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Macy Rainer
Introduction to Latin American Culture
Professor Voionmaa
December 9th, 2015
Biblical Parallels in One Hundred Years of Solitude
Gabriel Garcia Marquezs novel One Hundred Years of Solitude is perhaps the most

ambitious novel of the 20th Century. It attempts to capture the entirety of the human experience-

love, loss, war, peace, life and death- in a story of a single family in a small town. In many ways,

the novel is similar in scope and importance to the Christian Bible, a text used as the guideline

for living for more than two billion people around the world. Thus, it is unsurprising that there

are many parallels between these two great stories.

The similarities are evident almost immediately. In Genesis, the Earth has humble

beginnings, relying on Adam and Eve to populate the world. In One Hundred Years, Jose Arcadio

Buendia and his wife Ursula settle a new town with only a handful of loyal followers. After

several generations, Macondo at its peak is a booming town. Furthermore, Macondos residents

seem to enjoy a much longer life expectancy than most real people do. Ursula, for example, dies

at over 120 years of age and lives to see her great-great-great grandson (Aureliano), a feat

virtually unheard of. In the Bible, characters such as Adam and Noah are said to live to be nearly

1000 years of age. In both books this has the effect of making these characters seem larger-than-

life and important.

Remedios the Beauty also exhibits some strong resemblances to Genesis. In Genesis,

Adam and Eve are created without the knowledge of their own nakedness. The original sin

occurs after the couple eat the forbidden fruit that teaches them to be ashamed of their bodies and

compels them to cover themselves. Remedios, on the other hand, never learns to be embarrassed
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of her naked body and always wears as few clothes as possible. She also is perceived by most

other characters to be extremely nave, except for Colonel Aureliano, who thinks she is very

wise, as if shes come back from twenty years of war. This seems to reinforce the paradoxical

idea in the Bible that suggests that knowledge actually makes people weaker. Indeed, nearly

every male that sees Remedios sexualizes her, and several are injured or killed trying to see her

body. Meanwhile, Remedios, innocent of the sexual nature of her body and still a virgin, is happy

and safe. Perhaps this is why Remedios eventually ascends into the sky, which leads Fernanda to

believe she ascended to heaven. Remedios is, in Biblical terms, the most pure character in the

book and thus is chosen to leave the sinful Earth for the heavens.

Another particularly fascinating subplot of OHYS is the rivalry between Rebeca and her

sister Amaranta, after Rebeca wins the affections of their piano instructor Pietro Crespi.

Amaranta becomes so angry at their engagement that she resolves to kill Rebeca before her

marriage. Ultimately, this never comes to fruition as Rebeca leaves Pietro for Jose Arcadio (II).

This story shares some striking similarities with the version of the biblical story of Cain and

Abel. In the Christian Bible, Cain commits humanitys first murder by killing his brother Abel.

The motivations are unclear and still debated by theologians today, but the Midrash, a Jewish

text from the Torah, offers an alternate explanation.

In the Midrash, Cain and Abel both wish to marry a beautiful woman, Aclima. Their

father Adam tells his sons to each offer a sacrifice to God, and whomever God blessed could

marry Aclima. God blesses Abel, and out of revenge, Cain murders his brother out of jealousy.

Both stories demonstrate how jealousy and romantic rivalries can tear even people as close as

siblings apart.
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One important motif in the novel is language barriers. In the Bible, the story of the Tower

of Babel explains the origin of the different languages of the world. Although everyone initially

speaks the same tongue, God changes their speech so they speak many different languages and

are unable to work together to build a tower that could reach the heavens. In One Hundred Years

of Solitude, language is continuously shown to confuse and divide the Buendias. Jose Arcadio

Buendia goes mad late in his life and eventually can only communicate in Latin. The only

characters in the book able to converse with him are the Priest and the short-lived Remedios

Mascote. Jose Arcadio is tied to a tree and mostly ignored for the remainder of the novel.

Perhaps an even more significant language barrier is represented in the text that

Melquiades brings to Macondo. Ultimately, Aureliano manages to decode the encrypted

messages, through years of difficult translations after his ancestors failed to finish it themselves.

The writing turns out to be a comprehensive history of the Buendia family and Macondo,

detailing not only the past but the present and future as well. It prophesizes the towns demise

long before it happens. In both the Bible and OHYS, language is used to protect something

important and magical from being discovered by mortals until death. Just as the biblical God

creates different tongues to prevent humans from reaching heaven before they die, so do

Melquiades texts prevent the Buendia family from learning their own secrets until just before

the last death of the family.

The parallels between the Bible and One Hundred Years of Solitude are too numerous to

be merely a coincidence. I believe the reason that Marquez includes so many nods to holy texts

in his magnum opus is that his novel has similar intentions as the Bible. Both literary works

describe nearly ever major human emotion and experience. All of the feelings and events that

mark our lives are represented in some form in both of these texts. This is furthered by the fact
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that both are book-ended with a humble beginning and a dramatic end. While the Bible

encompasses the entire worlds population, One Hundred Years of Solitude channels the same

depth on the much smaller scale of a single town. Both are incredibly successful at weaving

magnificent, magical stories with the real, human emotions that we all feel. This is why both will

continue to be remembered and cherished by people around the world.

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Works Cited

"King James Bible." Official Authorized King James Version Online. Web. 10 Dec. 2015.

Marquez, Gabriel Garcia, and Gregory Rabassa. One Hundred Years of Solitude. Buenos Aires:

Editorial Sudamericanos, 1967. Print.

Rawnitzki, Yehoshua HHana, and Hayyim Nahman Bialik. Midrash. 1927. Print.

Shmoop Editorial Team. "One Hundred Years of Solitude." Shmoop.com. Shmoop University,

Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 10 Dec. 2015.

Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Web. 10 Dec. 2015.