Blog Post #9

"After his shout something happened that did not bring on fright but a kind of hallucination. The
captain gave the order to fire and fourteen machine guns answered at once. But it all seemed like a
farce. It was as if the machine guns had been loaded with caps, because their panting rattle could be
heard and their incandescent spitting could be seen, but not the slightest reaction was perceived, not
a cry, not even a sigh among the compact crowd that seemed petrified by an instantaneous
invulnerability."

Having watched the crash course and some separate supplementary material, I understand the significance of the massacre scene better and it stood out to me immediately. Marquez's commentary on the real-life Banana Massacre is a very interesting addition to the novel, and it is a theme seen often in Latin American authors of the period; writing about the social injustices occurring in South America/Latin America in their magical realist novel. This scene also has some elements of magical realism to it, when he writes the gun had apparently been "loaded with caps," as for a moment, no one reacted in the slightest to the wave of bullets, until a few lone screams break the silence. It is definitely one of the most exciting and significant scenes in the novel.