Role of Visitors in One Hundred Years of Solitude

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In One Hundred Years of Solitude, the main plotline revolves around the fictional Colombian town named Macondo, and its main inhabitants, the Buendia family. Though it is obvious to the reader that each member to the Buendia is crucially important to the novel, each visitor to Macondo also carries his or her own importance. Three of such visitors are Melquiades, Rebeca, and Moscote. None of them are purebred Buendias, yet each of them has a profound effect on the town of Macondo, the Buendia family, and the novel, itself.

        The first group of visitors to come to Macondo is the group of gypsies. These gypsies, specifically their leader, Melquiades, influence the Buendia family is a variety of ways, right from chapter one. One prominent example of how Melquiades had an effect on the town is the fact that he is the one who introduced Jose Arcadio Buendia to the concept of alchemy, and of science in general. From then on, Jose Arcadio Buendia spends most of his time in his laboratory trying to do things such as making gold and proving the existence of God. It is Jose Arcadio Buendia’s self consumption in these types of scientific works that eventually lead to his ultimate solitude and eventual demise. Therefore, one can conclude that if it weren’t for Melquiades’s arrival in Macondo, the ideas of alchemy and news of other technological advances would never have gotten there. If these ideas never got to Macondo, Jose Arcadio Buendia would not have become obsessed with them, and if he hadn’t developed these types of obsessions, he would not have been brought to his ultimate demise.

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        Another way that Melquiades affects the town of Macondo is that he is essentially the cause of the town’s ultimate demise, just as he is of Jose Arcadio Buendia’s ultimate demise. Before he dies, Melquiades leaves behind a variety of texts in his old laboratory. Some of these texts take the form of prophesies, and some take the form of a detailed history of the Buendia family. At the end of the novel, Aureliano, a sixth generation Buendia, locks himself up in Melquiades’s old laboratory and engages himself in reading Melquiades’s old texts. He becomes so consumed with theses texts ...

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