"One week before the date for the wedding, little Remedios woke up in the middle of the night...she died three days later, poisoned by her own blood, with a pair of twins crossed in her stomach...Amaranta suffered a crisis of conscience. She had begged God with such fervor for something fearful to happen so that she would not have to poison Rebecca..." (Marquez 86).
The increasing number of deaths seems to be very contrastive to how Macando was described in earlier chapters, as a place untouched by death. Melquiades's death acts as a domino effect, as we see more and more inhabitants of Macando die or come close to it. It appears that ever since Macando expanded off to civilization and took more outsiders in, the town has down-spiraled. First, with Rebecca the orphan, bringing about the insomnia plague that in itself results in amnesia, then with Pietro arriving causing a great feud between Rebecca and Aramanta. The negativity and hostility that is slowly but surely emerging in Macando seem to be affecting just about everybody. A question that arises could be whether or not expansion is in the town's best interest. When the magistrate took over the orders and development of the village, the sequential events from there on have caused a great turmoil.
The more outsiders that are brought into Macando, even the sweet ones such as Rebecca, have brought about more harm than good. Although expansion helped develop society, it has also hurt it just as equally. The negativity within the village has everyone questioning God or asking him for forgiveness. Amaranta, fueled with hostility towards Rebecca, tries to play God by feeling guilty and somehow righting her wrongs by taking care of Jose Arcadio Buendia. It seems that the civilians lost sight of their path and what Macando was built on. But then again, as great as Macando initially seemed, it was built because of Jose Arcadio Buendia's killing.
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