Rewriting rural community and dictatorial history through magical realism in Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude

Abstract

Márquez was greatly influenced by his grandmother’s story-telling ability, and was highly indebted to the socio-political history of Latin America, particularly Colombia. In One Hundred Years of Solitude, he wants to reconstruct the lost world of childhood by using magical realism which gives expression to the world-view of a rural people who live in isolation from modern world. By retelling the official history from the perspective of the oppressed, he reveals the fact that history is never factual and impartial but serves the interest of those who write it. Through the banana company massacre and the subsequent hide and seek over the number of dead workers, Márquez exposes the way official history becomes fabricated and distorted by authorities, and fails to provide the original occurrences. He was disgusted with the political violence and civil wars which had distraught people; he was also against capitalism, scientific and technological inventions, and so-called modernization, which are the means through which foreign culture brings corruption and brutality, dominates, exploits and oppresses the natives, and threatens the native culture and identity. By employing magical realism, he was able to recreate Colombian history to protest against the way capitalism dominated the socio-political and economic structure of the region.

Keywords

• magical realism
• capitalism
• modernization
• solitude