Pilar Ternera's Predictions

Predictions are forecasts with a debatable reliability. Some follow auguries with a steadfast faith and others scoff at the idea of an omen. In Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novel One Hundred Years of Solitude, Pilar Ternera’s cards act as a driving force in some characters’ decisions, like one’s happiness or death. Although the prophecies of Pilar Ternera’s cards assuage uncertainty by generating comfort or a false reality, disregarding the omens of the cards results in near-death experiences or death, exposing the reality of the forecasts regardless of the feelings of relief or accomplishment that result from fulfilling the prophecy. Although the cards of Pilar Ternera influence the lives of many others, the cards also shape her own life. …show more content…
Upon confronting Colonel Aureliano Jose again, Pilar Ternera surprises him, as he is “startled at the depths she had reached in her reading of the cards,” and “he wonder[s] whether the other time she had [warned] him during the height of his glory it had not been a surprisingly anticipated vision of fate” (174). Parallel to the previous example, the cards tell Pilar Ternera to warn Colonel Aureliano Buendía to “watch out for [his] mouth” again (174). Following this, Colonel Aureliano Buendía later shoots himself in the chest in a suicide attempt, but does not die. He reveals that “he [is] sorry he had not shot himself in the roof of the mouth as he had considered doing only to mock the prediction of Pilar Ternera” (178). Rather than considering the omen, again, Colonel Aureliano Buendía ridicules it, in this instance. However, it is ironic, as, if he had followed through and shot himself in the mouth, he would have died, as he desired. However, by ignoring the prediction, he survives. This instance twists the previous two examples. Even though he almost dies, he would have died had he put the danger the omen predicted—the gun—in his mouth. In the former instances, neither of the characters explicitly desired death, but nearly got it or did die; but, here, Colonel Aureliano Buendía desires death, but his wish is not fulfilled. This does not necessarily negate the statement that ignoring the omens results in near-death or death, as Colonel Aureliano still comes close to dying, but may hint that the opposite of what one wants—whether life or death—is nearly or fully achieved when the predictions of the cards are disregarded. Hence, it suggests that the cards prevent safety in the sense of temporary false comfort, but inflict the strongest consequence of either life or death—depending on one’s desires—if the predictions