Active Reading: Chapter Thirteen

ACTIVE READING: CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Quotes
"The years nowadays don't pass the way the old ones used to."
Ursula is starting to age and this quote shows it. Time is dragging on and on for her and it seems like she is stuck in the same place. Her health begins to decline and she cannot tend to the needs of her family. Much of her health problems are based off of all of the tragedy that she has seen during her long, long lifetime.

"Rebeca, how unfair we've been to you!"
Here again is Ursula. This time she is talking to Rebeca who she feels very sorry for, after all of the hardship that they put her through during her life, especially during her stages of depression.

Magical Realism
Ursula gets around even better now that she is blind, and can still manage to know where she is and where people are at. This supposedly comes from her sense of knowledge that she's experienced during her life.

Themes
Change, age. Ursula grows old and goes blind and is nearing her ending years. Also, most of the children move out of the family house and get out on their own.

Character Development
Ursula gets older and changes for the worse, health wise mostly. Fernanda del Carpia again tries to force her beliefs over everyone else. She tries to take over and become the new matriarch, but again it isn't flying. Colonel Aureliano becomes more depressed and sickly, eventually dies.

Summary
This chapter is marked by the aging of Ursula. She has gone blind, but now has a keener sense of her surroundings, as they say blind people do. Jose Arcadio II espires to become a pope and he leaves for a monestary. Meme also goes away to school, which really empties the family home. Fernanda del Carpia attempts to re-establish herself as a power in the household, but nobody really wants to listen to her. Aureliano Segundo and Petra Coates live together. Colonel Aureliano continues to live in a deep depression and starts to lose his grip of reality even more so than before. Eventually, he dies.