100 Years Ch. 6-10

The first theme that I want to talk about is the military and war aspect that we see starting in chapter 6. As we talked about in class before we see Marquez’s influence from politics coming through in this novel. However, the most interesting thing about this is the actions of Arcadio. On page 110 it talks about a reason for Arcadio’s madness, which is that fact that no one really ever cared for him. Both his mother, father and grandparents never really paid much attention to him, in the midst of all the other scandals and distractions he had during his childhood. This is interesting because it begins to show a pattern of what happens to children when they grow up in a unhealthy environment. Or even just how your environment shapes the person you will become.
This is seen in Arcadio’s malicious actions in the war. However, it is rooted back to the neglect that his father received from JAB. It is a cycle that is shown through the Buendia family. Jose Arcadio did not have a father figure so he did not know how to be a father. He abandoned Arcadio, leaving him neglected as well. The neglect the boys received lead them to an unhealthy adulthood. Jose Arcadio marries inside the family and then is shunned. This is a very bizarre family!

The aspect of Love is also very bizarre in this book. Not only what we talked about in the last class with the marriage inside the family, but also in other ways. The example I will use is Amarantra’s story. What I really want to speak about is how she denies Pietro Crespi. I cant figure out why she would do that when it seems that he is what she really wanted.