Summary Of One Hundred Years Of Solitude

Okay, first, a few ground rules for this summary. One Hundred Years of Solitude jumps back and forth in time so much it makes our heads spin. So to make things simpler, we 're going to summarize the events in linear time, not the order in which they appear in the novel. Basically, be sure you 've read it cover to cover already, just so we don 't spoil anything for you.

Here goes. José Arcadio Buendía and his cousin, Úrsula, fall in love and decide to get married without their families ' permission. Úrsula is stressed that incest isn 't best and that it will lead to a child with a pig 's tail, so she doesn 't want to consummate the marriage. José Arcadio Buendía wins a cockfight, and the loser, Prudencio Aguilar, teases him about his wife not

It doesn 't work, and he ends up getting her pregnant in the process. But she does agree to set up the marriage. After Remedios finally gets her period, she and Aureliano marry and he is extremely happy for the first time in his life.

Úrsula decides to liven up the house and throw a party. Part of the prep is buying a player-piano, which comes with a technician named Pietro Crespi. Both Rebeca and Amaranta fall in love with him, and a bitter hatred and rivalry starts up between them. Pietro prefers Rebeca and they become engaged, while Amaranta plots ways to disrupt the wedding. Finally, the wedding is about to happen, and Amaranta decides to murder Rebeca. But she prays hard for some other thing to happen so she doesn 't have to go through with it. The other thing that happens? Remedios dies from some kind of pregnancy complication.

José Arcadio (II) suddenly comes back, giant, tattooed, and wild. He 's been a sailor. When he gets home, he and Rebeca have instant chemistry and get married despite the fact that everyone is grossed out by the almost-incest. Pietro Crespi now falls in love with Amaranta, but she rejects him and he ends up killing

At first he 's on the side of his father-in-law, the Conservative town mayor Don Apolinar, but when he sees how super-corrupt the Conservative government is, he decides to join up with the Liberals. They turn out to be better, so Aureliano starts calling himself Colonel Aureliano Buendía and becomes a leader in a civil war between the Liberals and the Conservatives. The Colonel loses all of the rebellions he starts all over the country, but manages to constantly escape death in a series of close calls and assassination attempts. Also, while he travels, a lot of beautiful women come to his tent at night to sleep with him – it 's apparently a thing, like back in the days of gladiators. He ends up fathering seventeen sons, all named Aureliano. Eventually he is captured and put in front of a firing squad, but his brother José Arcadio (II) rescues him.

The civil wars are endless and relentless. Back home, Arcadio, the secret son of José Arcadio (II), marries Santa Sofía de la Piedad. While she is pregnant Arcadio is put in charge of Macondo by Colonel Aureliano Buendía. He turns out to be a horrible tyrant, making up for the all the sad indignities of his childhood, and is finally executed by firing squad. He and Sofía have three kids: Remedios, and the twins Aureliano Segundo and José Arcadio