Turning Point In The Life Of Jose Arcadio Segundo

From the moment Jose Arcadio Segundo and his identical twin were born into the Buendia family, it was not unexpected that they would experience tragedies similar to those felt by many of their family members. Their birthplace, Macondo, often goes through period of memory loss and Jose Arcadio Segundo finds himself in the midst of one after a massacre occurs at the banana plantation he works in and thousands of people are mercilessly killed. Gabriel Garcia Marquez uses Jose Arcadio Segundo as a way to show, rather than tell, the reader how it felt living in Latin America under a corrupt government. Although the banana plantation massacre was a devastating experience to live through, Jose Arcadio Segundo was more heavily impacted by what happened

One minute he was leading his fellow workers on strike and the next he is waking up on a train surrounded by thousands of dead workers. Even the sight of so many dead men, women, and children stacked on top of one another would be enough to make him sick. However, Jose Arcadio Segundo and a small boy, who is never mentioned again in the novel, manage to get off the train and follow the railroad tracks back to Macondo. From his point of view, this trek back to Macondo must have been filled with so much hope. Surviving a horrible massacre and knowing that you are so close to home is incredibly inspirational. However, once he reaches Macondo, he is faced with disbelief. Not only does no one in Macondo know about the massacre, but most believe the official statement released by the government that the workers got what they wanted, happily went home, and the banana plantation was then shut down due to the torrential rain. This crushed Jose Arcadio Segundo’s spirit, and furthermore, he had to deal with the government slowly assassinating the leaders of the protest. Once the soldiers came for him, he managed to escape death by hiding in Melquiades room. He spent six months in this room before he came out and it is in that long period where his situation finally sinks in. After such a traumatic experience like the one he just went through, the solitude from living along in a room for six month eventually caught up to

This brings up the persistent theme in the novel how history is so prone to being forgotten, especially in Macondo. Looking back to when the insomnia plague spread through Macondo, it took almost no time at all for every citizen to forget their entire past. All of Macondo’s history was very close to being forgotten during the insomnia plague had it not been for Melquiades, who brought a cure to the town. It is incredibly ironic that once Macondo seems to wipe the massacre from its history and Jose Arcadio Segundo comes to stop it, he is forced to hide out in none other than Melquiades’ room. However, the only difference lies in the fact that while Melquiades accomplished his task of bringing everyone’s memories back in Macondo, Jose Arcadio Segundo could not convince anyone that it even happened in the first place. This is another aspect of being a memory keeper that is not explicitly mentioned. Having to mentally know that you are the only sole member of a community that knows about a tragic event like mercilessly killing 3,000 people is a very hard thing to go through. It is important to remember that Jose Arcadio Segundo was not alone in his post massacre experience because there was a little boy who walked back to Macondo with him. However, Gabriel Garcia Marquez never mentioning the boy again symbolizes that