People don't pride themselves on being like their mother or father. But the traits of ancestors are passed down through families, binding them together. The Buendia family, from “One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, is a perfect example of the mystical catastrophe that crosses generations. A Nobel Prize winner, Marquez weaves a story about life in Macadona and the strange and twisted Buendia family lineage. The story touches on mysterious black magic, death and horrific tales of incest, debauchery and love. Throughout the story, Marquez creates Macadona as if time were repeating itself. Each generation makes the same fateful choices as its loved ones. In this story, the destinies of the protagonists are very different. However; they all share unifying facts that unite them in a hundred years of solitude. The men of the Buendia family are all from José Arcadio Buendia I. Marquez describes his character as a charismatic, stubborn and imaginative man. Macadona was founded by him after an argument with Prudencio Aguilar. This led to José spearing his throat. Haunted by the ghost of Aguilar, José has a dream and sets off in search of Macadona. José Arcadio Buendia was obsessed with magic. After meeting the gypsy Melquiades, José gradually loses contact with reality while trying to decipher a Sanskrit manuscript that has been left to him. After a while, Ursula, his wife and cousin, ordered “twenty men to drag him to the chestnut tree in the courtyard, where they left him tied up” (Marquez, 78). Ursula made this decision for her safety and that of her family. He remained there until his death, screaming wildly in perfect Latin. José's sons also suffered a similar tragic fate. José Arcadio II was like his father in attitude towards solitary lifestyles. In Gabriel Garcia Marquez's book "One Hundred Years of Solitude", the characteristics of each family member resemble another. They may start differently, but their fates follow the same tragic conclusion. Buendia's men suffer from their own macho pride and recklessness. Women are subject to the will of men and are burdened by the tragedy that follows them. This book is locked in a 100-year time circle, doomed to repeat the mistakes of their ancestors. The Buendia family all share unifying facts that bind them together in creating their own loneliness. Marquez describes the life and fate of the Buendias' struggle with madness, incest and 100 years of loneliness which are erased at the end of the book. Works Cited García, Márquez Gabriel and Gregory Rabassa. A hundred years of solitude. New York: HarperCollins, 2006. Print.