Essay On One Hundred Years Of Solitude 'And Like Water For Chocolate'

Because these characters represent their respective nations, the end of their stories portray what their authors predict the future of their countries will be like. In doing so, these novels impact the culture of their countries by providing a voice to groups of people who had none before. In One Hundred Years of Solitude, the downfall of the Buendía family is caused by the repetition of their sins. The family line comes to a tragic end in an event predicted decades ago, as “it was foreseen that the city of mirrors (or mirages) would be wiped out by the wind and exiled from the memory of man,” which happened only because the Buendía family kept repeating their incestuous ways (Marquez 417). They are trapped in a cycle of history, and Marquez predicts the same tragic, yet realistic, outcome for Colombia if the country keeps repeating the same mistakes. While the book is a warning to citizens of Latin America, according to Laura Turgeon in World Literature and its Times, One Hundred Years of Solitude’s imaginative plot and setting also “gave exuberant voice to a region of the world that had previously been viewed as lush but inscrutable” by the outside world (407). Colombia, in particular, is often viewed as an area ruled by political instability. Because of the novel, magical realism became

Her defiance represents Mexico breaking away from the old traditions that defined its culture. After finding freedom, Tita 's life grew so rich that after she died in a fire, it was said that “under those ashes every kind of life flourished, making the land the most fertile in the region” (Esquivel 118). After Tita rebels against her mother, the land, her life, and her happiness flourish. While the thought of a person 's ashes fertilizing huge plots of land is pure fantasy, Esquivel is implying that if Mexico would also defy outside influences the country would