CHAPTER SUMMARY AND NOTES

CHAPTER 13

Summary

Úrsula is still overseeing the family. She still plans for José Arcadio (III) to be Pope, although he has not even been sent to seminary yet. Her eyesight is almost gone, but her other four senses have been heightened immensely as has her clairvoyance. It is now that she begins to understand each of the members of her family’s motives. Aureliano cried in her womb because he could not love. Amaranta was not troubled by bitterness but by a conflict between measureless love and invincible cowardice.

José Arcadio (III) is finally sent of to seminary. Aureliano Segundo and Amaranta take Meme to school so that she can learn to play the clavichord. Fernanda begins to assert herself as the new authority in the house as Úrsula is becoming relegated to the shadows. José Arcadio Segundo takes a job as foreman of at the banana company, for which Fernanda bans him from the house. The rules applied by Fernanda are so strict that Aureliano Segundo moves in with Petra. Fernanda, hoping to shame him publicly, sends the rest of his belongings to Petra’s, but Aureliano Segundo is so happy to be liberated that he throws a three-day long party. His own sexual fervor returns to that of his youth, and his animals are multiplying faster than ever. This increase in money and livestock earns him more money and allows him to carouse constantly.

Fernanda’s house is now haunted by three living ghosts (Colonel Aureliano Buendía, Úrsula, and Amaranta) and one dead ghost (José Arcadio Buendía). Amaranta is weaving her shroud; some say that she weaves during the say and unweaves at night to defeat solitude, but instead Amaranta is nurturing it.

José Arcadio Segundo comes back to the house and meets with the colonel. Aureliano Buendía is still making fishes; he begins in the morning and when he has made twenty-five, he melts them down and starts over.

Aureliano Buendía is startled away from his fishes by a glint of light and the sound of the circus. He goes to the door to watch the parade and then urinates on the chestnut tree. He his found dead the next day.

Notes

The second generation (Segundo) of Aureliano/José Arcadio is replacing the first. José Arcadio Segundo is aligned with the banana company and its corruption. Aureliano Segundo is still split between his wife and his mistress. Likewise, Fernanda has replaced Úrsula (whose clairvoyance is heightened but presence is fading) and Rebeca and Amaranta have almost vanished.

The previous generation haunts the house. History weighs heavily on the family but there is never the conscious realization that family history is cyclic.

Aureliano dies in conflict with his brother, urinating on the tree that he haunts. There is no resolution between them, even in death.

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