While most scholars have agreed that war is a real and significant part of human history, these same scholars have yet not reached a consensus on the characteristics of war. History books often lean toward glorifying war with stories of soldiers dying for their honor and homeland; novels, on the other hand, tend to point out the emptiness of war with stories of soldiers losing their youth and contact with the world. The selected passage from Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ novel One Hundred Years of Solitude adds to the debate over war’s characteristics. Through the literary techniques of irony, symbolism, and imagery, this text reveals the major theme that, in reality, war is not glorious but empty.
By having Colonel Gerineldo Marquez conclude his telegraph with the slogan “Long Live the Liberal party,” the author successfully creates a sense of irony in the reader at the end of the second paragraph. While the first two sentences of the passage present Colonel Marquez as the civil and military leader of Macondo who has realized the emptiness of war, this party slogan presents words that carry no weight when written by a man who believes his commanding officer to be a total stranger. Positioned high on the military chain of command, Colonel Marquez received the opportunity to witness the war’s progression from an isolated conflict of clear definition and predictable course, to a widespread conflict of augmenting intensity and uncertainty. Therefore, his words “I understand, Aureliano,…Long Live the Liberal party” become ironic. Colonel Aureliano Buendia will consider these words to be a patriotic affirmation of orders, when th…
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…magery, and irony, combine to create a successful introduction of one of the novel’s major themes – the emptiness of war. By having Colonel Gerineldo Marquez realize the true nature of war and then referring to him as the first in line to make that realization, the author sets up the reader for a series of other witnesses whose testimonies should make the statement concerning war’s characteristic emptiness even more valid. Later in the novel, Colonel Aureliano Buendia discovers the true nature of war only after twenty years of fighting along with a sad realization that the conservative regime he had been trying to topple all this time is good and in accordance with the people’s wishes. Colonel Buendia then recognizes that war is not a conflict of ideologies, but an ugly and empty struggle for power, concluding a thematic thread started by Colonel Gerineldo Marquez.
The Life of August Wilson
Drama is about bringing reality to life through acting and interpretation. August Wilson
wrote the play Fences about his life: the heartbreaking reality of racism in his own life and the
struggles he faced to overcome it. He had a hard childhood and career due to prejudice and
fatherly abandonment, and he reflected that through his works of African American drama.
Wilson uses the character of Troy, his family, and his friends in Fences to pour out his life, his
hardship, and the horrifying difficulty African Americans faced throughout the generations.
August Wilson was born in a ghetto area of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania to his white father,
August Kittel and African American mother, Daisy Wilson Kittel. His father left him, his
mother, and Wilson‘s five siblings when Wilson was a young child. His mother worked as a
cleaning woman until she remarried. His stepfather moved them to a primarily white
neighborhood where the family was subjected to fierce racial prejudice. Wilson has also married
several times, having two children, one each from separate marriages (Galens 181).
One of Wilson‘s most prominent dramas is Fences, in which he strongly deals with the
issues of civil rights he struggled with in his life. The ―fences‖ in the play are a representation of
blockages in the relationships of the characters‘ family ties and their racial issues. The actual
fence in the play was built with the intention to keep the family together while the title word
―fences‖ has a different meaning, that is, to impede movement or departure of individuals,
families, or ethnicities. Robert Frost wrote of fences in his poem ―Mending Wall‖ showing how
fences are designed to keep people in or out and how that separation m…
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…ghout his
career was heavily affected by racism; however, it is that racism and hardship which helped him
to form a foundation for some of the most significant modern drama ever.
Works Cited
Delbanco, Nicholas and Alan Cheuse, eds. Literature: Craft and Voice. Vol. 1-3. New York:
McGraw Hill, 2010. Print.
―Fences.‖ Drama for Students. Ed. David M. Galens. Vol. 3. Detroit: Gale, 1998. 180-197. Gale
Virtual Reference Library. Web. 23 Nov. 2010.
Frost, Robert. ―The Mending Wall.‖ Literature: Craft