortunate: their son, also named Aureliano, is born with a pig‘s tail and

is subsequently eaten by ants. By having the whole town destroyed at the end of the

novel, Garcia Marquez seems to deplore the solitude to which the Buendia family is

subject, as the last phrase of the novel runs as follows: ―races condemned to one

hundred years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth‖ ( OYS 416). The

Buendias are incapable of loving and this is the key to their solitude and their

frustration. Solitude is the opposite of solidarity. This can also give a second meaning

204

to Jose Arcadio Buendia‘s dream of a city with mirrors when he founds the town of

Macondo. The inhabitants in this town are too occupied and obsessed with themselves,

as they choose to look inwards at themselves as in mirrors, rather than looking

outwards and learning to understand and love others. In terms of nationhood, such a

solitary attitude towards oneself is dangerous, as it distances one from the other,

separating ‗we‘ and ‗them‘. This becomes one of the main causes of colonialism, as one

believes in one‘s superiority to another. If Macondo is marked by the irrational and

cyclical time, they also simultaneously point towards the insularity of the town, which

makes such oddities possible.

In bringing up the issues of unique reality and history of Macondo, Garcia

Marquez in turn, demystifies those myths and shows that in fact magic and circular

time are often preordained in a place that is secluded and solitary. If there is a need to

find unique characters or traits to define a nation, there should also be a need to

demystify these processes so that people understand the concept that a nation is an

imagined political community. In bringing Macondo to a tragic end, Garcia Marquez, at

the same time, opens up new routes, new possibilities in which one can think of

nationhood and national consciousness, not as a closed, solitary entity, but as a hybrid

existence, spurred by an interaction of various sources of influence, both internal and

external, and by a judicious recognition of other races and cultures. It is in this

optimistic spirit that Garcia Marquez ends his Nobel address: ―it is not yet too late to

undertake the creation of a minor utopia: a new and limitless utopia for life wherein no

one can decide for others how they are to die, where love really can be true and

happiness possible…‖( 290). For him, national identity cannot be found when one

looks inwards at oneself; it is generated by an endeavour to understand oneself and the

205

other and how the two sides are related. It is only through these processes that the real

sense of nationhood can be achieved.

Garcia Marquez, in his novels, attempts to carve out a new identity for

Colombia. In magical realism, he vehemently positions ‗magic‘ on par with ‗realism‘.

Hitherto, the ‗other‘ perspectives which were relegated to an insignificant position, are

lifted up to occupy an equal status with that of the dominant world views. His magical

realism paves a new way to perceive the world with alternative methods. Through

magical realism, Garcia Marquez reminds his people that they can be elevated from the

restrictions they face in day to day life, and they can also be enlightened as to the true

potential of their lives, and their own individual power to create and shape their own

destiny, which is free from colonial consciousness. This is most vividly expressed by

Garcia Marquez through his magical realism‘s own effect of constantly confounding

the readers‘ expectations and precluding any comfortable suspension of disbelief. His

‗reconstruction of past‘ reminds his people of the calm and quiet life of the various

clans of pre-Hispanic Colombia. The colonization has robbed away its tranquillity,

bringing chaos and confusion and scattering the identity of the nation. He rewrites the

past with the hope that the people would learn from their past mistakes. He also

unravels the truth that the civil wars have further wiped away the identity of the nation,

restricting the country into becoming a world power to reckon with. His portrayal of

violence signifies that it is a plot devised during the colonial period, which continues to

this day. He wants his people to be united and the colonial legacy of ‗divide and rule‘ to

be done away with. Thus, Garcia Marquez has done enough foundational work that

would pave the way for a great social and political change in the years to come.

206

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http://www.themodernword.com/gabo/

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0361-1299%281998%2952%3A2%3C99%

3ALALSRA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-J

http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lfh&AN=MOL0120000607&s

ite=lrc- live">Latin American Short Fiction.

http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lfh&AN=9311193859&site=

lrc-live">Leaves of light: The textual journeys of Dante and Garcia Marquez.

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&VName =PQD.

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Gabriel_Garcia_Marquez.

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