One Hundred Years of Solitude: García Márquez’s “Bible” of Latin America

Tyler Bussard

Dr. Rodríguez-Lozano

ENMO 300 Y

24 April 2020
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One Hundred Years of Solitude: García Márquez’s “Bible” of Latin America

Gabriel García Márquez, Nobel prize-winning author, is considered one of Latin

America’s most influential writers. His novels incorporate aspects of magical realism and

Biblical allusion, which help to truly capture the spirit of Latin American countries. One

Hundred Years of Solitude is no exception to his pattern; however, this novel is unique in its

parallel structure to the Bible. Of course, the reader must be careful not to misinterpret the

author’s intentions, but, throughout the novel, the allusions to the Bible are unmistakable.

Although the novel is certainly not a literal interpretation of the Bible, it is written with a parallel

structure that tells the history of Macondo (like the Bible tells the history of mankind).

In particular, there are five Biblical aspects prevalent throughout the novel – Genesis

(creation of Macondo), prophecies (visions of the future), miracles (magical realism), parables

(lessons learned by the characters), and Revelation (end of Macondo) – that have direct

connections to details from the text. While clearly not the first novel to allude to Biblical themes,

One Hundred Years of Solitude which might possibly be the best literary work that synthesizes

magical realism and Biblical allusions.

The key to drawing these comparisons relies first on the concept that both texts are

comparable – that is, the Bible must be viewed as literature. One scholar of Hebrew language

and literature writes that a correct interpretation of the Bible relies on reading, “the Bible as the

ancient literature which it is (this is the shortcoming of some modern critics); and use modern

literary competence as a tool for uncovering an ancient literary competence [that] … combines

the best of the older literary-critical schools with the newer insights of comparative literature”

(Berlin, 326). Essentially, the Bible can be read as literature when the reader sets it into a modern

context, while still considering the ancient times when it was written. There is another view that
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the Bible is inherently a story pieced together, in that “The stories of Eve, Esther, Jezebel, the

Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene and indeed Christ are merely strands in a complex interweaving

of narrative material” (Swindell, 49). Berlin’s and Swindell’s views are examples of scholarly

work that have embraced the relationship between the Bible as Scripture and the Bible as

literature.

The novel starts with the same theme as the Bible, the creation of something new. In the

case of the Bible, the first two chapters tell the story of how Christians believe God created the

Earth. Genesis 1:11 and 1:20-22 are the verses with the most correlation to the novel because

they talk about the “grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit,” as well as the

instruction to “be fruitful and multiply.” These images of growth and abundance are mirrored in

Garcia Marquez’s writing throughout the first section with mentions of the “banana and

caladium, cassava and yams, ahuyama roots and eggplants” (4) that the Buendías grew and the

“thick forest of flowers” (12) found by the explorers. However, the most important relationship

between Genesis and Macondo is the process of development over time. Readers of the Bible

learn in a similar way about the creation of Earth as they do about Macondo. For instance, God

first created light and darkness, then Heaven and Earth, then oceans and land, then plants and

fruits, etc. (Gen. 1:3-12). García Márquez follows this same structure in the creation of

Macondo. It begins with José Arcadio Buendía (and his home) as the central figure, which then

expanded over time. Part of that expansion is the result of José Arcadio giving “instructions for

planting and advice for the raising of children and animals, and who collaborated with everyone,

even in the physical work, for the welfare of the community” (García Márquez, 8). What began

as a simple home in Colombia near the river gradually grows into a larger village, ultimately

becoming a respectable city before its destruction.

Exodus continues the narrative of the Bible. In this book, the nation of Israel suffers great

burdens under Pharaoh before finally being freed from his rule in Egypt. The same plot unfolds

in the beginning of One Hundred Years of Solitude after José Arcadio murders Prudencio

Aguilar. After José Arcadio spears Prudencio in the throat, the town holds a wake for him, but

José Arcadio is more focused on fulfilling his marriage vows. The consequence of that murder is

the haunting of José Arcadio and his wife, Úrsula. Much like the Israelite slaves, José Arcadio

and Úrsula soon turn into Prudencio’s subjects as he travels through their home, “using the

esparto plug to wash the clotted blood from his throat,” and “strolling through the rain” (22). One

point, the slaughter of the fighting cocks before leaving for Macondo, has an implicit connection

to the story of Exodus in that the blood of that many fighting cocks surely ran everywhere.

During Pharaoh’s rule, the first plague the Lord sent to Egypt was the Nile River turning into

blood (Exodus 7:20). The mixing of that bloody imagery demonstrates a parallelism between

Biblical stories and the novel. Ultimately, like the nation of Israel, José Arcadio and Úrsula are

delivered from the thing (or person) that used to terrify them. The Israelites escape from Egypt

and the Buendías escape from their village with the promise to, “leave this town, just as far away

as we can go, and we will never come back. Go in peace now” (García Márquez, 23). The

similarity continues with the narrative of Exodus throughout the second section of the novel.

Besides their actual departure, the novel also hints at the same conditions the Israelites

endured during their forty days of wandering through the desert. Once Moses finally freed them

from Egypt, they wandered through the desert for forty days before finally discovering food and

shelter. The Buendías experienced almost the same thing. Besides searching for more than two

years, Úrsula suffered with a difficult pregnancy, “varicose veins [that] puffed up like bubbles,”

(23) and an irregular diet of monkey and snake. Yet, they reach Macondo after the difficult
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journey. Some critics of reading the novel as a parallel to the Bible will likely disagree at this

point because the creation of Macondo and the Buendía exodus are reversed in chronological

order. However, the point of this comparison is not to imply they are exactly the same; instead,

the point is to compare the similarities in structure between a work of fiction and the Holy Bible.

At this point, it is necessary to understand the concept of magical realism and how it can

be applied to specific passages from the Bible. Magic realism is unique from other genres in the

sense that it combines two unlikely things into a single, cohesive story. Lindsay Moore defines

the genre as something that “offers a world view that is not based on natural or physical laws nor

objective reality. However, the fictional world is not separated from reality either” (Moore). In

other words, magical realism captures the sense of the real and fictional worlds but does not have

to be limited by what is believed to be true in the world of the reader. She continues to say that,

“In magical realism, the supernatural is not displayed as questionable” (Moore). This definition

essentially argues that magical realist authors are not afraid to mix fiction and reality together

because they view their integration as a realistic possibility. Now, of course, is the question of

how the Bible can possibly be read the same way as One Hundred Years of Solitude. On the one

hand, more conservative readers of the Bible will doubt the ability of anyone to compare it to

fictional stories. A more thoughtful reader would have no problem seeing how the stories of the

Bible do indeed introduce elements of magical realism. Either way, Christians should realize that

some stories from the Bible – the parting of the Red Sea, the plagues of Egypt, turning women

into salt pillars, and ultimately, the Resurrection – must sound to a non-believer. Yet, millions of

people throughout history have believed these words because they know the source of these

things, God. The same understanding must be applied to García Márquez because of the

integration of constant magical realism into his text.

The conversation of magical realism advances the reader to the connections between the

Old Testament prophets and the visions the characters of the novel share. The prime example of

a form of prophesy is whenever the Lord sends Nathan to King David to warn him about all the

evil things he has done by means of a veiled story about two men, which concludes with, “Thou

art the man” (2 Samuel 12:7). This example of a ruler oblivious to his own cruelty is repeated in

the time period when Arcadio Buendía becomes the dictator of Macondo while the rest of the

men are fighting the war. Arcadio quickly becomes a corrupt and cruel dictator over the town,

but he only realizes it when Úrsula whips him in public and ruins his reputation. This concept on

relying upon an outside force to recognize one’s faults is similar in both the Bible and the novel.

Things from the Bible that Christians consider miracles can also be characterized as

examples of magical realism within the context of One Hundred Years of Solitude. The

underlying assumption in a miracle is that something divine interacted to provide a result that

would otherwise have been different. A natural comparison is between the parting of the Red Sea

and Aureliano’s escape from the first firing squad. What would have inevitably been a “sea” of

red blood was avoided because of a last-minute intercession by José Arcadio.

Moreover, the example of Lazarus being raised from the dead is a true miracle that also

occurs in the novel. In response to Martha accusing him, Jesus calms her by saying, “And

whosoever believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?” (John 11:26) and then continues

to call Lazarus from the tomb (11:43) alive. The same concept of resurrection from the dead

occurs after Melquiades reappears in Macondo after his first death. Again, these seemingly

impossible tasks of raising from the dead, in the context of the novel, can be seen as magical

realism because they are the overlap of two worlds, fictional and natural. One literary critic

agrees with this notion writing that, “If Melquiades transcends time and resides in the realm of
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immortals, it is on the basis of the written word” (Ollivier, 13). This statement draws another link

to the Bible in saying that tradition can be based on the written word, a method common in

Christianity. This notion is repeated earlier in the article as the author analyzes the first sentence

of the novel because the reader, “is forced to divide his attention in two simultaneous temporal

directions” (11). That sense of duality is expressed well in distinguishing between the novel and

the Bible.

As similar as the accounts of creation and the prophets and the miracles are to the novel,

the parables from the Gospels are truly where the similarity between the two texts lies. Again,

García Márquez is not trying to perfectly mirror the Bible. This might explain why there is such

variety in the sources from which García Márquez draws. In one critical analysis of his life,

Gerald Martin carefully explores the author’s life and its influences on his writing. He describes

that synthesis of inspiration by arguing that One Hundred Years of Solitude “is also a book which

brought the entire world to the tiny Latin American town of Macondo: readers can see, inside its

magical screen, such diverse influences as the Bible, the Arabian Nights … Cervantes, the

chronicles of the Spanish conquest and the European novels of chivalry” (Martin, 49). What

Martin is really trying to contend is that García Márquez is not limited to one source of

inspiration, but the Bible does indeed contribute to the plot of the novel.

The first parable to discuss is Jesus feeding a crowd of 5,000 with the fishes and loaves.

Essentially, Jesus and his apostles were preaching one day to large crowd, but when lunchtime

came, there was not enough food to feed the entire group. Fortunately, Jesus was able to provide

fish and bread for the entire crowd (Luke 9:11-17). In a way, Úrsula, and later Colonel Aureliano

Buendía, would provide the same fish to the entire town of Macondo. What began as a

“promising business in candy animals” (García Márquez, 37) quickly grows into a lucrative
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business that requires the majority of Úrsula’s time. Colonel Aureliano Buendía later takes on

the figure of Jesus when he is in the workshop making the tiny golden fish that would eventually

be spread across the region. It is important to note that the “person” of Jesus is never

concentrated in one character throughout the book; instead, the traits of Jesus are shared among

several members of the Buendía family.

Another key parable links the Biblical women of Martha and Mary to two sisters from the

novel, Rebeca and Amaranta. Martha is the complete opposite from Mary; she is anxious, busy,

and forceful, unlike Mary, who is thoughtful and calm (John 11:1-45). With respect to the novel,

Amaranta is undoubtedly the Martha figure, while Rebeca is Mary. Amaranta displays

throughout the novel what Martha did in only a few verses from the Gospel, but she was so

intense at one point before Rebeca’s proposed marriage that Úrsula was forced to take her away

on a trip because she whispered in her ear, “Even if they send me to the end of the earth I’ll find

some way of stopping you from getting married, even if I have to kill you” (García Márquez,

73). This type of chaotic energy is typical of the Martha figure, who even was bold enough to

question Jesus (John 11:20). On the other hand, there is Rebeca, who was unhappy, still “took

charge of domestic order” (García Márquez, 73-74). Of course, Mary was unhappy that Lazarus

had died, but she was still composed enough to remain calm, much like Rebeca.

The final parable to discuss in relation with One Hundred Years of Solitude is that of the

Prodigal Son. This parable is probably one of the most widely known stories from the Bible

because it tells about the redemption of man, even though he often strays away from God. The

most obvious connection from Scripture to the novel is the situation with José Arcadio, who

abandons the Buendía family to travel around with the gypsies. Like the Prodigal Son who leaves

home for the pursuit of pleasure (and leaves a brother behind to do all the hard work), José
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Arcadio was taken in by the “outpouring of tender obscenities that entered the girl,” which

ultimately led him to “wrap a red cloth around his head” (34) and leave with the gypsies. He

returns several sections later in the novel and claims his reward, the bride and his newly seized

land. While his bride, his sister, is not the same gift that was given to the Prodigal Son, it is still a

reward. The challenging part of this parable is to reconcile it with the novel (receiving a physical

reward and not a Godly redemption) has to come with the reminder that García Márquez’s

intention was not to reproduce the Bible, but to model it.

Finally, the destruction of Macondo, and with it the Buendías, symbolizes the destruction

and judgement that come in Revelation, where the wicked will be destroyed. Much like the

statement that, “I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were

passed away; and there was no more sea” (Revelation 21:1), Macondo faces judgement and

ultimately blows away. This concept relates directly to the final paragraphs of the novel, which

describe the destruction of Macondo as the “second surge of wind … as its cyclonic strength tore

the doors and windows off their hinges, pulled off the roof of the east wing, and uprooted the

foundations” (García Márquez, 416). This imagery of destruction during the final days is very

Biblical in the sense that St. John wrote of the same things happening in the natural world. Along

the same lines, one literary critic described the sad times at the end of the novel as the

“archetypal Latin American family has been destroyed by its own internal and external

contradictions, that is, by lust, incest, greed, stupidity, and an addiction to selfishness, self-

centeredness and solitude, as well as by an inability to read the signs of history” (Martin, 53). In

other words, the Buendías refused to realize in themselves so much of what is warned against

throughout the Bible.

In conclusion, the novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude, demonstrates the ability of a

magical realist author to synthesize the Bible with fiction. García Márquez succeeds in this

combination not only by following the general structure of the Bible (Genesis leading to

Revelation), but also by introducing themes and individual stories into a single, cohesive novel.
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Works Cited

Berlin, Adele. “On the Bible as Literature.” Prooftexts, vol. 2, no. 3, 1982, pp. 323–327.

García Márquez, Gabriel. One Hundred Years of Solitude. Harper Perennial: Modern Classics,

2006.

The Holy Bible: King James Version. Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2014.

Martin, Gerald. The Cambridge Introduction to Gabriel García Márquez. Cambridge University

Press, 2012.

Moore, Lindsay. “Magical Realism.” Scholar Blogs. Emory University. Fall 1998.

Ollivier, Louis. “One Hundred Years of Solitude: Existence Is the Word.” American Literary

Review, vol. 4, no. 7, 1975, pp. 9-14.

Swindell, Anthony. “Latecomers: Four Novelists Rewrite the Bible.” Biblical Interpretation: A

Journal of Contemporary Approaches, vol. 15, no. 4/5, 2007, pp. 395–404