The novel One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez has become a classic staple in literature and for good reason. The novel has so many complex layers with many different and complex characters (the majority of whom, for some reason, have the same name). There are so many unique things that intrigue me about this novel that I haven’t seen in many other novels I have read. I feel as though each character has their own story almost as if everyone is a main character in this world. There are some instances where this complexity became a bit messy for me, but I feel like there is an intentional reason for that. Life is meant to be messy, family is meant to be messy, etc. I would love to know the author’s reasoning for creating the characters this way and what it really symbolizes.
While reading this story, I wondered why so much sorrow seemed to follow this family. For everything that went right, something bad would happen directly after. The family was left to experience unhappiness and despair several times in the novel. They were also presented with choices/options that were morally wrong or sinful, which relates to sex in which incest was pointed out and relates to power by way and doing things out of ego and control rather than it being the best option. Does this show that if we do not want to become like our ancestors then we must try our hardest to break these generational curses or roles? We have to want to break them in order to succeed.