100 Years of Solitude’s fascination with time begins on the first page. From its outset the novel dispenses with any notion of linear time. The first sentence alone incorporates three
distinct time periods and collapses them into one, reading “Many years later,
as he faced the firing sqyad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that
distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.” This disregard
with linearity would remain a fixture of the novel, with long digressions into
the future or the past, sometimes maintaining perspective and other times
switching to that of a different character. Regardless of the vantage point the
effect is the same, demonstrating a fluidity to time that runs counter to our
intuition of it is a linear phenomenon, flowing in only one direction and
perhaps more importantly, only being intelligible when things flow in that
direction. Our intuitions run counter to the laws of physics, which can
function both forwards and backwards in time. There is no one direction to time
and our sense that there is is only an illusion. One logical conclusion spawning
from this nonlinear view of time is eternalism, which posits that the past,
present and future all exist simultaneously. One common representation of this
is the universe as a block, with each slice of the block representing one unit
of time and each dimension of space. No differentiation is given between past,
present and future. The block universe as it is known is compared to a reel of
film, where all of time exists at once but can only be experienced by us in a
particular order. The novel itself can be considered analogous to that reel of
film, except it leans even further into that notion of time existing all at
once by offering a narrative that constantly takes the past, present and future
and offers it to the reader as existing at once.
There is a view of the block universe, the growing block, which allows for a true
‘present’; each infinitesimal slice of the block universe that gets added to
the block represents the present, allowing for temporal linearity to exist.
However, such a view of time is at odds with what is espoused in the novel.
Instead, tthe view of time presented dispenses with the causality needed to
create the sense of free will, action leading to consequence leading to further
action and so forth. The simultaneity of all temporal states, finding a
physical representation in the novel itself, is married to a determinism seen
in the echoing of time itself. In 100 Years of Solitude, one is not a
master of their own fate; one is hardly a master of their own traits it seems.
The names of the characters repeat themselves and with those names come shared
traits that often doom characters to the same fates as their forebears of
shared appellation. Ursula takes note of this, the novel stating “Looking at
the sketch that Aureliano Triste drew on the table that was a direct descendant
of the plans with which Jose Arcadio Buendia had illustrated his project for solar
warfare, Ursula confirmed her impression that time was going in a circle.” The
world the characters of 100 Years of Solitude inhabit is at once
eternalist, prone to echoing and constantly folds in on itself. It is a world
where agency becomes difficult to come by. How can one have agency where the
future is already determined? When they are doomed to repeat the past? When
cause and effect are obfuscated because time flows in many directions rather
than one?
100 Years of Solitude ultimately depicts humanity as being at the mercy of time,
not only for the aforementioned lack of agency, but also in the way we both owe
every experience we have to it and are ultimately destroyed by it. Past,
present and future may collapse into one, but even in such a world change
remains the only constant. No two regions of the block universe are the same,
and while our sense of linear time may be illusory, the disparity between
different moments in time that give rise to this perceived experience is still
very real. Returning to the idea of the growing block universe, should one
isolate any of those slices of the present and treat it as the entirety, then
we would be left in a world that is devoid of any meaningful experience. If
one’s field of vision is entirely one color, and that one color is the only thing
they have ever seen it is hard to say they can actually see. With time comes
difference and with difference comes experience, but the nature of time is such
that it inevitably leads to death and destruction. This is seen in the novel in
the way all the Buendias seem to only grow worse off with time. Jose Arcadio
Buendia eventually loses his mind. Colonel Aureliano Buendia becomes reduced to
a state where all he does is make little gold fishes, before melting them and
using the molten gold to make new fishes, with no other real purpose for living
other than this repetitive cycle. Rebecca ultimately becomes isolated from her
community, never stepping out of her house as she slowly molders both
physically and mentally. There are far more examples throughout the novel as
most of the Buendias succumb to a less than ideal fate. Maconda itself falls
victim to the decay inevitable with time. Time is unkind to us and our
creations. It is at once the source of all suffering but also allows for
happiness. The contrast between our suffering and moments of joy make the
latter far more meaningful. If one were to freeze themselves in the happiest
moment of their life then they would experience no happiness at all. There is
no contrast, and it would be as if the emotional field of vision would be all
one color. The inevitability of each of our defeats to time is what gives
meaning to our current experiences. This defeat is the only assurance we have
in life, and in most cases it comes before death even befalls us. The impetus
to cherish the moments we do have is far greater as a result.
