IMAGINATION

Harrison Browning and Charlie Ebert

spreads an individuals ideas to others || can mangle and rearrange your priorities ||
 * POSITIVE || NEGATIVE ||
 * helps solve unconventional problems || blurs lines between reality & fantasy ||
 * creativity || can lead to frightening realizations ||
 * ability to initiate/stimulate discussion || leads to irrational decisions ||
 * interesting/appealing to others || can lead to neglect of material world ||
 * open-minded and unique outlook || can be a distraction ||
 * a fulfilling and solitary necessity || imaginary world can become more appealing than reality ||
 * allows for expression of emotion/


 * POSITIVE**: "creativity"- Creativity is the most obvious advantage to a prolific imagination. Its also one of the most important. In __One Hundred Years of Solitude__, creativity is a trait that appears repeatedly in characters. For example, at the beginning of the book(pages 1-12), Jose Arcadio Buendia's imagination and creativity are what drive him to invent and understand the workings of the world around him and establish the town of Macondo. His vision, creativity, and resourcefulness are at the root of nearly every event in the book. More broadly, creativity is what allowed, and drove the book itself. In that sense, imagination is a word on this list that is impossible to contain in the pages of the book.


 *  __GREY AREA__ **: Many of the positives and the negatives on this list blur together. For example, though Jose Arcadio Buendia's imagination allowed him to create mechanisms and solve abstract problems with little to no instruction, it also drove him away from his family(Ursula becomes unhappy with him as we see on page 14 when she says, "Instead of going around thinking about your crazy inventions, you should be worrying about your sons...look at the state they're in, running wild just like donkeys"), his life and the world(he abandons organization, hygiene, and everyday responsibilities/tasks)- into solitude.

"Jose Arcadio did not speak until he had finished drinking his coffee. "There must have been three thousand of them,' he murmured. "What?" "The dead," he clarified. "It must have been all of the people who were at the station." The woman measured him with a pitying look. "There haven't been any dead here," she said. "Since the time of your uncle, the colonel, nothing has happened in Macondo."
 * NEGATIVE**: "blurs lines between reality and fantasy"- On page 308 Marquez describes Jose Arcadio's bout with the line between fantasy and reality after the banana massacre:

In many ways, this passage sums up one of the most important and apparent themes in __One Hundred Years of Solitude__. Time and time again, we see Marquez using different variations on the idea: reality and fantasy are not always concrete; they are subjective and lead us to the conclusion, though ironic, that imagination may be the only real thing in this world. The blurred line between reality and fantasy can be extremely destructive and frustrating to the human mind, as we see with Jose Arcadio when it drives him into solitude. __One Hundred Years of Solitude__ is not the only place we can see examples of this, however. In many of Michel Gondry's films, she addresses similar ideas, specifically in __The Science of Sleep__ and __Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.__ In both films, Gondry, similar to Marquez, plays with the meaning of the words reality, fantasy, and imagination, and the problems they all pose when clear and present distinctions are absent. Here are trailers from both films:

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Imagination is deeply connected to many of the other words on this list, some more than others. Memory, and curiosity are two that I found extremely inseparable. Imagination is a very personal experience and is deeply rooted in an individual's memory of past experiences and knowledge; memory is an unavoidable and nearly irrepressible activation of imagination. Curiosity, on the other hand, is more recognizable. Combined with creativity, it can be constructive, destructive, or both, as we see frequently in __One Hundred Years of Solitude__. Imagination's importance to Marquez's book lies in its similarity to the book's narrative structure; it is constantly in spin. Moving too fast to tell if it is positive or negative, the idea of imagination in One Hundred Years of Solitude frequently changes direction. The creativity and inquisitive imagination that earn one of Marquez's characters respect, admiration, and reputation at one point may very well drive them to extreme frustration, scrupulous obsession, or complete and unforgiving solitude.