University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for its Department of Romance Studies

A LINGERING MYSTERY IN "ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE"

Author(s): Charles Stanion
Source: Romance Notes, Vol. 36, No. 1 (Fall, 1995), pp. 69-73
Published by: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for its Department of Romance
Studies
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/43802328
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 A LINGERING MYSTERY IN ONE HUNDRED
YEARS OF SOLITUDE

Charles Stanion

Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude describe

the magical and absurd details surrounding the death of José Arcádi
but never resolves it:

Rebeca later declared that when her husband went into the bedroom she was locked in the
bathroom and did not hear anything. It was a difficult version to believe, but there was no
other more plausible, and no one could think of any motive for Rebeca to murder the man
who made her happy. That was perhaps the only mystery that was never cleared up in Ma-
condo. As soon as José Arcádio closed the bedroom door the sound of a pistol shot
echoed through the house. A trickle of blood came out under the door, crossed the living
room, went out into the street, continued on in a straight line across the uneven terraces,
went down steps and climbed over curbs, passed along the Street of the Turks, turned a
corner to the right and another to the left, made a right angle at the Buendia house, went
in under the closed door, crossed through the parlor, hugging the walls so as not to stain
the rugs . . . and went through the pantry and came out in the kitchen, where Ursula was
getting ready to crack thirty-six eggs to make bread. (García Márquez 129-30)

Following the trail, Ursula discovers the origin of "the thread of blood
that had already stopped flowing out of his right ear." However, the
death is a conundrum: "They found no wound on his body nor could
they locate the weapon" (130). This "only mystery" of Macondo has
generated critical speculation of both murder and suicide, but it is diffi-
cult to support either of these interpretations with the evidence of the
novel.

Admittedly, José Arcádio is a conspicuously unscrupulous character,

furnishing much of Macondo 's populace with motivation to kill him. He
takes "forcible possession of the best plots of land around," and extorts
"contributions" from those whose land is not worth appropriating (113).

69

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 70 ROMANCE NOTES

Critics such as Regina Janes conclude t

interpretation of homicide: "[0]ur narr
the town. Both know that José Arcádio w
by someone taxed or someone disposs
murder is doubtful. José Arcádio is enor
men, and invariably carries a double-barr
a courageous intruder or a shrewd str
scribed as his quarry. The war has de
those left are not likely to pursue reven
subservience to Arcádio, who is guilty of
merous senseless executions. Arcádio has more enemies than José Arca-
dio, is much less intimidating - and presumably easier to kill - but is
left unmolested for his offenses. Since the inhabitants are so patient to-
ward Arcádio, it is probable that José Arcádio would be correspondingly
excused.

The Conservative government also has reason for reprisal against

José Arcádio, due to his intervention in the execution of Colonel Aure-
liano Buendía. 1 However, of the thousands killed for political rea-
sons - the 17 Aurelianos, the 3,408 victims of Decree No. 4, those dead
by firing squad, and the countless casualties of the Colonel's 32 lost
wars - all exhibit obvious physical evidence corresponding to the vi-
olence they suffer. Politically inspired assassination is intended to be
conspicuous, as when the 17 Aurelianos are "hunted down like rabbits
by invisible criminals who aimed at the center of their crosses of ash"
(225). José Arcádio, however, has no mark on his body.
An alternative theory implicates Rebeca as the killer. Keith Harrison
explores Rebeca 's dual nature, which incorporates "contradictions that
reflect an entire continent" 2 and allow her to murder the man she osten-
sibly loves. The interesting parallels that Harrison draws, however, are

1 "[U]nknown political authorities . . . must have wanted him dead because he had in-
tervened to save a dangerous rebel, his brother" (Harrison 47). Although José Arcádio
does stop the execution, the novel states that "[n]o one knew about his intervention"
(García Márquez 129). Ignorance is no deterrent to reprisal, however, where the Conser-
vative government is concerned.
2 Keith Harrison argues that contradictions in Rebeca 's character parallel the accul-
turation of the continent. Rebeca embodies both the primitive and the refined, and just as
Macondo's political world rebels against colonization, Rebeca rebels against José Arca-
dio 's animalism.

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 A LINGERING MYSTERY IN ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE 1 1

correlations, not incentives; Rebeca is provided no hint of a motive in

the novel. She and José Arcádio realize a passion more ardent than the
ancestral Buendia dread of incest, determining to marry even while as-
suming they are brother and sister and knowing they will be ostracized
by their family. When José Arcádio dies, Rebeca surrenders to a lifetime
of grief: "As soon as they took the body out, Rebeca closed the doors of
her house and buried herself alive, covered with a thick crust of disdain
that no earthly temptation was ever able to break" (131). Time passes in
undiminished mourning, and Rebeca remains "[e]ncased in black down
to her knuckles, with her heart turned to ash" (152). She languishes in
the loss of José Arcádio through the years into ancient old age and
death - improbable deportment for a perpetrator of premeditated murder. 3
A verdict of suicide is as unsupported as that of homicide. A pistol
shot is specifically reported, although José Arcádio never carries a pis-
tol; he is repeatedly and pointedly described carrying a double-barreled
shotgun (113, 127, 129, 207). No basis for suicide is furnished: there is
no indication of discord in José Arcadio's life; his lands have expanded
and his title to them is officially recognized; his domestic life is settled
and satisfying; his income is secure; and he is a paragon of virility. The
smell of gunpowder on the corpse has been suggested as an indication
of suicide, 4 but unusual body odors are so prevalent in the novel 5 that
such a conclusion seems unacceptably narrow.
This is not to say that murder or suicide are impossible, only that
there is nothing in the text to fortify such inferences. 6 Certainly some-
one in town could have killed José Arcádio, but the reader is provided
with no evidence for such an interpretation. Suicide is conceivable if

3 If Rebeca had killed José Arcádio, premeditation would be indicated by the insidi-
ous and unprovoked nature of the murder.
4 Harrison mentions this as background to his thesis that Rebeca is the murderer, but
concludes that "this explanation is improbable, not only due to José Arcadio's healthy an-
imalism but also due to the inability to 'locate a weapon (p. 130)' " (47).
5 For example: Pilar Temerà 's smell of smoke; Remedios the Beauty's "breath of per-
turbation," a scent "still perceptible several hours after she had passed by" (218);
Melquíades' breath's "odor of a sleeping animal" (75); a gypsy girl's "vague smell of
mud" (40); Pietro Crespi's "lavender breath" (110, 260).
6 An interesting extra-textual source of a suicide interpretation is García Márquez
himself, who told Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza: "When a character in the book shoots him-
self, his blood trickles in a thin stream all round the town until it finds the dead man's
mother" (qtd. in Wood 76). Wood remarks: "García Márquez seems to solve the mystery
the novel so fastidiously leaves unsolved. But he is only the author" (76).

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 72 ROMANCE NOTES

Rebeca removes the evidence before s

why would she do so? She and her hus
and regard the opinion of the town as
tion that burial in consecrated ground
for either individual, and even if it were
Pietro Crespi 's suicide and subsequent
dictates are ineffectual.
Transcending all of these possibilities is the simple interpretation of
spontaneous dissolution - an assassination committed by no one - as the
most reasonable conclusion. There is no indication that José Arcádio is
killed in any way; he is simply dead. There is no injury or weapon, and
no perpetrator (including himself) possessing the determination, the in-
centive and the capability to commit the murder. Additionally, the text
provides evidence that his death is a natural one:

his father's host had the look of shipwrecked people with no escape, but their number had
grown during the crossing and they were all prepared (and they succeeded) to die of old
age. (31)

As a member of that host, born during the crossing of the mountains,

José Arcádio is guaranteed the right to a natural death due to old age.
This is not as implausible as it first appears; the principles of magical
realism in this novel provide ample justification for the unusual. José
Arcádio lives a full life: he circumnavigates the world sixty- five times;
he forgets his childhood because "life at sea had saturated his memory
with too many things to remember" (94); he survives shipwrecks and
sea dragons and cannibalism. He lives so voraciously, at such an acceler-
ated rate, that old age and death can overtake him only after he stops
moving.
A peculiar death is not necessarily an unnatural one, especially for a
member of the Buendia family: José Arcádio Buendía dies as a result of
disorientation in a dream of infinite rooms, Remedios the Beauty as-
cends to Heaven amid the flapping of Fernanda's good sheets, and Ama-
ranta "sail[s] at dusk" carrying mail from the living to the dead. One
Hundred Years of Solitude is a perpetual display of the absurd, mocking
reality with everything from flying carpets to yellow butterflies, and to
appraise its features from the perspective of realism is as futile as
stargazing through a kaleidoscope. In a town where water boils sponta-

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 A LINGERING MYSTERY IN ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE 73

neously and hot cocoa induces lévitation, where colors are distinguished
according to texture and heavenly ascension is achieved through inad-
vertent purity and a light breeze, a murder without a malefactor is log-
ical by virtue of its illogic. Macondo is a town where cryptic occurrences
are commonplace, and the Buendias are a family destined for bizarre
fates - but natural demises. 7 Speculative attribution in the death of José
Arcádio is a mercurial endeavor; culpability is incompatible with the
conventions of this novel, and irreconcilable with the resolute predesti-
nation of the Buendias.

University of South Florida

Works Cited

Harrison, Keith. "One Hundred Years of Solitude : The Only Mystery." International Fic-
tion Review 12 (1985): 47-49.
Garcia Marquez, Gabriel. One Hundred Years of Solitude. Trans. Gregory Rabassa. New
York: Avon, 1970.
Janes, Regina. One Hundred Years of Solitude: Modes of Reading. Twayne's Masterworks
Studies 70. Boston: Hall, 1991.
Wood, Michael. Gabriel Garcia Marquez : One Hundred Years of Solitude. Landmarks of
World Literature. Cambridge UP, 1990.

7 Ursula, José Arcádio Buendía, Colonel Aureliano Buendía, Amaranta, Aureliano

Segundo, José Arcádio Segundo, Rebeca, Meme, and Amaranta Ursula all die naturai
deaths. José Arcádio merits inclusion in this list.

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