In Process- 3

In the last chapters of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude all the pieces come together to explain what happened to the Buendia family and the town of Macondo. The town goes through terrible and serious weather and natural disasters which physically tears the town of Macondo apart and finally with the final act of incest in the Buendia family destroys what's left of the town and the Buendia family. And finally the town of glass and the book that Maquiades left makes sense.

In the last chapters of the book their are several references to disasters such as five years of rain, a heat wave, red ants, and child of incest all lead to the destruction of Macondo. Although it rained for "four years, eleven moths, and two days" this doesn't seem to be enough of a message for the people of Macondo to know that something is wrong and should leave (315). It is only from here that things start to go down from here. After the rain ends the Buendia family members continue to dwindle as Ursula the matriarch of the family dies and so does Rebeca who was Jose Acardio's wife. With Ursula's death "the house again fell into a neglect from which it could not be rescued even by a will…" marks the beginning of the Buendia family (345). And the there's a heat after Rebeca dies that "the birds in they confusion were running into the walls.." (343). Then after the heat wave there are also talk of red ants that were"exterminated" but were "walking across the porch in broad day light" but later return (345).
Finally the last act the bring about the last of the Buendia family and the town of Macondo is when Amaranta Ursula and her nephew Aureliano sleep together and have a child out of incest. One day while the two "made love on the floor of the porch" they were "awakened by the torrent of the carnivorous ants who were ready to eat them alive" (406). Marquez is trying to make a point hear when the ants reappear after they have been "exterminated" earlier. It seems that the ants should serve as a sign that Amaranta Ursula and Aureliano shouldn't be together. Then after Amaranta gets pregnant and gives birth to their son, who they name Aureliano (surprise surprise) notice that something is wrong. The original fear in the Buendia family was that a child of incest would be born with a pigs tail. Fially this is what happened when "after cutting the umbilical cord…turning him on his stomach did they see that he had something more than other men, and they leaned over to examine him. It was the tail of a pig" which almost marks the end of the Buendia family except that Amaranta Ursula dies soon after his birth (412). With all of these disasters it's clear that it's all over but why did it take so long? What was Marquez doing by having the characters go through different cycles and making similar mistakes that it ended this way?