Blog Post 7

"Ten minutes later he returned with the notched spear that had belonged to his grandfather. At the door to the cockpit, where half the town had gathered, Prudencio Aguilar was waiting for him. There was no time to defend himself. José Arcadio Buendía's spear, thrown with the strength of a bull and with the same good aim with which the first Aurelian Buendía had exterminated the jaguars in the region, pierced his throat. That night, as they held a wake over the corpse in the cockpit, José Arcadio Buendía went into the bedroom as his wife was putting on her chastity pants. Pointing the spear at her he ordered: "Take them off." Úrsula had no doubt about her husband's decision." (Marquez, 22).

The beginning of chapter two initially confused me until I recognized that the story had moved back in time. Normally, I read the assigned chapters and choose a passage to write about as I go; however, this plot line was a little bit more intense, so I decided to do complete the reading and then pinpoint a passage that gave me a good sense as to how the story will lay out. I think this paragraph was the first one that really caught my attention and foreshadowed the mood of this book. It captures the large amount of violence and sex as well as history and the author's use of flashback. It also sets the tone for this time period. Although they are married, Úrsula refuses to sleep with José due to fear of genetic deficit in their future children because they are actually cousins. It was said that one of their other relatives gave birth to a child with a pig's tail so Úrsula refuses any sexual activity. Overall, I think chapter two, specifically the referenced paragraph, strongly foreshadowed the many different themes to come later in the second half of this book.