Active Reading Chapter 7

Magical Elements:

• Colonel Aureliano's ablilty to see the future, i.e. his execution. He foresaw his death, and felt like he had already walked through the streets of Macondo already, when he came back home. His power of premonition is magical.
• The blood of Jose Arcadio when he got shot was spread like through the entire town until it got to Ursula’s home. How is that possible? It’s magic.
• The raining of the little yellow flowers after JAB died. Obviously magic.

Characters:

• Colonel Aureliano Buendia - has come home but only to be executed - was in charge of the original rebellion - looks like a beggar -

Summary:

• Ursula realizes that Aureliano is still alive and prepares a homecoming for him, but when he comes, he comes as a prisoner, who will be executed for starting the rebellion. Ursula goes to see her son in jail, and brings him a pistol, just in case. He does not want his mom to cry for him. However, the sentries were afraid to shoot him because they feared it would start up an entire new rebellion. The sentries drew names to see who would be the one to carry out the sentence, and in turn, get killed for it. It was Captain Roque Carnicero.
• Rebeca thought that the sentries would kill Colonel Aureliano in the middle of the night against the cemetery wall, the same place that they killed Arcadio. Jose Arcadio thought they would not, but then Rebeca saw them come out to kill Aureliano at five in the morning. Jose Arcadio went out with his gun, but Captain Roque Carnicero told him not to shoot, that they were with the Divine Providence. This meant that they were all on the same side, I guess, since they all went together to free the revolutionary general. But when they got there, he had already been shot. So the soldiers named Colonel Aureliano chief of the revolutionary forces. But then they fought a lot, and most were wiped out, and there were rumors that Colonel Aureliano had been killed. But after many defeats, he had an army and called for total war against the regime.
• They come back to Macondo and the house is full of kids. The widow of Arcadio, Santa Sofia de la Piedad, had her daughter Remedios, and her twin boys, Jose Arcadio Segundo and Aureliano Segundo.
• One day, out of the blue, Jose Arcadio was killed while Rebeca was locked inside the bathroom. Ursula had seen the blood flow, and followed it to her son’s home, where his body had no wound, and smelled profusely of gunpowder. They could not get rid of that smell, and the whole town still smelled like it. Rebeca was devastated by it, and never left her home. The town eventually forgot about her.
• Colonel Aureliano one day was poisoned with something that would have killed a horse, but he recovered after four days. Then he realized that he was fighting because of his pride, not for the Liberals. So he left with Ursula’s money and left Colonel Gerineldo Marquez in charge instead. He had proclaimed his live for Amaranta long ago, and Ursula encouraged Amaranta to marry him. But again Amaranta turned down another proposal, but he would insist in it.
• Aureliano wrote one day to his mom to take care of JAB because he was going to die. So Ursula took JAB back to her home, and took care of him. But for JAB, Prudencio was the one who talked to him, and took care of him. One day JAB got stuck in his fantasies of mirror rooms, and no one could wake him up. He had died. After he died, there was a rain of little yellow flowers that buried the town and had to be shoveled away like snow for the funeral.
  
  

Quotes:

• “’I’m not going to marry anyone,’ [Amaranta] told [Colonel Gerineldo Marquez], ‘much less you. You love Aureliano so much that you want to marry me because you can’t marry him.’” I do not understand how Amaranta keeps forfeiting her happiness. She likes the Colonel, and he likes her. So why won’t she allow herself to be happy?
• “’I have come for the exequies of the king.’” This is right after JAB dies, and right before it rains flowers. I guess it stood out because it seemed that they thought that JAB was some kind of king.
  
  Themes:
• Death: JAB died and Colonel Aureliano should have died but he did not. A lot of death occurs in the Buendia family.