Diksha Sundriyal
Netflix’s ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ follows the story of the Buendia family over the course of several generations, tracing their highs and lows, births and deaths, all the while they tumble towards assured destruction. Starting with Jose Arcadio Buendia and his wife, Ursula, the show traces the origins of the mystical town called Macondo and the strange events that take place over the course of a hundred years. Still, with all the mysterious things that happen, the characters, with their flaws and vulnerabilities, feel very real. And there is a good reason behind that. SPOILERS AHEAD
Gabriel García Márquez Spun a Fictional Family Out of Real Stories
‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ is an adaptation of the highly acclaimed and one of the most popular novels by Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez. The Buendia family and all the things that happen with them over the course of the century that unfold in the book are completely fictional. García Márquez revealed that he had been playing with the idea of a family story told over generations for several years before he eventually sat down to pen the whole thing. He was on vacation with his family in Acapulco at the time and was driving somewhere when the opening scene about Colonel Aureliano Buendia completely formed in his mind. The writer later said that the idea was so clear in his head that he could have dictated the whole thing word to word to a typist. Still, the story needed work, and García Márquez spent the next eighteen months creating and destroying the Buendia family.
Due to the setting and span of the story, García Márquez leaned on several real-life events, like the Thousand Days’ War and the massacre of striking workers in Colombia, and mixed them with fiction to put forward the circumstances that affect Macondo and its founders. As for the Buendias and the strange things that happen to them, García Márquez drew from some of the stories he had heard within his own family. Reportedly, his family had a tradition where they would sit around and reveal or repeat the stories about their family members or long-dead ancestors. According to García Márquez’s grandmother, the young writer would listen to everything keenly, but he wouldn’t add to it.
Later, when García Márquez wrote the novel, his family members revealed that there were some quirks and characteristics in the members of the Buendia family that they could recognize from the stories they’d heard about their own aunts, uncles, and grandparents. The writer further leaned into his family’s style of storytelling by including all things magical with a simplicity that doesn’t make it seem out of place. García Márquez revealed that his grandmother’s style influenced him the most as she would always tell the most fascinating stories with a blank expression, and that’s what made them all the more believable.
Gabriel García Márquez Loosely Based the Buendias on His Own Family
In his advice to young writers, Gabriel García Márquez once said that he always had a touch of reality in whatever he wrote. He wrote what he knew, and throwing in a pinch of realism gave more depth to his fiction. He never acknowledged which characters in the Buendia family were inspired by which family member, but comparisons have been made over the years. For example, it is believed that the character of Colonel Aureliano Buendia may have been loosely based on García Márquez’s grandfather, who was also a colonel and fought in the Thousand Days’ War for the Liberals.
Reportedly, García Márquez created the dirt-eating facet of Rebeca from his sister, Margot, who also had the tendency to do that. She is also considered the inspiration for the character of Amaranta, who had a way of holding grudges. In the same vein, García Márquez borrowed some minor quirks and some major events from the lives of his own family members to bring the Buendia family to life. However, when it comes to the greater plot, especially the darker stuff like incest and murder, it all came from the writer’s imagination. As he sat down to write the novel, he wanted to focus on the way the past is always connected to the future and how one cannot escape the sins of their fathers and the curse inflicted upon their family generations ago. By borrowing the snippets from the stories about his own family members, García Márquez added a layer of believability to the Buendias.
Read More: One Hundred Years of Solitude: Is Macondo a Real Place in Colombia?
