Characters in 100 Years of Solitude: Generations 3-5

100 Years of Solitude: Characters!

The complexity of this book lies within its characters. If you are having trouble keeping them all separated and distinct while you are reading, take a look at some of these details to help you:

Third Genertion:

Arcadio is José Arcadio's illegitimate son by Pilar Ternera. He is a schoolteacher who assumes leadership of Macondo after Colonel Aureliano Buendía leaves and becomes a tyrannical dictator. When the Liberal forces in Macondo fall, Arcadio is shot by a Conservative firing squad.

Aureliano José is the illegitimate son of Colonel Aureliano Buendía and Pilar Ternera.  He joins his father in several wars before deserting to return to Macondo. He deserted because he is obsessed with his aunt, Amaranta, who raised him since birth. The theme of incest is a motif in the book. We might consider "incest" insolation from outside or marginal cultures. Aurenliano Jose is eventually shot to death by a Conservative captain midway through the wars.

Santa Sofía is a beautiful virgin girl and the daughter of a shopkeeper. She is hired by Pilar Ternera to have sex with her son Arcadio, her eventual husband. After Úrsula's death she leaves Macondo unexpectedly.

17 Aurelianos: During his 32 civil war campaigns, Colonel Aureliano Buendía has 17 sons by 17 different women, each named after their father. Eventually, as revenge against the Colonel, all are assassinated by the government, which identified them by the mysteriously permanent cross on their foreheads.

Fourth Generation:

Remedios the Beauty is Arcadio and Santa Sofía's first child. It is said she is the most beautiful woman ever seen in Macondo, and unintentionally causes the deaths of several men who love her. Too beautiful and, arguably, too wise for the world, Remedios ascends into the sky one afternoon while folding laundry.

José Arcadio Segundo is the twin brother of Aureliano Segundo, the children of Arcadio and Santa Sofía. Úrsula believes that the two were switched in their childhood, as José Arcadio begins to show the characteristics of the family's Aurelianos, growing up pensive and quiet while Aureliano Segundo is impulsive much like the Jose Arcadios of the family. Jose Arcadio plays a major role in the banana worker strike, and is the only survivor when the company massacres the workers.  Afterward, he spends the rest of his days studying the parchments of Melquiades, and tutoring the young Aureliano (Aureliano II). Aureliano Segundo marries the bitter Fernanda del Carpio, although he takes Petra Cotes as his lover. Their love allows their livestock to propagate wildly. After the long rains, Aureliano Segundo's wealth and fortune dries up (a little irony there), leaving the Buendias penniless. He searches for gold, but goes insane like his great grandfather. He dies at the exact instant that his twin does.

Fernanda del Carpio is the only major character (except for Rebeca and the First generation) not from Macondo and is seen as an outsider all her life. She comes from a ruined, aristocratic family that kept her isolated from the world and is brought to Macondo to compete with Remedios for the title of Queen of the carnival. She marries Aureliano Segundo and soon takes the leadership of the family away from the now-frail Úrsula. She manages the Buendía affairs with an iron fist. She has three children by Aureliano Segundo: José Arcadio, Renata Remedios, a.k.a. Meme, and Amaranta Úrsula. 

Fifth Generation: 

Renata Remedios, or Meme is the second child and first daughter of Fernanda and Aureliano Segundo. Meme falls in love with Mauricio Babilonia, but when Fernanda discovers their affair, she arranges for Mauricio to be shot, claiming that he was a chicken thief. She then takes Meme to a convent. Meme remains mute for the rest of her life, partially because of the trauma, but also as a sign of rebellion. Several months later she gives birth to a son, Aureliano, at the convent. He is sent to live with the Buendías. Aureliano arrives in a basket and Fernanda is tempted to kill the child in order to avoid shame, but instead claims he is a orphan in order to cover up her daughter's promiscuity. Meme dies of old age in a hospital in Kraków. 

José Arcadio II follows the trend of previous Arcadios. He is raised by Úrsula, who intends for him to become Pope. He returns from Rome and eventually discovers the buried treasure Aureliano Segundo sought. Jose Arcadio II wastes this fortune on lavish parties and escapades with adolescent boys. Later, he begins a tentative friendship with Aureliano Babilonia, his nephew. José Arcadio plans to set Aureliano up in a business, but is murdered in his bath by four of his adolescent boys who steal his gold.

Amaranta Úrsula is the third child of Fernanda and Aureliano. She displays the same characteristics as her namesake who dies when she is only a child. Her nephew Aureliano II becomes her best friend and lover. Her husband, Gastón, leaves her when she informs him of her incestuous affair with her nephew, Aureliano II. She dies of a hemorage after giving birth to Aureliano III, the last child of the Beundia family line.

Aureliano Babilonia, or Aureliano II, is the illegitimate child of Meme. He is hidden from everyone by his grandmother, Fernanda, and is strikingly similar to his namesake, the Colonel, and has the same character patterns as expected. He is taciturn, silent, and emotional. Aureliano stays in the Buendía home for the entire book. He only ventures into town after Fernanda's death. It is Aureliano Babilonia (Aureliano II) who deciphers Melquiades' secret parchments after the death of his aunt and lover, Amaranta Úrsula. "...Melquíades' final keys were revealed to him and he saw the epigraph of the parchments perfectly placed in the order of man's time and space: 'The first in line is tied to a tree and the last is being eaten by ants'." It is assumed he dies in the great hurricane that destroys Macondo the moment he finishes reading Mequiades' parchments.

Aureliano III (briefly the sixth generation) is the inbred child of Aureliano and his aunt, Amaranta Úrsula and is born with a pig's tail, as the eldest and long dead Úrsula had always feared would happen. His mother dies after giving birth to him, and, due to his grief-stricken father's negligence, he is devoured by ants.

Other key characters:

Melquíades is a gypsy who visits Macondo every year, displaying amazing items and technology from around the world. Later, the gypsies report that Melquíades died, but he, nonetheless, returns to live with the Buendía family stating he could not bear the solitude of death. He writes mysterious parchments, which are eventually translated by Aureliano Babilonia. Melquíades dies a second time, drowning in a river.

Pilar Ternera is a local woman who sleeps with the brothers Aureliano and José Arcadio (second generation). She becomes mother of their sons, Aureliano José and Arcadio (third generation). Pilar reads the future with cards, and every so often makes an accurate prediction. She has close ties with the Buendias throughout the whole novel. She dies some time after she turns 145 years old, surviving until the very last days of Macondo. The word "Ternera" in Spanish is a portmanteau meaning veal or calf, (which is fitting considering the way she is treated by Aureliano, Jose Arcadio, and Arcadio) and the word "Ternura", which in Spanish means "Tenderness".

Pietro Crespi is a handsome and polite Italian musician who runs a music school. He becomes engaged to Rebeca, but Amaranta, who also loves him, manages to delay the wedding for years. When José Arcadio and Rebeca agree to be married, Pietro begins to woo Amaranta, who cruelly rejects him. Desperate over the loss of both sisters, he kills himself.

Petra Cotes is a dark-skinned woman with gold-brown panther eyes. She is Aureliano Segundo's mistress and the love of his life. When Aureliano Segundo and Petra make love, their animals reproduce at an amazing rate, but their livestock is wiped out during the four years deluge.

Mr. Herbert is an outsider who shows up at the Buendía house for lunch one day. After tasting the local bananas, he arranges for a banana company to set up a plantation in Macondo. The plantation is run by the dictatorial Mr. Brown. When José Arcadio Segundo helps arrange a workers' strike, the company traps the three thousand strikers and guns them down in the town square. The company arranges for the army to kill off any resistance, then leaves Macondo, a broken and ruined town. This event is likely based on a real event: the Banana massacre that took place in Santa Marta, Colombia in 1928.

Mauricio is a brutally honest, generous and handsome mechanic for the banana company. He is said to be a descendant of the gypsies who visited Macondo in the early days. He has the unusual characteristic of being constantly swarmed by yellow butterflies. Mauricio begins a romantic affair with Meme until Fernanda tries to end it. When Mauricio sneaks into the house to see her, Fernanda has him shot, claiming he is a chicken thief. Paralyzed and bedridden, he spends the rest of his long life in solitude.

Gastón is Amaranta Úrsula's wealthy, Belgian husband. She marries him in Europe and returns to Macondo leading him on a silk leash. Gastón is considerably older than his wife and is an aviator and  adventurer.

Gabriel García Márquez is only a minor character in the novel, although he is obviously the author as well. He is the great-great-grandson of Colonel Gerineldo Márquez. He and Aureliano Babilonia are close friends and only they know the history of the town, which no one else believes. He leaves for Paris after winning a contest and decides to stay there, selling old newspapers and empty bottles. Gabriel Garcia Marquez is one of the few characters able to leave Macondo before the town is wiped out. This is obviously a self-referential character which is a characteristic of Magical Realism.