Gabriel García Márquez

Márquez's Writing Style

 

          The remarkable eloquence and fluidity of Gabriel García Márquez’s work is due to his incredible command of language. This can is evident in many of his novels, but most importantly One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera. In both of these works, Márquez creates unique worlds that serve to tell the stories of the Buendía family and of Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza. In turn, Márquez uses eloquent diction, vibrant imagery, and flashbacks to create the landscapes in which his stories unfold.

 

          The first notable literary device that Márquez uses to craft his amazing novels is diction. Although the device of diction itself seems relatively simple and straightforward, Márquez masterfully uses it in One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera to create the settings of his novels. Diction is integral to the novels because it allows Márquez to convey the complex feelings associated with the events that the characters experience. For example, in One Hundred Years of Solitude, rain falls for four years, eleven months, and two days, and it is said that after it ended, “The indolence of the people was in contrast to the voracity of oblivion, which little by little was undermining memories in a pitiless way” (Márquez 344). By using this rich diction, Márquez is able to communicate how hopeless people are after the deluge-they are so hopeless that unconsciousness is in danger of swallowing them and making them forget their entire history. The phrase “voracity of oblivion” is especially evocative, and is a great example of the diction throughout Márquez’s work. In Love in the Time of Cholera, even when a fairly minor character, Dr. Urbino, is faced with a trying situation diction is used to fully explain it: “On Pentecost Sunday, when he lifted the blanket to look at Jeremiah de Saint-Amour’s body, Dr. Urbino experienced the revelation of something that had been denied him until then in his most lucid peregrinations as a physician and a believer. After so many years of familiarity with death, after battling it for so long, after so much turning it inside out and upside down, it was as if he had dared to look death in the face for the first time, and it had looked back at him” (Márquez 31). By describing Dr. Urbino’s thoughts as “lucid peregrinations”, they come to mean so much more than mere thoughts. Rather, they are luminous reveries in which ideas migrate huge distances to be coherent. This diction makes the reader realize this, and how death had never really affected Dr. Urbino this profoundly. Diction elevates the events of these novels to a higher importance, and in turn, makes the reader realize the importance of the events.

 

           In addition, Márquez uses vibrant imagery throughout One Hundred Years of Solitude. This continuous imagery allows the reader to imagine the fantastical settings of Macondo in One Hundred Years of Solitude and the unnamed port city where Love in the Time of Cholera takes place. This imagery is used to establish the setting of Macondo, such as in describing its founding. It allows the reader to envision the idyllic and unique area that José Arcadio Buendía and the other villagers discover; "the men on the expedition felt overwhelmed by their most ancient memories in that paradise of dampness and silence, going back before original sin, as their boots sank into pools of steaming oil and their machetes destroyed bloody lilies and golden salamanders...they went ahead like sleepwalkers through a universe of grief, lighted only by the tenuous reflection of luminous insects, and their lungs were overwhelmed by a suffocating smell of blood" (Márquez 11). One of the most notable images in this passage is that of “bloody lilies and golden salamanders”. The men are disturbing the natural world which is meant to be untouched: as lilies are seen as symbols of the resurrection and immortality. By entering the forest, the men are tainting its perfection, and disturbing its natural inhabitants (such as salamanders, that would live, unseen in damp places and undisturbed by man). This vivid use of imagery allows the reader to see how the men are affecting the area and have an impression of how their intrusion on nature will be important to the story. This intrusion makes Macondo an anomaly of civilization in the Colombian forest, and contributes to its isolation throughout the novel.

 

           Finally, Márquez often uses flashbacks to tie current events back to their predecessors, as connections can often be seen between them and help the reader make sense of complicated, but similar events. This is especially true in Love in the Time of Cholera. As the entire plot is centered around two estranged lovers, it makes sense that one would have to remember their history together to realize the significance of their eventual reunion. Márquez’s use of flashback is very evident in this novel, as the plot begins when Florentino again declares his love to Fermina Daza after their long period of separation and flashes back to their experience as young lovers. It chronicles Florentino’s attempts to get to know Fermina and attain her good opinion and their romance. However, it also describes how they became estranged and how Florentino fails by taking part in many affairs after his virginity was taken. It continues up until the aforementioned events, which occur after Dr. Juvenal Urbino dies. Márquez then continues to reveal how the rest of the love story plays out. It is evident that “Florentino Ariza, on the other hand, had not stopped thinking of her for a single moment since Fermina Daza had rejected him out of hand after a long and troubled love affair fifty-one years, nine months, and four days ago. He did not have to keep a running tally, drawing a line for each day on the walls of a cell, because not a day had passed that something did not happen to remind him of her” (Márquez 53). Through the use of flashback, Márquez is able to reveal the thought process of Florentino, who spends most of the novel yearning to recommence the youthful relationship that he and Fermina shared. This helps the reader understand their relationship throughout their lives and how they are destined to eventually meet again despite adverse circumstances. By using flashback in this instance, Márquez is able to show how the circumstances of Florentino and Fermina’s relationship impact the manner in which they reunite.

 

           In both One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera, Márquez uses the literary devices of diction, imagery, and flashback to describe the settings in which the dramatic events of the novels unfold. Diction allows for rich description of many people and places, as he uses words like "phosphorescence" and "tempestuous" and phrases like "memories materialized through the strength of implacable evocation". Imagery allows the reader to envision the settings as if they were actually there, especially the idyllic and isolated village of Macondo. Flashback is also crucial to plot development, as it gives the reader a sense of how important past events are to current ones (furthering the importance of the theme of the passage of time). These three devices eloquently describe the novels’ settings and give context to the complicated plots that unfold.