People don't boast of being like their mother or father. But the traits of ancestors are passed down through families, binding them together. The Buendia family, from "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Márquez, is a perfect example of the mystical ruin that follows through the generations. Nobel Prize winner, Márquez weaves a story about life in Macadona and the strange and twisted Buendia family line. The story deals with mysterious dark magic, death and terrifying tales of incest, debauchery and love. Throughout the story, Marquez creates Macadona as if time repeats itself. Each generation makes the same fateful choices as its relatives. In this story the protagonists have many differences in their fate. However; they all share unifying facts that bind them together in the hundred years of solitude. The men of the Buendia family all come from José Arcadio Buendia I. Márquez describes his character as a charismatic, stubborn and imaginative man. Macadona was founded by him after a discussion with Prudencio Aguilar. This led to Jose stabbing him in the throat. Haunted by Aguilar's ghost, Jose has a dream and goes in search of Macadona. Jose Arcadio Buendia was obsessed with magic. After meeting the gypsy Melquiades, Jose slowly loses contact with reality while trying to decipher a Sanskrit manuscript left to him. After a while, Ursula, his wife and his cousin, ordered “twenty men to drag him to the chestnut tree in the courtyard, where they left him tied” (Márquez,78). Ursula made this decision for her safety and that of her family. He remained there until his death, screaming wildly in perfect Latin. Jose's children also followed a similar tragic fate. José Arcadio II was like his father in attitude b...... middle of paper ...... educated to solitary lifestyles. In the book “One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel Garcia Márquez, the characteristics of each family member resemble another. They may start differently, but their fate will follow the same tragic conclusion. Buendia men suffer from their macho pride and recklessness. Women are subservient to the will of men and are burdened by the tragedy that follows them. This book is locked in a time loop for 100 years, condemned to repeat the mistakes of their ancestors. The Buendia family all share unifying facts that bind them together creating their own solitude. Márquez describes the life and fate of Buendia's struggle against madness, incest, and 100 years of loneliness that are erased at the end of the book. Works Cited García, Márquez Gabriel and Gregory Rabassa. One hundred years of solitude. New York: HarperCollins, 2006. Print.