1. Conclusions and Interpretations of One Hundred Years of Solitude
Kristen Johnson & Brittany Patterson

2. Religion
Macondo is an Edenic city, where Úrsula and José Arcadio Buendía are like Adam and Eve, producing the long line of the Buendía family
The city is innocent in the beginning, with no death and no war
The incest of Úrsula and José Arcadio Buendía relates to the idea of Original Sin, and results in the inevitable burden of solitude in all the offspring
Just as God sent a flood as punishment for sinfulness in the Bible, Macondo recieves a flood of raid for almost five years after the banana massacre, as if it is a way of cleansing Macondo from all the impurity technology brought to it
The book begins with a story of creation and ends with total destruction

3. Time Interpreted as Linear History
 - The story of Macondo demonstrates a linear history beginning with the founding of the town and ending with its destruction
- Can be seen in four major stages:  utopia/innocence, warfare and struggle, economic success coupled with spiritual decline, and then physical and moral destruction
- The story is mostly told in this chronological order, so that major occurrences give the reader a sense of where the story is in time (the arrival of technology from the gypsies, the war, the railroad, the Europeans, etc)
Interpreted as Circular History
- Every child is named after a family member, and their personality traits are also repeated within every generation. The name creates a predestined character in the child.
- Every family member experiences extreme solitude
- The characters seem to have no control over their own history or destiny, so that history inevitably repeats itself and they have no real future besides what fate has for them
“It’s as if the world were repeating itself” (320). - Úrsula
- This circular sense of time, along with the mythical elements of the novel, create the feeling that time is nothing more than an illusion, which leaves room for the reader to interpret the situations in a unique way

4. Society/Economy The Insomnia Plague
- a statement about the economy which
depends on continuous and rapid change for
progress, but because it is based on self-interest
and profit gain, destroys the society it was
created to serve.
The Railroad
- shows how technology depletes Macondo of its thriving success and its vitality
Outsiders
- the Americans and Europeans are never incorporated into Macondo society, and remain distant from the Buendía family. This demonstrates the separation that Latin America feels from Europe and America and their need for their own identity.

5. Latin America
Some scholars believe that Marquez’s style of magic realism is a comment about the supposed Latin American tendency to see history as fantasy and not quite real, just as they fail to see themselves as autonomous beings responsible for making their own history.
“In One Hundred Years of Solitude nothing ever turns out as people expect; everything surprises them; all of them fail; all are frustrated; few achieve communion with others for more than a fleeting moment, and the majority not at all. Most of their actions--at first sight like the structure of the novel as a whole--are circular In short, they fail to become agents of history for themselves The only explanation possible is that they are living out their lives in the name of someone else's values. Hence the solitude, central theme (together with the quest) of Latin American history: it is their abandonment in an empty continent, a vast cultural vacuum, marooned thousands of miles away from their true home.”
- Gerald Martin
Scholars say that Marquez is claiming that this escape from reality through fantasy will lead to failure, just as the Buendía family inevitable perishes at the end and Macondo is destroyed. This happens once the parchments are finally read and the real history is known. This novel may be a way of recording true history so that it is not forgotten or fantasized.

6. Solitude All characters are in solitude in their own way
Unable to fully connect to each other; reader is kept at a distance.
In a way, because they share their solidarity, they are connected to each other.
Comala is in solitude in the beginning.
The more Comala is exposed to the world, the worse it becomes.

7. Sex
Passionate without being melodramatic, simple yet filled with graphic honesty.
Honest and realistic: sex no exception.
Sex is not about passion, but more a physical need.
Example: Jose Arcadio Buendia and Ursula.
Because the first view of sex is incest, the impression given of sex is bizzare yet honest.
More bizarre: Aureliano Buendia falls in love with Remedios Moscote who is seven years old.

8. Sex, continued
“Since One Hundred Years Of Solitude was published in 1967, it is obvious that Gabriel Garcia Marquez intended that the novel appeal to a modern audience. He introduces the characters of the Buendia family as a people with whom we are supposed to travel through one hundred year of life. Marquez gives us sexual relationships as one common ground to base our impression on. In our world of child abuse, prostitution, sexually transmitted diseases, rape etc..., we are able to see the strange sexual relationships depicted in this novel as no more bizarre than what we see going on around us. The development of the character’s sexual relationships is an important tool that leads to better understanding of the individual’s lives and experiences while at the same time giving the reader a familiar background common to all human experience.”
Robin Fiorello

9. Women Women are not weak, but powerful in their own way.
Empowerment comes either through age or strength of sexuality.

10. Women Empowerment through age Empowerment through sexual strength
Ursula
Matriarch of town
Bears three children for Jose Arcadio Buendia that she rears single handedly, “against the laws of creation.” (p. 85)
For this, she is considered equal to her husband.
The mother to children
Empowerment through sexual strength
Pilar
Sexual matriarch
The “mother” to adults
Has children with both Aureliano Buendia and Jose Arcadio. Has sexual relationships with Aureliano and Arcadio.
The attraction to her is passed down by generation, thus giving her a power that no one else in the family possesses.

11. Oprah
Oprah chose One Hundred Years of Solitude as her book club selection in 2004.
Instantly went from number 3,116 to number one.
“Marquez is discovering that winning the Nobel Prize boosts literary reputations, but nothing helps sales more than Winfrey's endorsement.” -USA Today
When Oprah selected it, she said: "You have to be a bona fide reader for this. It takes us inside a world where the lines of magic and reality are blurred, so stay with it. It's not like anything you've ever read before.”
Received criticism for choosing this novel
“not the right audience” for 100 years.

12. Bibliography http://www.literatureview.com/fiction/fict_solitude.html