Happy New Year...Solitude

So it's New Year's Eve Day, and this is not the time of year to be talking about solitude, but here is a little reflection about my essay.

In short: I think I have some good ideas but that the essay lacks some organization and coherence.

First, I apologize for its length; I didn't intend to write so much. But Marquez's signature is his Magical Realism, and there is more than enough material when you're talking about distortion of literary elements.

Second, I'd like to say one thing that I couldn't find a place for in my essay. This is kind of taken from the "Dialectic of Solitude" article. It's interesting how Marquez distorts the concept of solitude so that it doesn't actually deal with a sole person, but rather with an entire culture of solitude. I believe Marquez also discussed this in his Nobel Prize speech.

Third, I'd like to talk about my essay. It turned out (kinda) exploratory; I hope that's OK. I looked through my blog of 100YOS observations, and I started out with the idea about Marquez distorting the idea of death. Actually, I had my Melquíades paragraph first, but after reading the Lois Simpson article, decided to move it to being last; I thought that Colonel Buendía would provide a stronger introduction to the problem. So I used the distortion of death as a framework for the essay, every "section" begins with a different distortion of death. I worked under the premise that every point I would discuss, and every distortion is enhanced by his distortion of death. Maybe I should have emphasized that more in my intro; it is a little sparse I think -- more of a hook than anything else.

So, the first main section uses the distortion of death to introduce the notion of solitude. This is pretty straightforward. The inspiration for this was the Lois Simpson article about Death in 100YOS. I adapted some of her thoughts and expanded upon them, occasionally agreeing and occasionally disagreeing (though I don't say this outright). This made it easier for me to get into my essay.

The second idea seems to be more complex and more developed. I begin with Ursula being able to choose when she dies, and then branch off of this to encompass a greater distortion of archetypes in general. I begin to reach my main point at the end of this section.

The third idea is Melquíades'. Here I use the distortion of death to introduce one of the most important distortions: the distortion of time.

Finally, I conclude based on the final essay prompt, not the one I started with. Honestly, this paragraph fit better when I first conceived it, but I still think it's possibly clever and good. The point here was to talk about the distortions left in the reader's mind rather than the distortions that Marquez consciously injected into his novel. This was supposed to draw back the scope of the paper to make a larger comment on human nature and the human experience.

Oh yeah. I left this line out of the essay because I thought this draft was actually pretty legit, but this was my real point ... In this book, Marquez suggests a vision of the world in which the Buendías experienced One Hundred Years of Solitude.

Enjoy, and Happy New Years.