8 Matching Annotations
  1. Dec 2017
    1. He was never a greater soldier than at that time

      170 Read the Wikipedia entry on Rafael Uribe Uribe. GM has said that CAB is loosely based on him. What parallels do you see? What is it about the historical figure that might have interested GM?

      (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafael_Uribe_Uribe)

    1. Since Aurcliano at that time had very confused notions about the difference between Conservatives and Liberals, his father-in-law gave him some schematic lessons.

      Read this (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Colombia#The_Republic:_Liberal_and_Conservative_Conflict) and this (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Violencia). Why might this be one of the few concrete events in Colombian history GM incorporates into the novel?

    2. Sir Francis Drake

      Read about Sir Francis Drake (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Drake) and his activities in Cartagena (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cartagena_de_Indias_(1586)). Drake will come up multiple times in the novel. What is this allusion doing for the text in this passage?

    3. ragged gypsies

      Read this Wikipedia entry on the Romani (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romani_people). What is the purpose, significance and effect of their inclusion in the very first pages of the novel?

    4. The only thing he succeeded in doing was tq unearth a suit of fifteenth-century armor which had all of its pieces soldered together with rust and inside of which there was the hoUow reson~nce of an enormous stone-f~led gourd. When Jose Arcadio Buendia and· the four men of his expedition managed to take the armor apart, they found inside a calcified skeleton with a copper locket containing a woman's hair around its neck

      According to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Colombia#Spanish_conquest), the first Spanish explorers arrived in Colombia in 1499. What is the significance of this allusion? How is it working in this passage?

    1. I thought he knew something about breed-ing, but he wasn't fit to lick my shoe."

      Here, Myrtle refers to breeding more figuratively. However, the 1920s were when the discourse around eugenics was intensifying. Read this link and consider how an understanding of eugenics during the time the novel is written informs our understanding of this scene. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States)

    1. Read this Wikipedia entry on the Romani (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romani_people). What is the purpose, significance and effect of their inclusion in the very first pages of the novel?

    2. According to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Colombia#Spanish_conquest), the first Spanish explorers arrived in Colombia in 1499. What is the significance of this allusion? How is it working in this passage?