Las acciones de los personajes en 100 Anos me hace pensar que los personajes no son personas per se sino ideas manifestadas en la figura humana. Y no ideas muy claras; mejor dicho, ideas abstractas. Aureliano odia a Melquiades; propongo que el sentido de misticismo con que Melquiades hace todo repugna a Aureliano. En realidad, todo lo que hace Melquiades es realista: el hielo, la traida de las ciencias a Macondo: pero el modo en que introduce esos elementos es mistico. Aureliano es bastante realista, no? Es posible que mal entendI su caracter, no se. De todas formas, bajo este entendimiento, el lustre casi magico de Melquiades se puede leer de ser egotista, aun arrogante. Pero este entendimiento no trata de su personalidad sino de la actitud hecha obvia por sus acciones... Melquiades es la idea de una persona mas que una persona en si.
El amor que tiene Aureliano para Remedios trata mas de la esencia de ella. El hecho que ella es ninya no tiene relevancia a su mente (Aureliano). Yo creo que esta ambivalencia, o sea, falta de conciencia, hacia...las normas, los 'shoulds', junta con la descripcion fragante y sensual de su ser, llega al amor de una chica no muy muy presente. Tal vez es el estado dreamlike de la novela que me hace pensar asi, pero tal vez es mas que simplemente este estilo.
Los personajes forman tan grande parte de la novela en si - hay cienes de ellos - seria imposible que cada uno se considera individuamente, como persona. No. Los personajes tienen esencia, tienen proposito en la trama. Voy a usar una metafora para destacar este punto.....
En una cancion del estilo trance, hay un pulso que se crea por los sonidos electronicos - un pulso que la conduce hasta el climax. Podemos relacionarlo con el tesis o punto final de una obra literaria. Por otro lado, se anyade la melodia de la voz humana, usualmente una mujer sexed-up, del estilo y letra muy cursi. (No compartido con la obra literaria :D.) La voz humana solo sirve para recrear o llenar la linea de otro instrumento; forma parte de la fabula de la cancion, y entreteje con los otros lineas musicales. No se pone enfasis en la humanidad de la voz, como la de Remedios en 100 Anyos; ellas solo son partes de una esquema mucho mas grande...
Monday, March 15, 2010
Monday, March 8, 2010
Sexual themes in 100 Years
Up til now, I'm interested in how sex is a major plot-thickening device. There are so many different little tools Marquez implements to get this theme across. Using animals, for instance, to reflect male dominance and rape; for instance, the dogs that accompany the English toward the beginning of the novel are aggressive and invoke fear in Ursula's great-great-grandmother. They're a symbol. The roosters: what's up with them? I feel they do pertain to the role of the male (obviously...) but I think they go beyond that. Maybe the fact that it is the male's decision as to where they go and what they do; but it's also and honor thing. Jose Arcadio Buendia slits their throats to redeem the soul of the ghost who haunts them (his manhood, his pride, perhaps?).
Sexual health seems to be defined by activity. The chastity underwear, the ancestral son with the cut off tail who bleeds to death was a VIRGIN. It seems that Marquez particularly emphasizes that without experiencing sex, one's self is basically incomplete; cannot grow and survive. It's definitely true in a bigger sense, ie, if everyone stops having sex, there's not going to be anymore everyone...
Incest. I'm not 100% sure about this one, but I thought I caught onto it a bit when Ursula was pregnant with Amaranta (I think), she sees her eldest's naked masculine body. From the English version:
"She felt a mingled sense of shame and pity: he was the first man that she had seen naked after her husband, and he was so well-equipped for life that he seemed abnormal. Ursula, pregnant for the third time, relived her newlywed terror."
Ok, so it's not incestuous per se, but it is a reaction that is wholly sexual; a realization of manhood, and her former escapism of the duties of being a 'good wife'... Hmm.
Sexual health seems to be defined by activity. The chastity underwear, the ancestral son with the cut off tail who bleeds to death was a VIRGIN. It seems that Marquez particularly emphasizes that without experiencing sex, one's self is basically incomplete; cannot grow and survive. It's definitely true in a bigger sense, ie, if everyone stops having sex, there's not going to be anymore everyone...
Incest. I'm not 100% sure about this one, but I thought I caught onto it a bit when Ursula was pregnant with Amaranta (I think), she sees her eldest's naked masculine body. From the English version:
"She felt a mingled sense of shame and pity: he was the first man that she had seen naked after her husband, and he was so well-equipped for life that he seemed abnormal. Ursula, pregnant for the third time, relived her newlywed terror."
Ok, so it's not incestuous per se, but it is a reaction that is wholly sexual; a realization of manhood, and her former escapism of the duties of being a 'good wife'... Hmm.
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