The Mirrors of Macondo Chandra Garver

The Mirrors of Macondo

In Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years Of Solitude the fictional town of Macondo provides a stage, on which the speaker uses the regression of a society to show the disastrous consequences of capitalism on an unindustrialized society. The predominant matriarch character of Ursula Buenda is as a catalyst who introduces and accelerates the spread of capitalism through her entrepreneurial enterprises.

While Ursula Buendia is responsible for the founding of Macondo, she is also symbolic for it's the well being and monetary strength. At the beginning of the novel rsula is characterized as being parsimonious, frugal and as "having a great capacity for work" (9), and during this time Macondo is introduced as "a village that [is] more orderly and hardworking" (10) than any. Due to the hard work and brilliant planning by her husband, Jose Arcadio Buenda, all people of the town "could reach the river and draw water with the same effort" (9) and the streets are lined in such a way "that no house got more sun than another during the hot time of day" (9). The tone created by this picturesque setting creates the feeling of an unique society where all people strive...