Blog Post #7

“The most fearsome part of the sickness of insomnia was not the impossibility of sleeping, for the body did not feel any fatigue at all, but its inexorable evolution toward a more critical manifestation: a loss of memory. She meant that when the sick person became used to his state of vigil, the recollection of his childhood began to be erased from his memory, then the name and notion of things, and finally the identity of people and even the awareness of his own being, until he sank into a kind of idiocy that had no past.”

What does the fixation on memory show about the Macondo people? To me the plague of not remembering is not just anyone’s fear, but a heightened fear amongst the people because of their isolation and lack of self-establishment. There is a common theme from the start of the story around wonderment. Certain individuals from the beginning, initially Jose Buendía, show a strive to learn more about what is beyond their village, but this is met poorly by others as the people initially consider themselves to be isolated and alone.

The idea of separation is slowly unraveled as more people come to Macondo, bringing in the idea of separation. The idea of separation initially means solitude, offering the town sanctity. The later development of a civil war after more intrusion and integration occurs shows that separation does in fact lead to greater peace amongst the people.

Does the discussion of memory foreshadow the variation in time that occurs within the story? Although memory loss is feared, is there some aspect of the past that haunts the people within Macondo, and would forgetting about it prove to be beneficial?