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19PROPER NAMES IN G. G. MARQUEZ'S NOVEL "ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE" AS BEARERS OF AUTHOR MISSION
Aysel Talibova Saleh gizi
Baku Engineering University, Baku, Azerbaijan
DOI: https://doi.org/10.31435/rsglobal_wos/28022020/6913
ABSTRACT
The article is about proper names that are found in the work "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The literary-ideological relation between the semantic and etymological meanings these names contain and the characters and activities of the images that are bearers of those names has been investigated. The names that have this kind of symbolic meanings are mainly toponyms and anthroponyms in the work. Firstly, the research about the meanings and historical originalities of those names has been carried out, then the relations between their literary missions and this information have been analyzed in the article. Almost all toponyms and anthroponyms have mystical-symbolic meanings in the work. The article contains the research basically about a toponym (Macondo), an ethnonym (gypsy), 3 anthroponyms (José, Úrsula, Melquíades).
Citation: Aysel Talibova Saleh gizi. (2020) Proper Names in G. G. Marquez's Novel "One Hundred Years of Solitude" as Bearers of Author Mission. International Academy Journal Web of Scholar. 2(44). doi: 10.31435/rsglobal_wos/28022020/6913
Copyright: © 2020 Aysel Talibova Saleh gizi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Introduction. The most famous work by world wide known writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez is the novel "One Hundred Years of Solitude" that he won Nobel Prize for. Every event, every detail, every character has literary-symbolic mission in the work. As well as some onomastic units, especially anthroponyms and toponyms in the work have been purposely selected by the author according to meanings they bear. Possibly, the writer who loves mystery as he writes in magic realism gives exact information neither about the time of the events nor the place in his works for his this feature. The names chosen bear symbolic essence due to their meanings.
Toponyms: Macondo. We come across with only a toponym in the work: Macondo. The nation has been named after it as well: Macondo people. The writer hasn't randomly chosen this name. Marquez would travel to different places with his grandfather by train in his childhood. In one of such trips: "...the train stopped at a station not belonging to any village, after a while it passed in front of the only banana plantation on its way. It had its name written on its door: "Macondo". This name and its melodic sound drew my attention since my childhood. After too many years when I saw the meaning of this name in encyclopedia I had already used it as the name of an imaginary village in 3 of my works. The name of the village was taken from cognominal tree. Macondo is a tropical tree that has a giant body and doesn't have buds or fruit. Later I had read that cognominal ancient tribe existed in the book "Britannica", and the name of the tree could be stemmed from here" (Marquez, 2016, p. 31). In short, this name is of great importance in terms of having ancient historical roots and containing modern meanings in order to be chosen as a village name in such a work by Marquez. As we see from the citation, Macondo is the name of lands where banana plantations were built. Historical-political events that stand in the center of the work are also directly connected with Banana company. At the same time Macondo is a symbolic village. It symbolizes
ARTICLE INFO
Received: 11 December 2019 Accepted: 13 February 2020 Published: 28 February 2020
KEYWORDS
Marquez,
Macondo,
gypsy,
Úrsula,
José,
Melquíades.
not only a village or a country but commonly a continent in itself. The author reveals the fate of a continent on the behalf of Macondo people as a whole.
Ethnonyms: gypsies. The word "gypsy" is also used as another tribe name alongside with Macondo people. Gypsies come to Macondo together with Melquíades in the work. "Every year during the month of March a family of ragged gypsies would set up their tents near the village, and with a great uproar of pipes and kettledrums they would display new inventions." - before they came "the world was so recent that many things lacked names, and in order to indicate them it was necessary to point" (Marquez, 2011, pp. 1-3).
As it is clear, the author calls "innovators" "gypsy". This tribe is called "gitano" in Spanish, the author's mother tongue and the language the work was written in. The word has other meanings in that language too: flunkey, smarty, dirty. Though the tribe has a distinct name in every language, some of these names were derived from the Greek word "cigany", however this word was derived from the word "tsingános" that means "untouchable" in the Byzantine language (Medieval Greek) (Altinoz, 2019). The word "cigany" renders the meanings of worthless, immoral, good-for-nothing etc. alongside with having the meaning gypsy tribe in Greek it belongs. These tribes were dependent on the states they lived in the patronage of throughout the history, and exceedingly kept back from their peoples, they had neither their own states nor lands. Here appears an interesting question: while gypsies are undeveloped societies in the world, why does the author choose gypsies as a power that brings inventions to Macondo people who still live in the early stage of the society and inspires them to some improvement? Extensive progress in the development of science and technologies began in Europe for the first time: the first book print, the first train, the first plant and factory etc. We can guess from here that this is a metaphor selected for Europeans that caused many troubles for Latin Americans for centuries. This history repeated itself when Marques was born too. With the establishment of Banana company several innovations were introduced here: television, theater and other many technologies that ease the life. However, these innovations brought some misfortunes with themselves as well. Marquez could denote Banana company founders on the behalf of the image gypsies.
Anthroponyms: José. The majority of onomastic units that are literary-symbolic meaning bearers are anthroponyms. For instance, José, Úrsula, Arcadio, Melquíades, Aureliano etc. Let's have a look at a few of these. The name Xose (José) belongs to ancient Hebrew, Jozef (Jozefma) in French has the same roots with Yusif in the Aramaic language. The lexical meaning of the name is like this: "He (God) will add" (Jose, 2019). If we pay attention to the meaning of the name, we'll notice that the name of this person who is considered the ancestor-father of the generation the Buendía hasn't been randomly chosen. Dozens of images that appeared after José Arcadio the Buendía in the work are those who came into being from that person's biological heritage who was considered moral father of human destiny in the work. This name the writer gave his hero that has prayer essence is reflected in the following chapters of the work. Another feature of the name Yusif in the image José is its being the name of a prophet. José Arcadio the Buendía is also a kind of symbolic prophet image. Just as the Jesus he was nailed to the tree - crucified by the crowd that didn't understand him.
Anthroponyms: Úrsula. The father of the generation the Buendía is José Arcadio the Buendía, and the mother of this generation is his wife Ursula. Why did the writer use the very name Ursula? Ursula is both justice guide of the family and soft-hearted mother in the work. When family members are carried away by their feelings and make mistakes or commit sins Ursula is the one who can't stay indifferent to these sins and even tries to lead them to a right path interfering. Ursula isn't just a biological mother, she is also a moral mother of all the generation the Buendía. She becomes the symbol of honesty and purity like a prophet, tries to lead the individuals of the society she lives in to that way. Her prediction skills and staying alive though years, centuries or generations pass by are literary features that are directly related to this kind of prophet life she lives. In my opinion, the name of the image has not been chosen randomly. There was a woman named Ursula Southeil who was appreaciated like a prophet in the past (Harrison, 1881). The woman who was more known with the name Mother Shipton left her trace in the history with her prophecies.
According to narratives about the woman who lived in the XIV-XV centuries she knew the mystery of the Universe and could predict the events after the century she lived in - there will come a day when people will send their ideas to one another through air (electromagnetic waves), cabs will be used without horses (automobile), invisible living creatures (viruses) will cause mass massacres (plague). She even had prophecies about the World Wars I, II and III and the ones about the first two
wars were ratified in the history (God forbid from the III!). If we analyze the connection between the real bearer of the name Ursula in the history and its bearer in the work, we can conclude that the author may have selected this name on purpose. According to the narratives about Ursula Southeil's life, the people who mistreated her underwent mysterious troubles. May be it is the very reason why family members get cursed and get drowned in their ambiguous solitude in the end as with their sins they aren't fair to that moral mother Ursula, the woman who took the most care of them and who experienced most pain out of these sins as well.
Melquíades. Most researchers conclude that Melquíades is the self image of the author. It sounds reasonable to some extent; names look alike (Melquíades - Márquez); just as the author never shows his attitude towards the events he images, we don't see Melquíades's attitude either towards J. A. Buendía or the behaviours of his children. He neither blames, nor supports; Melquíades is just a means who delivers the inventions to Macondo. At the same time the book Melquíades wrote in the Sanskrit language is also about life trajectory of a generation from beginning to the end - the generation the Buendía like in the book of Márquez's. Of note, the word "Melquíades" has the meaning "My God is Yahweh" in ancient Hebrew (Melquiades - Meaning of Melquiades, 2020). Probably, the author hasn't chosen this name randomly. But when we notice his behaviours through the work we can conclude that there is abstractness in the symbolism of the image Melquíades, not definiteness. He is the representative of divine will on the Earth. Because predicting the events beforehand and writing the fates of people are only belonged to God's will. Melquíades brings inventions and scientific innovations, but he doesn't try to direct people in terms of using those innovations, just like God.
Once Aureliano Buendía and II Aureliano start doing immoral acts, Melquíades is forgotten, his room is locked. As if they go far from God. Melquíades is as if the center where science and theology are combined. We observe it in his speeches as well. He explains the attraction of iron by magnet like this "things have also soul, you must be able to wake their souls up, that's all". Innovations of history of humanity or the discovery of existing truths "cost a lot". Some of them were sentenced to death, some were banished, and others were burned in the bonfire with claims that they were witches. It has a lot of reasons. And one of the reasons is truths didn't match mystical logic that is called early human logic. Mystical logic is to see the reason or the essence of nature laws in metaphysical forces, shortly, connects real events to unreal ones. Melquíades logic answers based on this. Melquíades gives his own chemistry lab to J. A. Buendía as a gift - symbolically sends "science and improvement light" to this Macondo (to J. A. Buendía). But like in the most essential points of the work, coincidences and strangenesses take place here as well:
"By then Melquíades had aged with surprising rapidity. On his first trips he seemed to be the same age as Jose Arcadio Buendía. But while the latter had preserved his extraordinary strength, which permitted him to pull down a horse by grabbing its ears, the gypsy seemed to have been worn dowse by some tenacious illness". We don't see Melquíades in the center after this, "high knowledge light" had already moved to a new bearer. It's interesting that both bearers of this high knowledge light live kind of the same fate. Melquíades who visits several places and spreads this knowledge suddenly ages and gets exhausted, he can no longer stand on his feet. And J. A. Buendía who exceeds a bit more and tries to exploit this knowledge light undergoes mental disorder at the end. They tie him to a tree and he has his last breath in the lap of that tree.
Conclusions. Names, especially anthroponyms are the indicators of Marquez's professional approach to events as well as containing certain literary-idelogocial goal in not only his work "One Hundred Years of Solitude", but also in all his other works. This appears in purposeful connection between the meanings the names have and the characters they are bearers of and their activities through the work. Marquez's images have magic mystery not only for their mystical skills they demonstrated through the work but also for the mystical-symbolic names they bear. As a result, we concluded that Marquez used symbolic names in his work for two purposes: a) in order to apply professional author attitude towards events to the subtextual meaning of names; b) in order to create initial impression about the image in the reader's mind by containing information related to the fate, character and literary mission of the image. The author has been able to fulfill his literary mission in two directions choosing successful samples.
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