Unknown Melancholies

Hello!

Today's post is all about figurative language and imagery--perfect, since that's Marquez's specialty. Below is one of my favorite passages from the book, a description of Macondo's reaction to the introduction of movies.

"A character who had died and was buried in one film and for whose misfortune tears of affliction had been shed would reappear alive and transformed into an Arab in the next one. The audience, who paid two cents apiece to share the difficulties of the actors, would not tolerate that outlandish fraud and they broke up the seats. [...] They decided not to return to the movies, considering they already had too many troubles of their own to weep over the acted-out misfortunes of imaginary beings" (225).

I found it funny how furious the residents since breaking the seats of a theater is a rather violent reaction to the idea of actors reappearing in different roles. However, the more I thought about it, the more I became to wonder why we don't find it strange that the same people are the faces of multiple of our favorite characters. In addition, with so many of our own problems, why do we find solace in crying over others'? Marquez is able to illustrate just how silly the idea of movies are with phrases like "outlandish fraud" and "weep over the acted-out misfortunes of imaginary beings," causing the reader to begin to query about the merits of movies. Like many other scenes, this one calls into question just how important modern technology is to one's enjoyment of life.

The town of Macondo may be "primitive" to some, but their problems are never the result of a lack of technology. Much like with this scene, Marquez also repeatedly makes readers question the familiar and accept the surreal, resulting a world that's strange for all the wrong reasons. Jose Arcadio Buendia deems ice "the great invention of our time" (22). People simply shovel out the flowers that fall from the sky the same way they would snowfall. Phonographs are considered to be "mechanical tricks" whose only real use is as something for children to take apart (226). Despite the fact that the modern world is beginning to invade Macondo--spurred by the creation of a railroad--its residents remain firmly stuck in the past, rejecting every new piece of technology that comes their way.