18 Gabriel Garcia Marquez
resentation of the region they depict. In that sense. regionalism and re-
alism are one and the same. Regionalism, indeed, is the type of Latin
AmerIcan novel that first interested European and AmerIcan readers.
Some of these novels are nowadays considered Latin American claSSiCS.
Among the most conunonly known are DOlla Barbam (1929) by R6mulo
Gallegos, DOll Segundo Sombra by Ricardo GUiraldes, and Ln vortfgme
(1924) by Jose Eustasio Rivera. R6mulo Gallegos wrote of the Venezuelan
prairies and the local folklore, Ricardo Giliraldes described the Argentine
pampas, and Jose EustaslO Rivera wrote of the South American tropIcal
jWlgle.
This phase in Latin American literature can be considered, as some
literary critics do, a necessary step in the development of the novel and
the short story. While the writers of realism and regionalism focused on
plot those who came after. like Gabriel Garda Marquez, began to focus
more on technique. They were concerned with the style and the methods
in which they told their stories. Leaf Stoml, Garda Marquez's first no~
vella, set a precedent for this literary emphasis for future Latin American
writers. ThJs emphasis has been as influential m Latin America as it had
been in Europe and the United States. This literary style m Latin Amer*
ica. however, was already being used by writers such as the Argentine
Torge Luis Borges; the Guatemalan lvliguel Angel AsturIas. who won the
Nobel Prize in literature in 1967 (the same year Garda Marquez pub-
lished GlIe Hundred Years of Solitude); and the Cuban Alejo Carpentier:
all of whom can be read in an English translation.
By the 1950s. critics were talking of the emergence of a "new Latin
American noveI." as if literary movements could begin and end abruptly
rather than through gradual change or evolution. However, nothing
could be further from the truth. While literary critics were debating
about a "new Latin American novel" conforming to a style being used
by Faulkner. Hemingway, Woolf. and Kafka's translations into English.
Garcia Marquez"s writings, as well as those of Borges, Asturias, and Car-
pentier. were also being called "modernist." The term 11loderlllsm (encom-
passmg modernist authors) is often used in English to refer to the work
of these Latin American authors. as well as to non-Latin American writ-
ers like James Joyce. Franz Kafka, William Faulkner. and Virginia Woolf.
In fact, the term modernist has been applied to all authors who broke
with established rules. traditions. and conventions and were expenmen-
tal in form, style, and the use of language itself.
Readers of Latin American literature who are not careful may, un-
knowingly, confuse modernism with the term lIIodenlismo. although. in~
deed, the two terms have totally different meanings. (They are what
Literary Contexts 19
linguists call false cognates: two words. in two different languages! that
sound alike and whose spelling is similar but whose meanings are dif-
ferent.) Gabnel Garda Marquez is not a writer of the Latin Amencan
move~ent called lIloderntslllo. During the 11lodernismo penod, Latin Amer-
ican writers were consciously working to improve the usage of language
with the intention of moderruzing it. The lIIodernista writers, who wrote
around the tum of the nineteenth century and the first two decades of
the twentieth, were mostly poets and essayists. This was a period ot
renovation and national pride. At that time the emphaSIS was not on the
novel. but on poetry. The term was coined by Ruben Dario. a Nicaraguan
poet. who was considerably influenced by the French PamaSSJans (poets
who believed that art was an end in itself, not a means to an end; for
theffit poetry achieved the status of religion). French Pamassianism was
an influential literary movement in France in the second half of the rune~
teenth century. W'hile 11lodernismo and the modern£sta writers may have
been out of center stage by the end of the 19205 in Latin America, their
influence continued into the 1930s and 1940s.
In Emope, meanwhile. in the early- to mid-twentieth century, 11I0de11l-
ist writers were paying particular attention to the psychology of char-
acter. that 15, the inner world of the character. As IS the case with any
pIece of literature, the social and historical context in which the text IS
written has an influence on it. World War I had an enormous effect on
the modernist writers. The devastation of the war was reflected In much
of their writings. Their fictional universe became fragmented, with dis-
illUSIOned characters. and focused on the world of the unconscious.
Hence! their affinity for! and use of, the stream~of-consciousness tech-
nique (interior monologue reflecting the thought processes). The leader
of the movement, as was the case with the Latin Amencan l1lodemista
movement. was also a poet: T. S. (Thomas Steams) Eliot. T. S. Eliot was
awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1948, the year when Gabriel
Garcia Marquez began lus career as a Journalist.
Whether or not Latin American writers such as Borges. Astunas. and
Carpentier tnfluenced Garcia Marquez's writing, they dearly served <\S
his models. Borges! use of cyclical time, the universe as a labYrInth. the
concept of the otlier, the use of the absmd, and therole of an active reader
who has to complete the story are often found In Gabnel Garda Mar-
quez's writing. Borges, however. experimented with these literary tech-
ruques as early as 1923. Asturias and Carpentier's treatment of reality
deals-like Garda Marquez's writing-with myths and an Afro-Indian
folk tradition that blurs the demarcation betvveen what is real and what
IS magic. as the term magic realism implies by definition. The /lllIglc, how-
 20 Gabriel Garda Marquez
ever. should not be so emphasiZed as to diminish the book's faithful
representation of Latin American reality and culture. Magic does not
mean the pure fantasy of a fairy tale, where everything is imaginary.
Lenf Storm, a book that has often been compared to the work of William
Faulkner. was published in 1955. the same year the Mexican author Juan
Rulfo published Pedro Ptirnmo. There are many corrunonalities betvYeen
the two works in theme. language usage, and style. but whereas Garda
Marquez continued to write about the theme of death, solitude. war. and
the violence of rural envirorunents in many later books, Juan Rullo never
published again. Rulfo's Pedro parmno. however! contributed sub5tan~
I: tially to the magic realism school of Latin America.
.Ii In an effort, perhaps. to associate and identify the work of writers as
varied as Jorge Luis Borges. Alejo Carpentier. Ualo Calvina. GUnter
Grass. Franz Kafka, and Salman Rushdie, along with Garda Marquez.
Cortazar. and Asturias (among many others), the label of magic realism
has been applied in a rather loose way. Of all these writers. however.
ij Garda Marquez has emerged as the quintessential name associated with
"
magic realism and One Hundted Yeats of Solitude has been identified as
I the magic realism book par excellence.
In magic realism, the mythical elements of oral tradition are incorpo-
rated into an otherwise realistic fiction. The social and economic prob~
lems that Garda Marquez disguises with a touch of magic realism are
both past and present problems facing the individual and the COIIUnU-
,[ nity. If the reader fails to see through the disguise, it is because the
narrative··s emphasis is placed, not on the story, but rather on how the
story is told. For instance. the countless wars that Colonel Aureliano
Buendia fights and loses in One Hundred Years of Solitude represent the
countless civil wars that Colombians actually fought throughout the
nineteenth century. There is a similar analogy for the violence in No One
Writes to ti,e Colollel. Violence was everywhere in Colombia during the
19505. but people could not speak out against the govenunent. The dic·
tatorship of President Gustavo Rojas Pinilla was so severe that much that
Colombians did was indeed clandestine. In the novel, Agustin, the old
colonel's son, is killed in 1956 for distributing clandestine literature.
By the time Oue Hundred Years of Solitude was published, Latin Amer~
ican novelists such as Garda Marquez had begun to enJoy worldwide
recognition for their writing, in part. because of their use of magic re-
alism, but mostly because of their commercial success. both in Spanish
and in translation. These Latin American writers, induding Julio Corta-
zar, Carios Fuentes, and Mario Vargas Llosa, among others. were im-
mediately grouped together. ignoring the fact that their writing styles
Literary Contexts 21
were not alike. their concerns were different, and they were of different
ages. They were not members of one generation nor of an orgaruzed
movement or schooi. yet soon they were identified as writers of the
"Latin American Boom." Although nondescriptive (other than in terms
of book sales), the term. stuck among literary critics. scholars, and the
public alike. American and European W1iversities began teaching courses
on the Latin American Boom, and the works of this group of Latin Amer-
Ican writers became well known in literary circles around the world. To
date. the term continues to be used with an emphasis on chronology.
Those writers in Latin AmerIca who began publishing in the 1970s and
19805 are often referred to as "Post-Boom" writers. The Chilean author
. Isabel Allende and the MeXican author Laura Esquivel are two such writ-
ers. both internationally known and associated with magic realism.
Gabriel Garda Marquez is a writer of the tropiCS. His writings are
Latin Amencan and, In particular. Colombian. His settings. which are
frequently rural, resemble those found among the coastal towns of the
Colombian northwest. When fully identified, the reader can identify Car~
tagena, Rfohacha! Manaure. Barranquilla, Santa Marta. Bolivar. Bogota,
and Medellin. OtherwiSe. the dusty isolated towns are described merely
as being along the Magdalena River or close to the Caribbean Sea.
A!; if to go back to the roots of a constant political discontent, national
instability, poverty, and abject solitude! Gabriel Garda Marquez first
published a trilogy covering some of the most unportant moments of
Colombian history (from the runeteenth century up to the 19605). These
three works are Leaf Storm (1955), No One Writes to tile Colonel (1961), and
III Evil Hour (1962). This trilogy establishes both thematic and technical
elements that are recognizable In all of Garda Marquez's work. The tril-
ogy also contains the seeds of One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967).
Whether readers of Garda Marquez see him as a modernist. a boom
writer, or a magic realist, the literary contexts of Uus Colombian author
are determined, not by the effects of World War I, as was the case for
European and American modernist writers. but by the social, political,
and historical events that shaped the country of his birth. His works are.
indeed, universal inasmuch as they touch the lives of readers around the
world through his detailed development of both character and plot.
Most, if not all, readers can also identify with the solitude suffered by
the individual in modem times as described by Garda Marquez. How-
ever. the solitude of Garda Marquez is the solitude of Latin America; in
that sense it is object specific. as is his literature.· No reader can confuse
the settings. They are trOpICal, near the Caribbean Sea or the Magdalena
River, or located somewhere in rural Latin America. The impotence that
 22 Gabriel Garda Marquez
readers may feelm the presence of death and the discontenJ and repu-
diation they may experience in reaction to the arbitrariness and abuses
of corrupt, petty officials are indeed universal, but Garda Marquez's
literary contexts are underuably ColombIan.
Garda Marquez's works are read as fiction, but his sources are factual.
The absurd and mexplicable events of lus short stories and novels are
ironic representations of the absurdity of life. The literary context of
GarcIa Marquez can be found in the history of Colombia, his private life.
and that of his parents and grandparents. Ameataca, the place where he
was born, appears either as Macondo or a nameless town dose by a nver.
The references to the banana boom and the aftermath of the slaughter
of the banana strikers in Cienaga, the capital of the Colombian banana-
producing zone i..J;J. the 1920s, are prominent in Lenf Storm and DlIe Hun-
dred Years of Solitude. Echoes can also be heard in No OlIe Writes to the
Calonel and Love ill tITe Time of Cllolera. as well as m some of Garda
Marquez's short stories. The images of power. religIon, and celebrations
all seem to have an origin in the oral traditions or the social and histoncal
culture ofColombta. The events in Big Mama's Funeral. for example. can
be traced back to a three-day festival that takes place in Cienaga durmg
~
,~, III' the last week of january. Olle Hundred Years of Solitude and Love m the
;~.
Time of ChOlera are both based, although not entirely, On what the author
!;;: ;~ was told about his parents and grandparents, and particularly what his
i~ grandmother passed on to him.
;f If Garda Marquez's works seem foreign to English-speaking readers,
'i" it is because his fiction rncludes not only a European component, but
:i
~,
also a pre-Columbian (native Latin American Indian) and an African
to·
:, component. The tradition of Latin America is, of course, Spanish, but it
~~j
",
~~
is also Muslim and JeWIsh. The Muslim component of Garcia Marquez's
i"t' works is most evident in ClIroJllde of a Death Foretold. Latin America IS a
!~! multiracial civilization, where Indians, Europeans, and AfrIcans have
.,. created a distinctly Latin American way of life rn all its forms (literature
ii·, bemg one of them). By the time of independence from Spain, between
1810 and 1824, most Spartish-speakmg countnes had integrated a myriad
of cultures into one. TIlis was a nationalistic experience that precipitated
~ countless civil wars In the newly formed republics. One Hundred Years of
';~' Solitude is the novel that best plays out trus drama.
However. the history of Colombia ill the penmanshlp of Garda Mar-
~
quez would not be complete had he not chosen to write about Sim6n
Bolivar. In The GelIernI and His LnlJynl1lh (1990) the reader witnesses the
last days in the life of one of Latin America's greatest figures, who was
a general. politician. and liberator. Through his military effort, Colombia
,:1
, I
I
Literary Contexts 23
became fully ll1dependent from Spain in 1819. At that time, Colombia
was made up of Venezuela (Bolivar was born in Caracas), Colombia.
Panama, and Ecuador. In 1821 Venezuela ciaimed mdependence from
Colombia. and a year later Ecuador did the same. By 1903, Panama, too,
had separated from Colombia. The General alld His Lnbyrinth IS a somber.
sad, but humarustic study of a disillUSioned figure of a man, not of a
mythic lustorical hero. In the account, Sim6n Bolivar dislikes the cen-
tralized power of Bogota as much as any of the liberal characters m
Garcia Marquez's fictional works. By 1903, the year he dies, the character
of Bolivar can remember tw"enty years of useless wars.
The wars and constant violence in Garda Marquez's works represent
the fictionalized reality of many histOrIcal eVents. In the nineteenth cen-
tury and the first two decades of the twentieth, the protagorusts of the
wars were generals, politicians, armed forces. and people at large who
pledged allegiance to either the Conservative or the Liberal Parties. Both
parties were fighting for a Single thing: power. TIus historical context IS
deady depicted in Glle Hundred Years of Solitude. Colonel Aureliano
BuendIa is a liberal who fights against the Conservative Party. The peace
of Macondo. in One Hundred Years of Solitude! is altered when Apotinar
Moscote and hIS family arnve in Macondo. He has been sent by the
Conservative Party, the central goverrunent in Bogota.. He brings an
armed police force to maintain law and order. He even wants all the
houses painted blue.. one of the colors of the ColombIan flag and the
color of the Conservative Party. However. the BuendIa family, the foun-
ders of the tovm, wants the houses to stay white. Ironically, disorder and
chaos break out.
Its repercussion IS fOlU\d in No Glle Writes to tlie Colonel. In thIs novel,
on the one hand, the colonel is suffering the negligence and corruption
of a bygone era, the wars of the nineteenth century. On the other hand,
the VIolence of the 19505 IS also portrayed when the colonel's son, Agus-
tin, IS killed by the polIce, The year of Agustin's death, 1956, clearly
refers to the violence Colombia undenvent from 1948 to 1958. The Vio-
lence began with the death of Jorge Eliecer Gaitan (in 1948), a populist
Liberal leader who was loved by the masses. His death, once again,
caused new CIvil wars to erupt.. again U1 the pursuit of power. Irorucally,
Torge Eliecer Gaitan was not killed by members of the opposrng party,
but by other liberal leaders who were envious of his popularity and its
populism. To end the constant bloodbaths, the hovo political parties
agreed to a cease-fire and formed an alliance. This arIstocratic pact be-
tween the Conservative and Liberal Parties, known as the Frente Na-
cional (National Front) was instituted in 1958.
Critical Companions to Popular Contemporary Writers
Second Series
,
Julia Alvarez by Silvio Sirias GABRIEL
, GARCIA
Rudollo A. Anaya by Margarite Fernandez Olmos
Maya Angelou by Mary Tnlle Lupton
Ray Bradbury by Robin Anne ReM
MARQUEZ
Louise Erdrich by Lorentt I..~ Stookey

Ernest J. Gaines by Knren Can/remt A Critical Companion

John Irving by rosie P. Campbell
Garrison Keillor by Marcia SOllger
Jamaica Kincaid by Lizabeth Pamvisllli-GeberJ Ruben Pelayo
Barbara KingSOlver by MItn) {emt DeMarr
Maxine Hong Kingston by E. D. Ht/ntley
Terry McMillan by Pnt/lette Ridtflrds
Larry McMurtry by ioillt M. Reifly
Toni MorrIson by Missy DelllJ Kubitschek
Chaim Potek by Sanford Slemlicltt
Amy Tan by E. D. Hulttley
Anne Tyler by Pmtl Bail
Leen Uns by Knl1lleen Shiue Cain
Gloria Naylor by Chnrfes E. WilSall, ir.

CRfITCAL COMPANIONS TO POPULAR CONTEMPORARY WRITERS

Kathleen Gregory Klein. Series Editor

~
Greenwood Press
Westport, Connecticut· London
Library of Congress Cataloglng~jn~PublicationData
I dedicate this book both to
Pelayo. Rub~n. 1954-
Gerald A. Lamb,. my adoptive father~
Gabriel Garda Marquez. : a critical companion I Ruben Pelayo.
p•.on.-{Critic:al companions to popular contemporary writers. lSSN 1082-4979) and to the memory of my mother,
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISDN 0-313--31260-5 (alk. paper)
1. Garda Marquez, Gabriel. 1926- -Criticism and interpretation. I. Tille.
II. Series
PQBIBO.17.A73Z665 2001
863'.64-dc21 2001023337
British Library Cataloguing tn Publication Data 15 available.
Copyright C 2001 by Rubtn Pelayo
AU rights reserved. No portion of this book may be
reproduced. by any process or techrtique. without the
express writien consent of the publisher.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number. 2001023337
ISBN: Q-313-3126G-S
ISSN: 1082-4979
First published in 2001
Greenwood Press. BB Post Road West. Westport, cr 06B81
An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group. Inc.
wl....w.greenwood.com
Printed in the United States of America

The paper used in this book complies with the

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1098765-1321