In my last post, I left two important ideas without a good explanation, that because I was not sure about my thesis and I preferred to finish the book before develop those statements. Fortunately, the professor and Ericka understood these ideas, and commented in my bloq, then, I feel that I must develop this post explaining my perception of those concerns that I mention in my last comment.
The last week, I mentioned that I was feeling that Gabriel Garcia Marquez converted Simon Bolivar into a real hero and at the beginning it could be polemic, but let me try to explain why: The connotation that most of the Latin American people have about Simon Bolivar is almost the same; he is a good guy that fight in all Latin America achieving the freedom of a lot of countries. The problem is that we have never learned a little bit about his personal life, his mistakes or his weakness. Therefore, Simon Bolivar was as a myth that survive among the years. Gabriel Garcia Marquez converted Simon Bolivar as hero, when he demonstrated that Bolivar was just a man, with feeling, with mistakes and with weakness. The author took care the history of the general and the thing that Bolivar did in his life, Garcia Marquez did not forget that Bolivar was a reference of the Latin American freedom, but at the same time, Garcia Marquez established that Bolivar was as normal as one of us, he had not superpowers or anything uncommon. Therefore, in my perception of hero and, what I think Garcia Marquez wanted to do, Simon Bolivar took a human image more real and therefore more near to us.
The second statement that I did the last week, was about the perception of the death in the book. Among the story, I perceived that the death of Simon Bolivar was more near page by page… his weakness, his ill, the form in which he was remembering all his life create an atmosphere of death. The interesting point here, is the perception of death that Simon Bolivar had. On one point, he had not fear to the death in all his battles, I think that he was prepared for the final even before his illness. But on the other hand, I perceived that Simon Bolivar was not content with the way in which he pass the last year of his life. The situation in Colombia or in “La gran Colombia” was not what he wished all his life…
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3 comments:
Way to spell my name wrong! Haha! Thanks for explaining what you meant by the book attracting you with the image of death. I also enjoyed how Garcia Marquez was able to humanize Simon Bolivar, which to me, made this “myth” of a man (as you said) even more heroic. His lack of superpowers and physical strength makes me admire him even more for having succeeded in so many adversities.
Just to pick up on Erica's point... that's an interesting irony, isn't it? That seeing how human a so-called hero actually is might make him seem even more of a hero. I'm not entirely sure that that's García Márquez's intention, but it's certainly an interesting reading.
oh the irony in here and there. I'm getting dizzy. I guess you, erica and the professor are right. It's impressive to see how a person, a small man, managed to get so much done even when his own body is limiting him of doing so.
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