"She was tying a colorful string of chatter together, commenting on things from many separate places and many different times, so that when Amaranta Ursula returned from school and Aureliano grew tired of the encyclopedia, they would find her sitting on her bed talking to herself and lost in a labrinth of dead people. "Fire!" she shouted once in terror and for an instant panic spread through the house, but what she was telling about was the burning of a barn that she had witnessed when she was four years old. She finally mixed up the past with the present in such a way that in the two or three waves of lucidity that she had before she died, no one knew for certain whether she was speaking about what she felt or what she remembered" (341).
In this moment we can see that Ursula is succumbing to the cyclic events that occur in the Buendia family as she reaches old age (old age for her being between 100 and 122 years old). The degradation of Ursula's mind towards the end of the book was really shocking. Throughout the novel she is the most level-headed of the family and kept it together. She constantly mentions that she felt like she was living in a cycle and that events were repeating over and over again, and yet now she is stuck suffering through a cycle of her own memories. This part is disappointing and sad because it seemed like she would be the one to help break the cycle and show her family what not to do. In addition to the fact that she is stuck in her memories, she physically also gets sent back in time. She isn't turned into a baby, but she shrinks and shrivels into a tiny form that is the size of the basket Aureliano was dropped off in. Ursula not only goes back in time in her mind but also in her body. I think this part of the book is telling of how important Ursula was to the Buendia family. After the 4 years of rain she is the one who help fix up the house and put it back together. She also raised most if not all of the children that were brought into the home. Her dying might break the household apart. Another important part of her death and losing her lucidity is how some people in the family treat her. During the time it rained and as she was dying little Aureliano and Amaranta Ursula treat her like a thing rather than a person. This part was extremely worrying because they don't seem to grasp the fact that she is old and shouldn't treated like that, she helped raise them. I can't tell if this is a lack of respect for her or if it just because they are young and don't know any better. But even in the latter case no one else in the house (Fernanda or Aureliano Jose) stopped them from treating Ursula poorly. It may be a contrast to how Ursula raised and took care of the children but they didn't care of her. Either way, I think Ursula's death could end up being a turning point for the Buendias, whether it be bad or good.
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