Symbolism

You must post 2 times before next Monday, December 5th. Your first post should be submitted by Thursday, December 1st. It is to be in response to one of the prompts below. The second time you post, it must be in response to or in reaction to the post of another student.

1. One Hundred Years of Solitude is seeped in symbolism, allegory, hyperbole and parable. (These literary terms are defined below.) Why do you think Gabriel Garcia Marquez chooses to write his narrative in this way? Choose an aspect of the novel that makes use of one of the aforementioned literary devices then attempt to give meaning to it.

Symbolism: a word or phrase referring to a concrete object, scene, or action which also has some further significance associated with it

Allegory: a story or visual image with a second distinct meaning partially hidden behind its literal or visible meaning. The principal technique of allegory is personification. In written narrative, allegory involves a continuous parallel between two or more levels of meaning in the story. An allegory may be conceived as a metaphor that is extended into a structured system.

Hyperbole: Exaggeration for the sake of emphasis

Parable: A brief tale intended to be understood as an allegory illustrating some moral or lesson.

2. Choose a particular character to evaluate. Determine whether the character traits you have noted are ultimately positive or negative, or both. Explain your reasoning. For example Jose Arcadio Buendia: He is inventive and spends many hours alone on his alchemy experiments trying to discover already known science. This is ultimately negative, because he isolates himself from his family and eventually goes mad.

3. Identify elements of the story that you find particularly confusing, interesting, or worthy of discussion. Pose your own questions. Include portions of the text that you feel contribute to your questions/your point. Cite page numbers.