Blog #9

"It had not rained for three months and there had been a drought.  But when Mr. Brown announced his decision a torrential downpour spread over the whole banana region" (Márquez 309).

The years of rain caused the downfall of Macondo and reflected the disasters that were occurring within the civilization.  The rain began right after the unjust massacre, and it ended up causing the destruction of the majority of the town.  After the rain, many people and buildings did not survive.  Following the rain, an extreme heat wave takes over.  These sequences of natural disasters mirrors the state of Macondo.  Before this, Macondo was a place of harmonious consonance, with the citizens getting along and no natural disasters occurring.  However, following the many injustices that occur, such as the civil war and the massacre of the workers, Macondo begins to fall apart.  The comparison between the state of the town in the beginning of the novel and the state of it towards the end reveals a hugely severe contrast.  Even the characters seem to be less and less vivacious and more passive than the characters in the beginning of the novel.  The plot parallels the slow crumbling that a once perfect town experiences, which allows the reader to draw comparisons to real historical events and other real aspects.