In my last blog post, I talked about the theme of circular time in One Hundred Years of Solitude. This theme can also be seen in the last pages of the novel, as Aureliano reads Melquiades’s parchments:
Aureliano had never been more lucid in any act of his life as when he forgot about his dead ones and the pain of his dead ones and nailed up the doors and windows again with Fernanda’s crossed boards so as not to be disturbed by any temptations of the world, for he knew then that his fat was written in Melquiades’s parchments…. It was the history of the family, written by Melquiades, down to the most trivial details, one hundred years ahead of time. (415)
The parchments not only tell the story of the family over the course of one hundred years but told them “in such a way that they coexisted in one instant.” (415) While reading the parchments, Aureliano learns about his ancestors, as well as his short future:
Then he skipped again to anticipate the predictions and ascertain the date and circumstances of his death. Before reaching the final line, however, he had already understood that he would never leave that room, for it was foreseen that the city of mirrors (or mirages) would be wiped out by the wind and exiled from the memory of men at the precise moment when Aureliano Babilonia would finish deciphering the parchments, and that everything written on them was unrepeatable since time immemorial and forever more, because races condemned to one hundred years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth. (416-417)
All of this proves how time functions circularly in this novel, and I’m particularly interested in the fact that the parchments were written as if everything was taking place at once. This ties into how face-paced the novel feels and how easy it is to get the actions of separate characters confused; it’s all happening in the blink of an eye.