Here's a little taste

For those of you who will not be able to enjoy my project here's a little sample.

I compared photographs taken by the author, Juan Rulfo, of a book, Pedro Paramo, that I read...here are some observations

“Madre e hijo” (63)

 

“Mother and Child”

 

 

“My illusions made me live longer than I should have. And that was the price I paid to find my son, who in a manner of speaking was just one more illusion. Because I never had a son. Now that I’m dead I’ve had time to think and understand. God never gave me so much as a nest to shelter my baby in. Only an endless lifetime dragging myself from pillar to post, sad eyes casting sidelong glances, always looking past people, suspicious that this one or that one had hidden my baby from me.” (60)

 

            Dorotea is a lost soul who lives like the wife of her brother.  She is buried with Juan Preciado and shares the stories of Comala with him.  One piece of her life that she tells Preciado about is her non-existent son.  First Dorotea has a good dream where she has a child; “[she] could feel him in [her] arms, [her] sweet baby, with his little mouth and eyes and hands. For a long time, [she] could feel his eyelids, and the beating of his heart, on [her] fingertips.” (60) This dream was as life-like as could be for her; she had no reason to think that she did not have a baby boy.  But then she has her bad dream and loses the boy, goes to heaven and is told by God that she was given “a mother’s heart but the womb of a whore.”(60)  Back in reality, Dorotea has no babe to care for and love.  Without a husband (before her brother) and baby boy, Dorotea is in a complete seclusion, similar to many of the characters of the novel.  She feels that she doesn’t even “steal space on this earth.” (61)

When viewers who have read Pedro Páramo gaze upon “Madre e hijo,” they cannot help but to see Dorotea as that mother looking down at the baby.  There is a look of skepticism, not affection, in the mother’s eye.  She is carrying the baby, wrapped in her rebozo, yet the baby is not even looking her mother in the eyes.  The picture itself is not a cheery one despite the fact that it is a picture of a mother holding her babe.  The mother’s face and neck are covered in shadows.  Rulfo shooting this photo demonstrates to the viewers that happiness in Mexico cannot even be found between a mother and child.  Although one cannot see the mouth of the child, the truth is in its eyes.  The baby looks frightened or intimidated by its mother.  From this picture, the viewers only know that the mother at that moment was not even happy to be looking down at her own creation that she is supposed to love with infinite passion.  This picture is a reflection of the hard times in Mexico. Even within families, the easiest source of happiness, happiness cannot be found.

Hey...I have an idea

I know that this proposal was supposed to be before break, but I didn't know what I wanted to do for my final project on Pedro Paramo at that point in time.  Ok, so....after some research I found that not only in Juan Rulfo a fantastic writer, but he is also a great photographer. I noticed a collection of his Juan Rulfo's Mexico might have some interesting photos that may relate to some of his depictions in the novel about abandoned ghost-infested towns of Mexico.  I hoping to create something like a collage to show some of these pictures and compare it maybe to some of the scenes in the book.  Thus far in the novel, I have found that this book in particular has given me a set image of what poor parts of Mexico may have looked like at certain points in time. The author does an excellent job in this department, and I think that a renowned photographer I am sure that his photographs reflect some the ideas in Pedro Paramo.

Why is Solitude becoming less and less apparent?

Hey everyone...tell me what you think.  As I have been covering the references to solitude in 100s of Solitude, I am beginning to notice that there are less and less obvious references to solitude.  Every chapter there seems to be less and less. Now that JAB is dead after being bound alone to a tree, Macondo is becoming more and more industrial, accessible to modern civilization,  and basically, for a lack of better words, less alone.  I came up with this theory about the title.  It is called 100 Years of Solitude...correct (rhetorical)? Now then, JAB lived to be somewhere close to 100 years old.  GGM even mentions that Urusula had to be a little older than 100 in chapter 11.  As those two main characters reached that age, Macondo began to change into a more modernized city.  Now that has been 100 years since Macondo's existence, the readers see a change in Macondo.  It just seems to coincidential for it to have been 100 years into the book and all of a sudden see less solitude references.  In my opinion since 100 years has passed in the novel, the solitude may be somewhat over, maybe....just a thought. The title kind of says it all

AHHH I'm Seeing DOUBLE!

Throughout the One Hundred Years of Solitude, the readers have seen a lot of repeating and doubling.  When Marquez creates the Segundo twins, he created second forms of their relatives with surprisingly similar names, their grandfather Jose Arcadio Buendia and their great uncle Colonel Aureliano Buendia.  Just like his grandfather, Jose Arcadio Segundo leaves Macondo in fear.  Jose Arcadio left Macondo scared because he had impregnated Pilar and had fallen in love with a gypsy.  Jose Arcadio Segundo, like his grandfather, was left Macondo because of a sexual association that he had, scared him.  The only difference was the JAS was worried about an STD he had contracted from a donkey.  Also they both had a very disturbing first sexual experience.  Aureliano Segundo (AS) was similar to his great uncle Colonel Aureliano Buendia (CAB) in that they were both more traditional kids.  CAB, as a young adult, was a little more tame and worked hard with silver in the workshop.  AS falls in love with the woman that both Segundo brothers are having affairs with.  He stays with her, and they as a couple become successful.  Before the war, CAB was a leading a promising life with his new wife.  I can only guess that both of these twins are in for an interesting life that will probably end in similar ways as their respective doubles.

My Intro Paragraph for 100 Years of Solitude Paper (Thesis in Bold)

One Hundred Years of Solitude is a story profuse with complex symbolism and paradoxes.  Pilar Ternera is a character in the novel with a strange, yet vital role.  Although she is portrayed as a whore, Pilar is actually more of a mother to the boys who she sleeps with than a genuine prostitute.  She seems to have taken the place of Úrsula in the Arcadio family’s boys’ lives.  José Arcadio, Aureliano, and Arcadio all have a common attraction to this woman.  Incest was a more acceptable  in those times in South America, so, the fact that someone like Arcadio desperately wishes to have sex with his own mother would not be all that unusual of a desire.  All of the Arcadio boys (and Arcadio) want their mother while they want to have sex.  However, Pilar acts on this general desire among the boys, not for her own pleasure, but in reality to make “her boys” happy.  The relationship that Pilar has with the Arcadio boys is not a purely sexually one.  Surprisingly, it is more of a maternal bond.

Why Memory Loss?

Well, in Chapter 2 when the entire town of Macondo contracts an insomnia disease that ends up turning into a sever memory loss for everyone infected with the disease.  At first, the people of Macondo are completely content with insomnia because it allows everyone to get more work done at a more moderate pace, then the people's memory begin to go.  However, this memory loss plague is much more symbolic than it first appears.  One major theme of the book is solitude.  I feel that this memory loss that inflicts the town is representative of that theme.  When someone loses their memory to that degree, then they are not going to able to recognize anyone except maybe themselves.  That means, that in a way, they're in complete solitude/isolation because they know no one; all a person has is oneself. People who know no one are completely alone.  Therefore, in my opinion, GGM choosing to have the characters of his story to contract a memory loss illness was not a coincidence.  The sickness was simply following a theme in the book.  I am sure the readers will continue to see more of these big events relating to solitude.  I can't wait to keep reading this book, it is my favorite piece that we've read thus far!

My first reaction to "Pedro Paramo"

First off, this book is really different from what we have been reading throughout the year.  Rulfo used several literary techniques to help explain any holes/misunderstandings in the plot.  He switches from the first person to the third, and switches between the past and present times.  This magic realism-styled story is about a man who is trying to find his long lost father.  He travels to the town that his mother left after marrying his father.  The man talks to many of specters of former in habitants of that town, Comala.  When the story switches to the third person it is in the past tense, it talks about the man's father, Pedro Paramo.  Paramo had taken all of the narrator's mother territory.  I am extremely excited to see where this book takes me, so far Rulfo has proved to me that he is a really interesting and talented author.