100 Years of Solitude (Day 4)

After it rained for five years a flood occurred and wiped away all of the banana plantations and Aureliano Segundo’s animals (which were his fortune). Once the banana plantations were washed away it was as if the massacre never happened, it erased the memories of the past. In the story of Noah’s Ark in the Bible, God sent the flood to get rid of the all the evil and corruption on earth. Here in One Hundred Years of Solitude the flood plays the same role. Macondo was constantly declining until finally incest and modernity corrupted the whole town. The flood symbolized the removal of all the evil and memories of the evil from the past and for a new start.

Ursula shrinking and becoming like a doll serves as a metaphor for the town. She has become so old and senile that she serves no purpose anymore but to tell tales from the past. She was full of wisdom and held the Buendia family together. She always feared that incest would be the end of the family and at the end Amaranta Ursula and Aureliano’s do have a child with a pig-tale. Since Ursula was the strongest character in the novel and worked to keep the family together, she could represent the end of Macondo. After her death it shows that the end of the city is near. With Amaranta and Aureliano’s son being born with a pig-tail it shows the ultimate sign of incest, the thing that Ursula worried about most.