Outside Reading - Week 7, Post A

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

As I was reading this week the cultural difference that stuck out to me was the belief in myths. In the Mexican culture, there are many more sayings and myths that are illogical but seem to be the best or most pleasant explanation for something that isn't as commonly accepted. For instance, the South Americans and South American author said, "She had gone into the silver shop and her mother told her that little Aureliano was nobody's child because he had been found floating in a basket. Although the version seemed unlikely to them, they did not have any information enabling them to replace it with the true one" (439). Because there was no better explanation, the baby was no-one's because he "was found in a basket." In the American culture, people do not use those myths and instead, they speak the truth, no matter how harsh it can sometimes be. Although the term orphan is not extremely respectable, it is used over an illogical "floating in a basket" concept.