Analysis on Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Analysis on Gabriel Garcia Marquez
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Analysis on Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Gabriel Garcia Marquez is one the world’s renowned writers having received a Nobel Prize in literature in 1982. The Colombian writer who died in 2014 saw his fame grow with the publication of the One Hundred Years of Solitude in 1967 and this marked a journey that acclaimed him worldly recognition and particularly of the Spanish language. This essay focuses on an analysis of the authors works to identify the aspects that shaped his life. His style of writing was magical realism inspired by the vicious dictators of the history of lasting America, romantic revolutionaries and many years pigeon-holed by illness, poverty and hunger CITATION Jon14 \l 1033 (Kandell 2014). From his own work and his biographies, it is evident that Marquez’s life was shaped by his political perspective and ethnic origin.
Pelayo on a Biography of the author quotes that his life was greatly shaped by his early childhood which he spent with his grandparents to the age of seven. His creativity was sparked by his interactions with his seniors, a life that was marked with solitude, isolation, longing, love and joy which preceded onto his thirties CITATION Jon14 \l 1033 (Kandell 2014). These themes are very well present in his writings, solitude inspired the writings of his bestseller, One Hundred Years of Solitude, a story of the family of Buendía that lived in isolation from the rest of the world in a town called Macondo. Solitude can also be read from the abandonment of his parents, the death of his grandfather and being taken to boarding school twice in his teenage years CITATION Rub19 \l 1033 (Pelayo 2009). He heavily borrows from his own life and that of those around him in his work, the town Macondo resembles his home town Aracataca in Colombia.
The Buendía lifestyle of isolation, poverty, affluence and generations of peace and war are believed by many to depict the social and political status of Latin American countries during the life of the author CITATION Jon14 \l 1033 (Kandell 2014). In the article by Correal, the correlation of the book to his home country is met by many who testified it to be their connection to Columbia. Colombian writers were inspired by his work and a bookshop in New York was opened under the name Macondo, the works of the author were their link to home, Latin America CITATION Jon14 \l 1033 (Kandell 2014). His journey to Colombia in 1966 inspired the setting of the novel One Hundred Years of Solitude and Aracataca birthed Macondo CITATION Ann14 \l 1033 (Correal 2014). From his own life, the man Buendía in the story was inspired by the life of the author’s grandfather, who was of great influence to him CITATION Jon14 \l 1033 (Kandell 2014).
Marquez’s grandfather, Nicolas Marquez Mejia was a jeweler, a retired colonel who fought in the Thousand Days War between 1899 and 1902. He married his cousin, had many children and had killed his friend in a duel. These details resonate with the life of the founder of the town Macondo, Arcadio Buendía, in the story, he fought in the Thousand Days war as well leading him to become a colonel. The Leaf Storm story has its plot surrounding an old colonel, his daughter and his grandson, Marquez was raised by his maternal grandparents, further proving his own life inspired his writing CITATION Rub19 \l 1033 (Pelayo 2009).
His interaction with seniors shaped him and his writings, in school he had been nicknamed Old Man due to his personality which can be assumed to be from his father figure, his grandfather who was a man of inspiration in his life that he said after his death nothing special ever happened to him. The relationship also shaped his role as a father, Kandell accounts that Marquez would take his children to school and pick them afterwards, this mirrors how his grandfather went with him around the town of Aracataca CITATION Jon14 \l 1033 (Kandell 2014). Pelayo accounts that and I quote, characters appear and reappear in different stories as archetypes in a fictional world that feeds from the real world CITATION Rub19 \l 1033 (Pelayo 2009), end of quote, Marquez used the daily life and wrote it in magical realism and its upon readers to identify the reality on his stories.
The life history of his parents also appeared in his works particularly leaf Storm, his father had moved in Aracataca to find that the natives of the town especially the affluent looked down on people who came to settle in the town and called them the ‘fallen leaves’. Marriages between the fallen leaves and the town’s native were prohibited but the author’s father managed to withstand this and married a lady from one of the elite families and the Marquez was born. Life with the grandparents had his grandmother and other women in the town narrate stories about ghosts of the dead in their houses, this theme can be read in several of his literary works CITATION Rub19 \l 1033 (Pelayo 2009).
His grandfather went with him everywhere especially in the movies where later during dinner time he would accurately narrate films he had watched and this conceived his imaginations. The teaching method he received, Montessorian and his teacher Rosa Elena Fergusson played key roles in promoting liberty in writing and his love for poem. His high school education had him discover his love for humanities and it is where he picked his political left wing ideology and learnt about Marxism.
From the above highlights, it is very clear that the experiences that Marquez had in Colombia in the town of Aracataca inspired his thoughts and Pelayo quotes that his obsession with the people he knew which he calls legends for the inspiration they gave to his books, his childhood was the centerpiece of all his work and the Caribbean was the setting of most of his works CITATION Rub19 \l 1033 (Pel...