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Aureliano (II) is the purest example in One Hundred Years of Solitude of the solitary, destructive Buendía thirst for knowledge. He is utterly isolated by his grandmother, Fernanda del Carpio, because she is ashamed that he was born out of wedlock. He never even leaves the house until he is fully grown. As he lives in solitude, however, he acquires a store of knowledge almost magical in scope. He knows far more than he could have read in his family’s books and seems to have miraculously accessed an enormous store of universal knowledge. After having an incestuous relationship with his aunt, Amaranta Úrsula, Aureliano (II) watches the last of the Buendía line (their son, born with the tail of a pig) being eaten by ants. He finally translates the prophecies of the old gypsy, Melquíades, which foretell both the act of translation and the destruction of Macondo that occurs as he reads. Aureliano (II) is therefore Macondo’s prophet of doom, destroying the town with an act of reading and translation that is similar to our reading of One Hundred Years of Solitude.

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