THE USE OF LEXICAL MEANS FOR SHAPING SPACE-TIME PERCEPTION IN GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZ'S ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE AND LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA

ABSTRACT

This paper explores Gabriel Garcia Marquez's distinct approach to portraying time and space in his novels One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera. It argues that through deliberate lexical choices and stylistic innovations, Marquez constructs deeply immersive fictional worlds where time unfolds in either cyclical or linear patterns, and spatial settings hold symbolic and thematic significance. In Solitude, magical realism merges myth and reality, forming a closed-loop narrative shaped by repetition and fate. In contrast, Cholera presents a linear, emotionally grounded chronology, emphasizing enduring love within a historically rich urban environment. The study examines how narrative techniques and language use influence the reader’s understanding of memory, temporality, and existential meaning. Through juxtaposition, the paper reveals how each novel reflects distinct philosophical perspectives on the nature of time and existence. Ultimately, it highlights Marquez’s literary craftsmanship in breaking away from traditional narrative structures to address profound aspects of human experience.

АННОТАЦИЯ

В статье рассматриваются особенности представления времени и пространства в романах Габриэля Гарсиа Маркеса «Сто лет одиночества» и «Любовь во время холеры». Автор утверждает, что писатель с помощью тщательно подобранной лексики и стилистических приемов создает выразительные художественные миры, в которых время предстает либо в виде замкнутого цикла, либо как последовательный ход событий, а пространство наполняется символическим смыслом. В «Одиночестве» магический реализм размывает границы между мифом и реальностью, формируя замкнутую структуру, где судьба повторяется. В противоположность этому, «Холера» разворачивает историю в линейной временной перспективе, сосредоточенной на долговечности любви в городском пространстве, насыщенном культурной и исторической детализацией. Анализ показывает, как язык и композиционные элементы формируют у читателя восприятие памяти, времени и бытия. Сопоставление двух произведений выявляет различные философские взгляды на природу времени и существования. В заключение подчеркивается мастерство Маркеса в отступлении от классических форм повествования ради более глубокого осмысления человеческого опыта.

Ключевые слова: Габриэль Гарсиа Маркес, пространство, время, лексика, магический реализм, роман, цикличность, линейность.

Keywords: Gabriel Garcia Marquez, space, time, lexical style, magical realism, cyclical narrative, linear narrative, fiction.

Introduction

Gabriel Garcia Marquez stands out for his exceptional literary ability to stretch beyond ordinary realism, intricately weaving time and space into the structure of his storytelling. His narratives extend beyond simple chronology or spatial references; they build immersive fictional environments where time becomes fluid, cyclical, and subjective, while space attains emotional, symbolic, and historical resonance. This imaginative control over the fabric of reality forms the foundation of his distinctive style and narrative power. This paper explores how Marquez uses deliberate word choices and stylistic devices in One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera to shape temporal and spatial perception. The approach taken here views these elements not as decorative features, but as essential to the novels’ magical realist design, thematic exploration, and their capacity to challenge how readers perceive memory, fate, history, and existence. Focusing both on the micro-level (vocabulary) and macro-level (narrative architecture), the paper demonstrates how time and space in Marquez’s works act not as passive settings but as active forces that shape narrative meaning and character development.

Published in 1967, One Hundred Years of Solitude follows the Buendia family over several generations in the fictional town of Macondo, depicting a nonlinear world dominated by cyclical events and fantastical occurrences. The narrative structure reinforces the idea of inevitable repetition and blurred boundaries between the real and mythical. In contrast, Love in the Time of Cholera (1985) presents a more linear chronicle centered on enduring love over decades within a richly detailed Caribbean setting. The novel uses sensory and symbolic imagery to reflect aging, emotional endurance, and the subjective experience of time.

The analysis in this section will provide a detailed examination of the lexical patterns, narrative design, stylistic strategies, and figurative language in both novels. Drawing on contemporary literary criticism, it aims to clarify how Garcia Marquez constructs immersive, symbolic realities through language and narrative structure, allowing space and time to emerge as thematic pillars of his storytelling.

Shaping space-time in one hundred years of solitude.

The world portrayed in One Hundred Years of Solitude operates according to its own logic—one governed by magical laws of time and space within the mythical setting of Macondo. This intricate space-time dimension, where impossibilities become normalized and history loops with uncanny precision, is built through careful lexical selection and narrative form. Rather than merely describing a setting, the novel generates a unique temporal-spatial construct through language.

Lexical construction of time

The novel’s sense of time is fragmented and layered, immediately evident from the iconic opening: “Years after, as he stood before his executioners…” This line merges three time frames at once—future, present memory, and distant past—challenging traditional linear storytelling. Phrases such as "many years later" or "distant afternoon" highlight the hazy, vast nature of time in Macondo, portraying it as multi-stranded and recursive rather than sequential. Lexical choices like “eternity,” “forever,” and “never” appear frequently but often devoid of their usual gravity, creating a rhythm where time loses measurable precision. The repetitive use of character names across generations (e.g., Aureliano, Jose Arcadio) suggests a cyclical destiny where lives echo and repeat. Ursula's observation that “time had turned around and gone backward” emphasizes how the narrative dismantles linear progression, compressing decades into brief mentions and expanding single moments into elaborate passages.

Spatial vocabulary and symbolism

Macondo transforms dramatically over the course of the novel. Initially described as a serene, untouched paradise, the town's physical portrayal evolves with the incursion of industrialization and external forces. The early Edenic imagery—“a crystalline riverbank,” “polished stones like prehistoric eggs”—evokes purity and myth. But as the narrative unfolds, descriptions shift toward decay and claustrophobia, filled with terms like "dust," "damp," and "enclosure." These changes reflect both physical deterioration and symbolic loss of innocence, mirroring the corruption of Latin American society under colonial and corporate exploitation. The spatial vocabulary adapts to reflect these shifts. The banana company compound, for example, introduces language of confinement and artificiality, sharply contrasting the earlier open landscapes. Thus, space in the novel carries symbolic weight, transitioning from allegorical paradise to exploited, degraded territory.

Ambiguity and figurative devices

Metaphors and similes in the novel often destabilize boundaries between reality and imagination. For example, ice is described not simply as frozen water, but as a mystical object reflecting universal time. Similarly, the miraculous ascension of Remedios the Beauty is rendered in plain, unembellished prose, treating the fantastic as ordinary. Magical phenomena such as the insomnia plague—described clinically yet inducing communal amnesia—illustrate how time can be literally erased through narrative. These devices subvert normal perception and enforce a dreamlike atmosphere where metaphysical conditions are embedded in the material reality of the text. The figurative merges seamlessly with the literal, underscoring the magical realist ethos of the novel.  Although Love in the Time of Cholera also showcases Gabriel Garcia Marquez's signature ornate style and thematic richness, it presents a notably different interpretation of time and space compared to the myth-infused cycles of One Hundred Years of Solitude. Here, the focus shifts to persistence, nostalgia, and the personal experience of growing old, all situated in a historically grounded and geographically specific—though unnamed—Caribbean port town. In this context, time is no longer a fantastical element but rather a long, linear continuum that must be lived through, while space becomes a tangible, vividly described environment that both witnesses and encapsulates the lives of its characters.

Lexical construction of time

The passage of time in this novel is captured with deliberate precision, especially in relation to Florentino Ariza’s long wait. One of the clearest examples of this is the detailed chronometric measurement of his devotion: “over five decades and several months had passed” (Garcia Marquez, Cholera, p. 53). This exactitude marks a stark contrast to the vague, non-linear expressions of time in One Hundred Years of Solitude. The language in Cholera underlines themes such as endurance, aging, and emotional perseverance by repeatedly invoking words like “wait,” “memory,” and “recollection.” These terms create a texture where time is portrayed as both relentless and deeply felt (Bell-Villada, Man and His Work, p. 210). Marquez also grounds the experience of time in the physical deterioration of the body. Descriptions of aging—ranging from references to dentures and hearing aids to the frailty of elderly love—are rendered with raw clarity. This bodily reality makes time in Cholera feel more immediate and corporeal. Unlike the generational repetitions of Solitude, time in Cholera is individual, stretched over a single lifetime and marked by personal longing and sensual memory.

Lexical depiction of space

The unnamed port city—widely believed to be based on Cartagena—is rendered through a palette of sensory-rich language. The descriptions bring to life the textures of colonial architecture, class divisions between affluent neighborhoods and impoverished districts, oppressive tropical heat, and pungent aromas like rotting fruit and carbolic acid. Scents such as the “bitter almonds” serve not just to illustrate the setting, but to evoke emotional and symbolic undertones (Franco, p. 140). Auditory and visual imagery also contribute to the vivid realism of the city: marketplaces buzz with noise, wharves teem with activity, and cathedrals and mansions mark the legacy of history. Unlike the mythologized and often ambiguous geography of Macondo, the setting in Cholera is anchored in recognizable, historically resonant detail. Even symbolic places like the riverboat New Fidelity are described in terms that highlight both their physical existence and their role as metaphors for freedom from societal norms and temporal constraints.

Moreover, the city itself evolves with time, with Marquez portraying its physical decline and transformation. In this way, space is not static; it acts as a canvas upon which decades of social and emotional change are inscribed.

Intertwining of love and illness in lexical fields

One of the novel’s most compelling linguistic strategies is its merging of romantic and pathological vocabularies. Florentino’s emotional suffering is portrayed in language usually associated with disease. For instance, the novel notes that “the manifestations of passion mirrored those found in cholera” (Garcia Marquez, Cholera, p. 62). This rhetorical overlap extends to terms like “affliction,” “epidemic,” “torment,” and “contagion,” which are used interchangeably to describe both emotional and physical states. This duality forms a pervasive metaphor throughout the novel—equating love with a chronic, sometimes incapacitating illness. Such wordplay heightens the intensity of emotion, suggesting that passion is as uncontrollable and all-consuming as a viral outbreak. As a result, love is elevated to a force of nature—inescapable, irrational, and transformative. Simultaneously, the metaphor lends poetic weight to the depiction of disease, presenting it not merely as a medical condition but as a parallel to the tumult of human desire (Bell, p. 115). Comparing One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera reveals both a consistent literary signature and fundamental divergences in Gabriel Garcia Marquez's handling of time and space, reflecting the unique thematic priorities of each work. In both novels, his lush prose, integration of the extraordinary into the everyday, and focus on Latin American identity are unmistakable. However, they diverge in their temporal structure and the function of setting. The lexical strategies Marquez adopts in these texts align with each novel’s temporal-spatial orientation. In Solitude, the language leans toward mythic and cyclical imagery, emphasizing themes like destiny, repetition, and the blending of the real with the surreal. Vocabulary such as “eternity,” coupled with the generational recurrence of names and the fusion of literal and figurative language, reinforces a worldview in which time circles back upon itself and space carries symbolic depth. Macondo begins as a self-contained realm, only later disrupted by external influences and eventual decline.

By contrast, Love in the Time of Cholera constructs a more linear and corporeal experience of time. The vocabulary centers around aging, endurance, memory, and sensory detail, exemplified by phrases like “over five decades and several months had passed.” These expressions ground the story in a timeline that is extended, measurable, and emotionally resonant. The city setting, richly described through physical details and climate, supports a temporality defined not by myth, but by human longevity and emotional persistence.

Despite these contrasts, both novels demonstrate Marquez’s belief in the power of language to shape narrative boundaries. Carefully chosen words define not only setting and chronology but also the reader's relationship to those elements. Both texts employ metaphor, but with different emphasis: in Solitude, metaphor dissolves into reality, forming the very texture of the world. In Cholera, metaphor (notably the love-disease parallel) is used more conventionally to deepen the psychological and thematic layers within a realistic narrative.

Their structural differences also signal divergent conceptions of time. Solitude adopts a non-linear, recursive narrative, where past and future collapse into a mythic present—time is circular, inevitable, and deterministic. In contrast, Cholera unfolds along a more recognizable timeline, shaped by memory and emotional continuity. Time here stretches outward as a journey to be experienced, shaped by personal reflection rather than collective fate.

Even the narrative voice varies notably. In Solitude, the narrator is distanced and matter-of-fact, recounting magical events with no astonishment, thus enhancing the mythic illusion of Macondo. Cholera, however, employs a tone that shifts between irony, tenderness, and lyricism—giving weight to the personal and human dimensions of love, loss, and aging within a tangible world. This tonal shift changes the way readers perceive each novel: one as a chronicle of fate, the other as an exploration of emotional endurance.

Pacing is another area where the novels diverge. Solitude moves in a rhythm that mirrors the cyclical nature of its subject matter—sometimes compressed, sometimes expansive, often drifting dreamlike through time. Meanwhile, Cholera alternates between slow, drawn-out periods of waiting and vivid, concentrated episodes, mimicking the rhythm of memory and how individuals experience the passing of decades

The role of magical realism in constructing space-time in both novels

Magical realism plays a crucial but distinct role in shaping the temporal and spatial dimensions in One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera. While both works are anchored in this narrative mode, the degree and function of magical realism vary, influenced by the divergent fictional worlds that Gabriel Garcia Marquez creates. In One Hundred Years of Solitude, magical realism is not merely a stylistic feature—it defines the very nature of reality in Macondo. It operates expansively, dissolving the boundaries between the ordinary and the fantastical. Time becomes mutable—capable of halting or reversing, as seen during the insomnia plague—and space warps to allow for events that defy natural laws, such as levitation or sudden appearances and disappearances of characters (Zamora & Faris, p. 5). In this novel, magical realism reconfigures the conventional frameworks of space and time, allowing the narrative to unfold in a world where logic yields to myth. In contrast, Love in the Time of Cholera uses magical realism more subtly. Its influence is most evident in emotional exaggeration—such as Florentino Ariza’s intense, lifelong yearning, which borders on pathological—and in the near-superhuman persistence of his love. These moments push the limits of believability but do not rewrite the natural order as radically as in Solitude. Here, magical realism enhances perception rather than reality: it enriches the subjective experience of time and emotion within a framework that otherwise adheres to realistic conventions. The metaphorical alignment of love with cholera typifies this more restrained use of the mode, adding symbolic depth rather than supernatural transformation.

Nevertheless, in both novels, magical realism serves a common purpose: it liberates narrative from the strictures of realism, making space for explorations of memory, destiny, love, and human survival. It legitimizes the presence of the symbolic and the subjective alongside the rational and material, expanding the reader’s concept of what constitutes narrative truth within the fictional world.

The interplay of space and time across the two novels

While both novels reflect a complex relationship between spatial and temporal dimensions, their approaches differ significantly in tone and function.

In One Hundred Years of Solitude, the town of Macondo exists as a semi-isolated domain, initially untouched by external influence and seemingly outside linear historical progression. Over time, external forces—such as the arrival of the railway and the banana company—begin to shape its fate. The town's origin marks the beginning of a cyclical temporal loop, and its ultimate obliteration signals the conclusion of that loop. Macondo is not merely a physical setting but a reflection of the Buendía family's generational cycle; its spatial development mirrors the family’s temporal evolution—expansion, stagnation, and eventual collapse.

On the other hand, Love in the Time of Cholera unfolds within a richly described, unnamed Caribbean city that remains a consistent and grounded backdrop for the characters’ emotional and temporal journeys. This urban space, likely inspired by Cartagena, functions as a witness to the passing decades and emotional endurance of its inhabitants. Its locations—Florentino’s workplace, the park bench, or aristocratic mansions—become linked to memories, moods, and life stages. The city itself holds time, offering a tangible continuity against which the impermanence of human experiences is measured.

Moreover, symbolic locations like the Magdalena River offer a reprieve from structured time and social expectations. It becomes a transitional space, a refuge from the routines of ordinary life, and a site for redefining identity and love outside the confines of society. In this sense, the city in Cholera becomes a vessel for time—not just as a physical environment but as a container of memory, resilience, and emotional evolution. Gabriel Garcia Marquez utilizes distinct, yet occasionally overlapping, lexical choices and stylistic techniques in One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera to craft two contrasting but equally compelling portrayals of space and time. In these works, language is not merely decorative—it serves as a fundamental mechanism through which rich, immersive fictional realities are built, challenging conventional notions of temporality and physical setting.

In One Hundred Years of Solitude, Marquez draws upon mythological vocabulary (such as references to “eternity” and the recurring use of ancestral names), a circular and non-chronological narrative structure, and a consistently neutral narrative tone. These elements are complemented by recurring events and intense magical realism, all of which coalesce to form the peculiar temporal and spatial fabric of Macondo. This world is marked by fatalistic repetition, the blending of ordinary and extraordinary phenomena, and a unique spacetime that bends familiar rules and expectations.

By contrast, Love in the Time of Cholera relies on language associated with aging and longevity (e.g., “fifty-one years”), a narrative structure shaped by reflective flashbacks, and a tone that shifts from lyrical to ironic. The novel’s detailed sensory imagery and prominent use of symbolic motifs—like cholera and the river—construct a temporal landscape defined by linear progression, memory, and physical experience. The city in which the story unfolds becomes a fixed, richly layered stage upon which human emotion and time unfold slowly and meaningfully. Ultimately, this comparative reading highlights Marquez’s masterful command over the essential elements of narrative—particularly diction and structural design. His approach illustrates how space and time in literature can be manipulated creatively and thematically, serving as more than passive settings. Magical realism, in both texts, offers a mode through which reality can be expanded to accommodate memory, fate, love, decay, and survival. Through deliberate linguistic and formal control, Marquez transforms the fantastic into the believable, using imaginative storytelling to probe deep human questions within flexible and multidimensional narrative worlds.

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