100 Years of Solitude: José Arcadio's story

By Gabriel García Márquez

     I think this is one of the most curious characters. He literally turns from a mere human to a giant Hulk in this story. 

     José Arcadio is the oldest son of José Arcadio Buendía and Ursula Iguarán and is constantly referred as José Arcadio. Because believe me, there's other three José Arcadios (not including his father). 

     I guess that's something not unusual in families. I do remember seeing a movie where they made fun of how the children of a mexican family were all called Juan, Juanito, Juana, Juanita, Juan Luis, Juana Esperanza, etc. You get my point.

     José Arcadio, the oldest, grows up and is fascinated by Pilar Ternera, an older women who says she can foretell the future using cards. He starts a relationship with her only telling his younger brother, Aureliano. While the gypsies visit  Macondo and bring a festive atmosphere to the couple; Pilar, convinced of his love for her, tells him abruptly that she is going to have his child. José Arcadio panics, hides, meets a young gypsie girl with which he makes love and a day later flees with them. Ursula goes after him but is unable to find him.

Hi, mom, you're
little boy came back!

     He goes missing for a lot of years and suddenly a super macho giant tattooed all over his body knocks at the Buendía's door. When they open the door, he walks through the house surprising the inhabitants till he arrives to the kitchen where Ursula is. She immediately recognizes José Arcadio much to the others astonishment who didn't recognize him at all. José Arcadio is a flatulent-womanizer-Hulk-tattooed-guy who narrates in the diner table how he traveled around the world 65 times, had once to eat a fellow sailor to survive and described the taste as sweet, and had all the prostitutes in Macondo all over him which charged him nothing.
     Rebeca, who is three days away from marrying Pietro Crespi, falls madly in love with him at first sight. Unable to resist anymore she approaches his room at night, José Arcadio recognizes her intentions and asks her to come to his arms where they have a scene similar to a screwdriver destroying the guts of Rebeca. The next day, José Arcadio meets Pietro Crespi and tells him he is going to marry Rebeca. Pietro silently cries and, feeling pity, José Arcadio tells him that if he likes the family there is still Amaranta. Ursula exiles Rebeca and José Arcadio and they start living in front of the graveyard. Rebeca manages to subdue José Arcadio to a working man due to her ability to satisfy his husband's overwhelming desires.

     When Aureliano parts to help the liberals rebels and leaves Arcadio to take care of Macondo, José Arcadio with his great strength destroys the fences of his neighbors while he works his own and robs their land. Arcadio visits them due to this but far from solving the problem decides to help José Arcadio to get the official documents of the plots he stole. Since then Arcadio, who doesn't know Pilar and José Arcadio are his parents, has a great relationship with Rebeca and José Arcadio.
     When Arcadio is shot in the cemetery wall in front of their house, Rebeca manages to say goodbye from afar moments before he dies. Soon after Aureliano is captured and is scheduled to be shot. Rebeca is sure they will shoot him just like Arcadio in front of the cemetery wall but José Arcadio indifferent tells her that there's no way they would be so stupid to shoot his brother in there when they could do it in the barracks. But just as Rebeca predicted, they decided to shoot Aureliano in front of their house.
     Just as Aureliano resigned to his death, José Arcadio emerged menacing from the house with a shotgun pointing at the officials. The officials freed Aureliano and joined him in his mission to save the liberal leader who is to be shot tomorrow in Riohacha. José Arcadio returns to his house and continues his normal life with Rebeca. Some days later, José Arcadio was murdered.

Mom, I'm back again (:

     José Arcadio fell and a line of blood emerged from an nonexistent wound in his head that traveled outside the house, through the roads, the grass, all the way to the Buendía's house where it climbed stairs, turned corners, stuck to the wall to avoid dirtying the rugs and finally led to the kitchen were it reached Ursula. Surprised, she followed the blood line till he found the death body of his son which smelled strongly of gunpowder. They buried him in the cemetery after many days of trying to remove the smell without success. The smell was so strong they did all they could to lessen it but was finally eradicated when the banana plantation added a cover of zinc where he was buried to prevent the contamination it originated.
     Some thought it was a government spy, others suspected Rebeca; the version she gave was that she was in the bathroom when she heard a shot.

     And so that's how the flatulent-womanizer-tattooed-Hulk died. Never was the mystery solved in the whole book. 

     The solitude he had seemed to come from detachment and vices. Yet it somehow surprises me how he really cared for his family. He had a nice relationship with his son, he saved his brother even when he acted as if he didn't care and his blood sought for her mother when he died. Maybe the reason he returned to Macondo was because he felt lonely and even yet he felt out of place in his family. 

     He's really a memorable character due to his strange appearance but has a very humane heart when it's about his family. Not his neighbors nor fellow sailors.

Hope you liked it!