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One Hundred Years Of Solitude Sexism

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There has been a nuclear war. Although One Hundred Years of Solitude, by author Gabriel Garcia Marquez, is a fiction, it will serve the purpose of analyzing women’s role in the Colombian society from the 1850s to the 1950s. For the pertinence of this essay, this classic book will be analyzed as if it were a primary source. Garcia Marquez portrays a society where men and women share the power, although maybe on different spheres. Even though one can see that there are some very strong women in this book, sexism and male domination is still present, and one could say that this reflects the Colombian society of the time. We will first see what’s the scope of power that each sex has influence on, than understand how Garcia Marquez pictures strong …show more content…

They are the roots of the family, figures of strength and of determination. First of all, they are the one deciding who gets to stay and who is banned from the house. For example, Ursula welcomes Rebeca and Remedios Moscote as family. Fernanda also decides to keep Aureliano Babilonia, the illegitimate son of Renata, after he was brought in by a nun. Helped by the fact that they are the ones taking the decisions in the domicile, the women in this book are depicted as the one keeping family together, the link between the different family members. Ursula, many times, is said to be the one keeping common sense in the Buendia family (p.53). Amaranta takes care of the twins (p. 131) while they are young, showing that there is an intergenerational care exercised by the different Colombian women, ruling on their houses. Furthermore, in addition to keeping the family together, the women are in charge of looking for the family tree to grow in the right way. For example, Ursula fights against the incest in the family, as she is afraid of the mythical creature of the man born with a pig tail. For example, she rejects Jose Arcadio and Rebeca when she learns about their incestuous relation. She watches with tenacity over the survival of the line (p.208). Ursula is seen as the guardian of the history that repeats itself (p.298). Women in this book have the faculty to live very long (like Ursula and Pilar Ternera that both lives way past a hundred) or to have supernatural instincts. They have the power of knowledge, like Pilar (p. 134) and a matriarchal way to look over the younger

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