In Gabriel García Márquez’s novel One Hundred Years of Solitude, José Arcadio Buendía, patriarch of the well-respected Buendía clan and founder of Macondo, exhibits with the progression of the novel an unwavering, imaginative, and somewhat stubborn pursuit of his passions that is seemingly tied to the very essence of his name. The first appearance of José Arcadio Buendía’s relentless pursuance coincides with the arrival of a band of gypsies in Macondo. One such gypsy, Melquíades, introduces José Arcadio Buendía to alchemy through the provision of various inventions, thus igniting in him an “unbridled imagination [that]… [went] beyond the genius of nature” (Márquez, 2). Central to explaining the essence of José Arcadio Buendía’s feverish exploits,
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After trying – and failing – to redeem the town’s memory loss by labeling everything, he then vows to “build [a] memory machine,” an idea he had conceived back when he wanted to recall all the inventions shown to him by the gypsies (48). This machine, designed to encompass “the totality of knowledge acquired during one’s life,” is seemingly impossible in its design, but the manner with which José Arcadio Buendía not only conceives but also applies his idea is indicative of the boundless creativity that has developed from his untamable imagination (48). At this point in Macondo’s history, it “[has] changed… into an active town,” indicating the passage of time since José Arcadio Buendía’s initial exploits with alchemy (38). But despite these changes, the initial ferocity with which he tackled his first experiments again reappears, indicating the permanence of his stubborn ingenuity. Even further into Macondo’s development, such pursuits lead José Arcadio Buendía to fruitlessly search for the existence of God, leading him to become so frustrated that he gets chained to a chestnut tree, “rejecting [the] rhetorical tricks” offered by Macondo’s
After trying – and failing – to redeem the town’s memory loss by labeling everything, he then vows to “build [a] memory machine,” an idea he had conceived back when he wanted to recall all the inventions shown to him by the gypsies (48). This machine, designed to encompass “the totality of knowledge acquired during one’s life,” is seemingly impossible in its design, but the manner with which José Arcadio Buendía not only conceives but also applies his idea is indicative of the boundless creativity that has developed from his untamable imagination (48). At this point in Macondo’s history, it “[has] changed… into an active town,” indicating the passage of time since José Arcadio Buendía’s initial exploits with alchemy (38). But despite these changes, the initial ferocity with which he tackled his first experiments again reappears, indicating the permanence of his stubborn ingenuity. Even further into Macondo’s development, such pursuits lead José Arcadio Buendía to fruitlessly search for the existence of God, leading him to become so frustrated that he gets chained to a chestnut tree, “rejecting [the] rhetorical tricks” offered by Macondo’s