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One Hundred Years of Solitude, The House of Spirits

Uploaded by SamSkillz on Feb 22, 2004

Common Theme Paper Between: One Hundred Years of Solitude and The House of Spirits

It is only when it is too late that man realizes that what he truly wants is what he has had all along. Through a great loss or failure in the pursuit of further happiness, man may realize he never wanted more than harmony and tranquility, but by then it is impossible to go back. Isabel Allende and Gabriel García Marquez both demonstrate this tendency of man to blindly continue forward without appreciating that which he already has, until encountering vast turmoil and destruction. Through the main characters of One Hundred Years of Solitude that exhibit this trait, Marquez shows that if humanity does not realize the worth of what it has, it inevitably will lose its most valuable assets. Many of the characters in The House of Spirits also fail to realize the value of things in their life and take them for granted. It seems that to prevent the loss of virtue by man and his own suicidal destruction, he must know what it is that he considers valuable and then appreciate and guard it.

Jose Arcadio Buendía was the founder of the Eden-like community of Macondo. Like the ice that did not melt in the summer heat when brought to Macondo, Macondo had been free of change. Its people did not suffer from the troubles of the outside world, but that required that they did not know of the outside world. When Jose Arcadio Buendía learned of the knowledge and innovations being created in nearby towns and around the world, he felt like the city of Macondo was lacking something. He was like a newborn child introduced to the vast world where he would be forced to make mistakes and triumphs in his pursuit of knowledge. Jose Arcadio said “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 (Marquez 17).” He felt that they were living “like donkeys” because they did not have all the inventions and knowledge that matched those around them. He did not notice the things that they did have, which included peace, harmony, amiable relations, freedom, and innocence.

Jose Arcadio was quick to gain knowledge and bring the product of such knowledge to the town of Macondo. Like Adam who picked from the tree of...

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Uploaded by:   SamSkillz

Date:   02/22/2004

Category:   Literature

Length:   7 pages (1,522 words)

Views:   12164

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