"One Hundred Years of Solitude" Comparative Essay

Gabriel Garcia Marquez's 'One Hundred Years of Solitude' has had its share of main characters. This novel makes writing a compare/contrast essay difficult with all of the possibilities in choosing which characters to compare and contrast. However, two characters stand out from the rest because of one issue, marriage. Jose Arcadio Buendia and Ursula Iguaran can be contrasted in the way they treat each other and the way they treat their children and offspring.

Arguably the most 'normal' marriage throughout the book that we know of that didn't include underage girls, premature death, or direct incest, Jose Arcadio Buendia and Ursula Iguaran's situation seems unique. Like most married couples, Jose and Ursula have had their share of disagreements and arguments. This can be showed through their approach on how they treat each other. Ursula's the one with the mouth and it is as if she wears the pants in the family. She is firm about her decisions and really expresses them mostly orally. There have been a number of occasions where she yells at Jose such as when Jose experimented with the gold inglets and just about every time Jose gets obsessed with a new thing Melquaides brings over. Jose on the other hand, is more passive. However, through his passiveness, he is somehow more stubborn than Ursula. He is so concentrated in his own studies that he pretty much just ignores everyone else's input and he needs things to be his way. Again to the gold inglets, he ignored Ursula's commandments to leave the gold alone, but he still carried on with the experimentation. Though, through both of their differences, they still love each other nonetheless. Ursula lovingly takes care of Jose after he really does go crazy by himself¡ªthough it got to the point where she couldn't handle it anymore. Jose on the other hand remolded the gold coins back for Ursula after his experiment failed.

Both Jose and Ursula have a goal that they would like to see with the children and grandchildren. Ursula's approach to the children was different from Jose's. Ursula was more caring and tried to help each individual child become a better person and help them grow up to be normal. Her motivation for this is because she is afraid of the curse of the pig-tailed child due to incest. During Col. Aureliano's birthday, 17 little Aurelianos showed up each bearing a different surname from their mothers and Ursula took them under her care even though she has already been burdened with 6 other children and grandchildren. This gesture of hospitality is very hard to come by for a person like Jose Arcadio Buendia. Jose wasn't angry by the fact that his son has had 18 children with 18 different women. He was actually rather excited at the fact in some ways because he was so obsessed with his experiments that having more people would mean he would have more opportunities to share his interests. Those like Col. Aureliano, start off very interested in the alchemy experiments but soon lose interest as other situations in their life create higher priorities. This lack of successor to the alchemy lab was in a way indirectly the reason why Jose went crazy. It wasn't until Aureliano Babilonia that the prophesy was deciphered/fulfilled.

Jose and Ursula are two very contrasting characters (though not a complete foil). Their personalities are very different in the way they treat the children, the way they treat each other and the way they treat themselves. Marquez portrays these characters in a very interesting perspective with Ursula clearly more in command of the house and Jose Arcadio Buendia more soft-spoken. Nonetheless, both characters share very strong similarities such as their love for each other and the fact that they have a goal they want to accomplish with their offspring.