Melquíades’ prophecies also occupy a peculiar place in
time, since, although they are written as predictions for what will
happen in the future, they are read by Aureliano (II) as an accurate
history of the Buendía family. As the wind swirls around him, Aureliano
(II) is finally able to decipher Melquíades’ prophecies, and he
finds that Melquíades has left behind a prophecy of the history
of the town, which is accurate to the last detail. The text of the
prophecy mirrors the reality of the town’s history, so that Aureliano
(II) is reading about his destruction as he experiences it. The
sense of unavoidable destiny is strong: the Buendías, we realize,
have long been living lives foretold—and thus, in a sense, ordained—by
the all-knowing book. It might even be argued that the text of the
prophecy, in fact, is identical to the book One Hundred
Years of Solitude, and that Melquíades has served all along
as a surrogate for the author, Gabriel García Márquez. Certainly
the prophecy has succeeded as literature that simultaneously shapes
and mirrors reality, just as One Hundred Years of Solitude tries
to shape a fictional world while simultaneously mirroring the reality
of García Márquez’s Colombia. Melquíades’s vision, early in the
novel, of a city with walls of glass, has come true in a sense:
Macondo is a city made of glass and of mirrors that reflect back
the reality of the author’s world.
