In Process- 2

In Gabriel Garcia Marquez's book One Hundred Years of Solitude the Buendia family continues to grow and change in the small town of Mancondo. The town continues to grow and change as the politics change after the war and there are new leaders of Mancondo. Also the town becomes more modern when trains, ice buildings, and a banana plantation are added that effect the people drastically. In addition the Colonel Aureliano Buendia and the children and grand children of Acradio and Santa Sofia de la Piedad play a huge role in the change that the town is going through.

Since the end of the war Colonel Aureliano is greatly effected by the end of the war and continues to become more and more "solitary" and unemotional after the war. He soon becomes "enclosed in his workshop, his only relationship with the rest of the world was his business in little gold fishes" (198). This shows that because of the war that he is becoming more and more distant and doesn't connect with others anymore.
Then a few years later there is to he a celebration for "another anniversary of the Treaty of Neerlandia" which Colonel Aureliano organized at the end of the war (214). However, this does not bring him happiness and he and the rest of his family do not attend the celebration. It seems that Colonel Aureliano is not happy with the way that the war ended and wanted it to end differently and was "tormented by the certainty that it had been a mistake not to have continued the war to its final conclusion" shows that he's not happy and that is part of the reason he's become so disconnected (237). He seems determined to stay alive until something can be done to change how the war ended when he says " 'a person doesn't die when he should but when he can' " which shows his determination to see a change in what has happened in the war. Later it is told that Colonel Aureliano has "kept in touch with rebel officers who had been faithful to him until the defeat" and later decides to ask Colonel Gerineldo Marquez to "start a mortal conflagration" (242, 243). However, Colonel Marquez denies his request because he has accepted the way that the war has ended and does not want to go back to battle and fight which makes Colonel Aureliano grow "harder ever since Colonel Gerineldo Marquez refused to back him up in a senile war" (263). It is his constant obsession with the war that Colonel Aureliano dies and is not found until a day later when Santa Sofia de la Piedad goes to throw out the trash and sees "descending vultures" (267). It is clear that Marquez is trying to send a message with Colonel Aureliano not being able to let the war go that remains in the family, but what I don't understand is how it effects everyone else. All the different generations of the Buendia family follow some cycle that they can't break out of.