The concept of mental health in this book was a constantly present theme, particularly in the beginning of the book. There are times, however, when the mental health turns into a fantastic element. The ‘insomnia plague’ was the first major thing I noticed. The people were all concerned about catching a sickness that would cause a lack of sleep and memory loss. The supernatural line isn’t crossed until it affects the entire town. The Indian in their house predicted the entire town getting it, and eventually the entire town got it. This resulted in the town labeling everything to remember the purpose of certain things. The character Melquiades eventually returns with an antidote.
“No one was alarmed at first. On the contrary, they were happy at not sleeping because there was so much to do in Macondo in those days that there was barely enough time.”
Another consideration of mental soundness was Jose Arcadio Buendia and his frenzies of obsession. In the beginning of the book, he became so interested in the things the gypsies bought, he did dangerous things and wasted money and resources. He often got so absorbed in his work that he stressed needlessly until the point of breakdown. This happened on page 78 when he began thinking too hard about time and began to smash his laboratory to bits.
“On Friday, before anyone arose, he watched the appearance of nature again until he did not have the slightest doubt that it was Monday. Then he grabbed the bar from a door and with the savage violence of his uncommon strength, he smashed to dust the equipment in the alchemy laboratory, the daguerreotype room, the silver workshop, shouting like a man possessed in some high-sounding and fluent but completely incomprehensible language.”
There is also a character in the book named Rebeca. When she is first bought to the village, she acts feral and eats dirt when she is stressed. This habit, while it was minimized for a period, came back for her whenever she experienced high levels of upset or fear.
Overall, the mental health parts of the story added to the complication of the characters. It made them quirky and interesting, and gave them more to their personalities. The fantastic was involved when the entire town caught insomnia and it turned into a plague of forgetfulness. None of the citizens could remember people or situations they were in and an antidote was bought for them eventually, showing the unrealistic nature of the insomnia they were experiencing.
I feel like I keep returning to this concept in my comments, but I was reminded again of our discussions on scale while reading your post. Everything is dialed up. When does something a bit strange or unhealthy become fantastic? The examples you provided show us that when these problems become big enough, they seem fantastic rather than just unhealthy.
As I commented on JGB’s list of fantastic elements, I was really interested in Rebeca’s situation. There is a disease where people eat things they aren’t supposed to, so on that level her behavior isn’t necessarily fantastic, but to these people who probably had never seen anything like it before, it certainly seemed that way.
I completely agree with your final statement. This works across many different books, not just this one in particular. Giving them special “quirks” or possibly an “illness” of some sort really helps us as readers remember who we’re hearing about when the character appears on the page. Not only do we, the readers, remember, but so do the other characters involved. They’ll see another character and say, “oh, that’s the girl who eats dirt.”
I think another thing to consider fantastic is the way mental health issues were mostly ignored at least until they tied Jose Arcadio Buendia to a tree and then built a shelter around him to keep that rain off of him.