Active Reading Chapter 11

Magical Elements:

• When Petra and Aureliano 2nd have relations the animals always multiply. Magic, no need to explain this.

Characters:

Aureliano Triste – triste means sad, so does the name mean that? - the only son that stays to live Macondo – wants to buy/live in the old empty dead house of Rebeca and Jose Arcadio – brings in the railroad

Aureliano Centeno – another son of Colonel Aureliano who stays to live in Macondo – breaks everything without even touching it – fast worker/producer of ice

Summary:

• It starts off telling about the marriage of Fernanda and Aureliano Segundo. It says that their marriage might have not lasted that long because of Petra. It also gave a history of Fernanda's life, saying that she had come from a very rich family, had gone away to study as a queen would, and then came home to be sent away by her dad. Aureliano 2nd saw her, and when she left, he searched endlessly for her until he found her once again. It took Aureliano 2nd a while to sleep with her, but she did get pregnat after a while. Fernanda also knew about Petra and her husband, and because it made him more successful, went around pretending she knew nothing of this extra- marital affair.
• No one in the family really liked her. Fernanda and Amaranta hated each other immensely. Fernanda got the family to eat as a family all together, praying the rosary before dinner and only eating at the big table. Fernanda became the one who would determine the family's destiny. It was her way ot the highway, just like my mom. :) She had a girl, and named her Renata after her own mother, but then everyone else called her Meme. The kids got gifts from their grandpa. One of the gifts they got was a big old box, which turned out to be the coffin of Fernanda’s dead dad, his body all icky and decaying.
  There was going to be an anniversary of the signing treaty, and the president was coming to give Colonel Aureliano an Order of Merit. He did not care for it at all though. He only wanted his chance to say something (or do something?) to the President. But it seems like it scared the President off, because he cancelled his trip. The ceremonies take place, while Colonel Aureliano locks himself in his lab, working, when Ursula brings him his seventeen sons from seventeen different women from seventeen different areas. Is that not funny? He’s a pimp! J But he does not really recognize them, and mistrusted them, but he gave them all little gold fishes as a recuerdo, a souvenir. Aureliano 2nd noticed that they were all kind of wild, and were hard workers, and offered them to work for him, but only one stayed. Then Amaranta got them to go to church for Ash Wednesday, but then none of the seventeen sons could wash off their ashes on their foreheads, yet everyone else could.
  Aureliano Triste stays to live in Macondo, sees the house of old Rebeca and Jose Arcadio, and goes in it. But there is still Rebeca in there, pointing a gun at him, and telling him to get out. Aureliano Triste tells everyone what happened and Ursula is overjoyed, I think, that Rebeca is still alive. Ursula had forgotten about her, but not Amaranta. She never forgot about Rebeca, and hated her constantly.
  The next time the sixteen sons returned, they went to go fix up Rebeca’s home. She did not stop them, and sent them coins for the repairs, which were so out of date. Another of the sons, Aureliano Centeno, stayed in Macondo. He would always be breaking things, especially plates and stuff like that. He was a fast worker, though, and made so much ice that Aureliano Triste decided to expand his business of ice production, and also to build a railroad. So Triste left with money to build a railroad track, but no one heard anything from him in like eight months. Then one day, a big old whistle sound was heard and a big old yellow train was coming into Macondo, with Triste waving form the front of it.

Quotes:

“’We are immensely rich and powerful,’ [her mother] told [Fernanda]. ‘One day you will be a queen.’” I found this ironic because it was the complete opposite of what happened to her. She went off to study to be a queen, but when she came back, she had nothing to rule over, and was sent away, and then she tried to be the queen of the Buendia family. At least that mostly worked for her.

“‘We have to bring in the railroad,’ Aureliano Triste said.” This just stood out because I do notice that time is cyclical because all of these new inventions yet they are living the old lifestyles and stuff like that. I just find that weird.

Themes:

Time – Time is once again cyclical. All new inventions yet not that much tie (years) have seem to passed.

Solitude – Colonel Aureliano buries himself in his work as always. Also, Rebeca is still alive and alone.