Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Politics, Society, and Fiction in Context (Page 1 of 2)

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The issues of time and history are prominent in nearly all of the works of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and they are represented as being at once unified as well as inexorably at odds. In many of his stories, Gabriel Garcia Marquez makes theme seem mutable and in true epic fashion, he can meld together the past, present, and future to formulate a statement about his political, cultural, or social beliefs. Politically, the works of Gabriel Garcia Marquez represent both a retelling and restructuring of history since often, his stories are infused with real events and literal or historical truth. They function not only as entertaining narratives, but also as ways of thinking about and reacting to Columbian and Latin American history. Because of the political slant of many of his works, it is possible to discern that Garcia Garcia Marquez wishes to not only inform his fellow countrymen about what has passed, but to make them think about their reactions to history. Because of his use of magical realism, history, folk culture, and the outside world are able to come together and thus his fiction is a seamless blend of indigenous culture and history as well as the modern influences of colonialism and the outside world. The final result of these thoughts on the author’s works is that by presenting tales with very lofty thematic goals, Gabriel Garcia Marquez is able to balance history and modernity with a reverence for his indigenous culture and social values.

Before attempting to understand the work of Gabriel Garcia Marquez within its literary and social contexts, it is important to preface these thoughts with a short background on the political climate that influenced most of his works. Born in Aracataca, a rural town in Northern Columbia surrounded by banana plantations, Gabriel Garcia Marquez was witness to various internal struggles in the country that would eventually be woven into his most important work, One Hundred Years of Solitude. After the end of institutionalized colonial rule, the Liberal and Conservative parties battled for control, a fight that continues to this day. As a result of this internal strife, the country Garcia Marquez was raised in was frequently the site of harsh violence, even though the two parties were more like clans than entities with distinct philosophical differences. Coupled with these tensions are two important historical events which shaped the life and fiction of the author enormously; the Banana Strike Massacre of 1928 and a period of Columbian history called simply, “The Violence.” The Banana Strike Massacre occurred the year the author was born but its aftermath impacted the lives of Columbians for long afterward and is fictionalized in "One Hundred Years of Solitude". During this event, workers at the American-owned plantation went on strike with hope of gaining better working conditions and pay but were repelled by gunfire. They formed a large group to hold a demonstration near Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s hometown and again gunfire erupted. Untold numbers of people were killed and countless others disappeared completely.

In addition to the horrific event of the Banana Strike Massacre, the Gabriel Garcia Marquez was also present during the time of “The Violence” which was initially begun as a response to the Banana Strike Massacre. During this time a powerful liberal orator named Gaitan rose to power and caused a deep division in his party. Eventually Gaitain was elected the leader but he was assassinated in 1948. After his death, massive riots erupted throughout the country and guerrilla armies were formed. Within days, villages were being burned to the ground by rival factions and by the end, in 1953, over 150,000 Columbians had been killed. This event, like so many others in Marquez’s life, would appear in fictionalized form in The Evil Hour. As a journalist and liberal political activist, Marquez was on site during many of the events of the violence and has an intimate understanding of both war, internal conflict, and history. As a result of his journalism background, many events from history appear in fictionalized format to help the reader (and perhaps, to some degree, the author) make sense of them. Because of the intense historical and political background of his major works, it is necessary to look at them as statements about society and politics as well as to appreciate them for their beauty and prose.

In the large body of fictional works by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the concepts of time and history are incredibly important. In novels such as "One Hundred Years of Solitude", time is mutable and the epic history of one family line is told with frequent allusions to both the past and present. In other tales, such as Love in the Time of Cholera, Death Constant Beyond Love, and Chronicle of a Death Foretold, the past is fictionalized but based on true historical or social events. To the author, the history of Columbia and its people cannot be separated from the future or present and because of this, his tales have the unique quality of timelessness and legitimacy. As one scholar puts it, “By creating a narrative of ordinary Latin folk that is without a hint of insincerity or condescension, and by articulating a kind of history from below…Gabriel Garcia Marquez has given poetry, magic and dignity to Latin American daily life and can thus be thought of as a people’s writer” (Bell-Villada 17). This statement is incredibly pertinent to all of his works because Gabriel Garcia Marquez, while incorporating the real and the surreal (in the form of magical realism) is constantly aware of how history informs the present and future for all people. This tunes into an important aspect of Latin American culture and life since the legacy of colonialism has destroyed so many traces of the indigenous and this has led to a search for identity that can only be concluded by looking at various time periods—one before colonization and one after. He writes about ordinary people living during extraordinary times and this has broad appeal for nations of people who have a subverted or interrupted culture. This theme of a “time before” landmark events happen is also apparent in many of his works and the author takes key historical events to highlight these issues with time and how it relates to the daily life of Columbians and Latin Americans. In light of this, it is also important to recognize a few key issues Garcia Marquez brings up about his culture by using history infused with fiction (or vice versa.)

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