User:Brhoads2

Bloom’s Modern Critical Interpretations: Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude is a scholarly source interested in the influences of Marquez in Cien Anos de Soledad, such as other literary writers and the conquest and the history of Latin America, as well as criticisms of his work such as his use of duality of cultural inheritance and his adherence to marianismo and other post-colonial themes. Bloom’s Modern Critical Interpretations has been published as a book, but each chapter is written by a different scholar who offers a topic and viewpoint on Cien Anos de Soledad. Each text is focused on a criticism or an interpretation of Marquez’s work. The introduction alone accuses (I use the word accuse because when reading it feels like the author is patronizing Marquez for writing in a style that would, in my experience, be considered high-quality from a literary perspective) Marquez’s style as being too rich because each sentence has meaning and you as a reader must “notice everything at the moment you read it” (2). The first chapter, by David T. Haberly, is concerned with possible inspiration for Cine Anos de Soledad. Haberly gives an extensive list of authors, such as Faulkner, Virginia Woolf, Defoe, and Echeverria as literary influences for Marquez’s work, but the main focus is on Chateaubriand’s Atala. Haberly makes parallels between the towns of Atala and Mocondo as well as with the central themes that both texts have surrounding ideas of incest, and also the fact that both writers were raised in small costal towns of Colombia. Keith Harrison writes the second chapter of the book: “The Only Mystery” in One Hundred Years of Solitude, which is focused on the theme of solitude in terms of the character of Rebecca. He asserts that her character represents the contradictions and dualities present in Latin American culture: she is a contradiction of European and Indigenous cultures which is exemplified through her commitment to Christianity and belief in Indigenous magic. She also speaks both languages, which is a perfect representation of the duality of her character. Harrison also touches upon the subject of why Rebecca, if she loved Arcadio, would kill him. The answer that Harrison comes to is that Rebecca kills him to represent the dichotomies with which the people of Latin America are all too familiar: “conscience against instinct, spirit against flesh, dream against reality” (14). She represents the antithesis of civilized versus primitive- European versus Indigenous. Chapter 3 is concerned with the parallels that are apparent in Cien Anos de Soledad between the storyline and the conquest of the Americas and the effects of Christianity on Indigenous populations. Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria makes sound comparisons between Cien Anos de Soledad and biblical myths. He not only compares, but equates characters of the novel to characters from the bible. He claims that Jose Arcadio Buendia is Moses, Rebecca represents Perseus, and also makes comparisons between Marquez’s work and myths such as the Flood, Paradise, Seven Plagues, and the Apocolypse, all of which brings us back to the idea of Cien Anos de Soledad as a re-telling of the story of the conquest and European influence on Indigenous Latin America.

The book continues and touches on topics such as the potential of Marquez harboring ideals of marianismo and adhering to sexist stereotypes and reinforcing them in Cien Anos de Soledad through his portrayal of female characters as domestic housewives. This potentially sexist view also can be viewed as Marquez’s profound reflection on the social and cultural realities that exist in Latin America in terms of how women were viewed, and in particular, in Colombia, where he is from.

Bloom, Harold. Bloom’s Critical Interpretations: Edited and with an Introduction by Harold Bloom: Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 2003. --Brhoads2 (talk) 03:13, 9 February 2010 (UTC)