Active Reading Chapter 5

Magical Elements:

• Jose Arcadio's strength is magical. He can wrestle five men at the same time. He can move things that takes like eleven men to move back. Does anyone really have that kind of strength? That is magical.

Characters:

• Jose Arcadio - the prodigal son returns after he left with the gypsies - his body is covered with tattoos - he has been around the world twice - he joined a group of sailors with no country - he is in a way prostituting himself - ends up sleeping with Rebeca and marrying her - he is huge and muscular now - he is seen as a very masculine, very strong man - he is able to wrestle with a lot of men at one time - immensely strong
• Aureliano - takes charge of the war situation - re-invents himself as a colonel
  

Summary:

§ Aureliano and Remedios finally get married after she hits puberty. The family teaches the young girl to be a wife, how to care for herself, and how to run a household. They marry, despite the fact that Aureliano kept dropping the ring, and with Remedios’ unwavering calmness. Rebeca is unhappy because they were supposed to get married too, but Pietro received news of his mom’s death, so he left. But his mom had come for her son’s wedding, so the letter had been a fake. It probably was from Amaranta.
§ The priest who married Aureliano and Remedios saw that there was a lot of bad stuff going on, so he, Father Nicanor Reyna, was going to stay to Christianize everyone. Father Nic wanted to build the largest church in the world, bigger than Rome’s, and went around collecting money. But he started going crazy, and got people to come to see the real power of the Lord. Father Nic levitated into the air, and got so much money, he started to build the church within a month. It was also bought to the Father’s attention that JAB spoke Latin, so he tried to convert JAB to Christianity. But the priest gave up on him.
§ The church was being built, and Amaranta said that Rebeca’s wedding would be the first to be in the church. But the church would not be done for another ten years. The church kept getting donations, so the process kept speeding up. With a month till the wedding, Amaranta put mothballs in Rebeca’s wedding dress. But, Amparo sewed up a new dress for her. But more bad news occurred. Remedios died, and I think she was pregnant with twins. Amaranta prayed that she would not have to kill Rebeca. It also said that Remedios was an excellent wife, and that she accepted the son of Aureliano and Pilar. She got pregnant, but she died before giving birth. Amaranta adopted Aureliano Jose as her own son. Rebeca began to eat dirt again in her unhappiness of not getting married.
§ Then, all of a sudden, a stranger came to town, who ended up being Jose Arcadio. Ursula was so happy to see her prodigal son. He began to sleep with a lot of women, and slept all day, and partied at night, and told the stories of his wonderful adventures.

• Rebeca begins to fall in love with Jose Arcadio. She loves his masculinity, and thinks that Pietro is a dandy man. She gets alone with him, and he apparently takes her virginity. A few days later, they get married. Pietro is upset, but Jose Arcadio tells him that there is still Amaranta to marry. The honeymoon of Jose Arcadio and Rebeca is wild, and they wake everyone up many times in the middle of the night.
• Pietro does ask Amaranta to marry him, but she says wait a little while. Aureliano feels sick and goes to see a doctor who is a terrorist in reality. He wants to assasinate the Conservatives, because he is a Liberal. The doctor convinces a lot of young peole, and tries to get Aureliano on his side, but they are planning to kill the Moscote family. Aureliano stops them, but the Liberals were convincing Arcadio that war would be the best solution, and to institute free love, and kill the priest. But the whole time, an army was already on its way. They came, and took away all things that could be weapons, and implemented a six o'clock curfew. They killed the terrorist doctor, and the priest, and a woman. Aureliano decided it was time for war. A surprise attack on the soldiers using their own weapons occurred. The rebels killed the army captain, and the soldiers who killed the woman. The rebels named Arcadio civil and military leader of Macondo. Aurelaino promises the safety of the Moscotes, and officially renames himself as Colonel Aureliano Buendia.

Quotes:

• "'Of course, Crespi,' [Amaranta] said. 'But when we know each other better. It's never good to be hasty in things.'" Amaranta accepts Pietro's proposal of marriage, but it surprised me that she wants to wait, when all she had wanted to do before was to destroy Rebeca's chances of marrying her love. But Rebeca is already married, so Amaranta did not succeed in stopping Rebeca from getting married at all. Rebeca just married another less expected man.
• "'Not madness,' Aureliano said. 'War. And don't call me Aurelito any more. Now I'm called Colonel Aureliano Buendia.'" This is probably the start of the new Aureliano, the one that is having all the flashbacks before he is killed by a firing squad. This is just the beginning for him. That is why it stood to me.

Themes:

• War: This is just the beginning of the war that occurs in Macondo. This is definitely one of the major themes in the book.