In the first two chapters of One Hundred Years of Solitude, the concern with human loneliness and solitude is introduced, most notably in the story of Jose Arcadio Buendia’s killing of Prudencio Agular. Repeatedly, Jose Arcadio Buendia and his wife Ursula are haunted by the ghost of Prudencio Agular. Instead of being scared by the ghost, they are more concerned that he is wandering in the town and identify that the problem is that he is “so very lonely.” The feeling of solitude is reintroduced multiple times throughout the novel and as a problem in all the generations. It becomes a reoccurring theme that man cannot or is always trying to escape solitude. Even Jose Arcadio’s first sexual experience with Pilar Terera is infused with “fearful solitude.” Aureliano, aware of Jose Arcadio’s secret sexual encounters with Pilar tries to live though his brother’s experiences, but the two end up “taking refuge in solitude,” instead of comfort in sharing their secret.

The first two chapters also create the mystical, super-natural, and fantasy-like quality to the novel. The gypsies, the hot jungle-like environment with singing birds, and the mysteries of the sulfuric smelling laboratory all reinforce this dreamlike state. There is no attempt at realism and this only highlights Jose Arcadia Buendia’s comment to Ursula that “incredible things are happening in the world.” One does not question or be concerned about the strangeness of the events. It is totally consistent in a fairy tale like way that Ursula disappears for five months in search of her son and then returns as if nothing had happened and having discovered the route that had eluded her husband for years. As we remember our lives is it no more than a collection of mysterious and not always understandable dream-like epsiodes?