There are many depictions for this novel, but for my picture of the analysis of One Hundred Years of Solitude, I am drawing a picture of an hourglass with the town of Mocando inside of it and a mirror image underneath it in the other side of the hourglass. The hourglass is a good representation of the novel because it shows two important themes in the book which is time and mirages.

The hourglass represents time in the novel. I think time is a big element in this book because time seems to fly by through each generation. The families pass away quickly and start a new one in an instant. "In the last two hours of his life he did not manage to understand why the fear that had tormented him since childhood had disappeared" (Márquez118). Also because it is hard to grasp time because of the family lineage and how the events repeat itself just with different faces and characters. "In the afternoon, after twenty-four hours of desperation, they knew that she was dead because the flow had stopped without remedies and her profile became sharp and the blotches on her face evaporated in a halo of alabaster and she smiled again" (Márquez 412). The town and memories exist only for one hundred years or at least is accepted as just one hundred years by the memories of the main characters.

The hourglass represents this novel because it shows how time is never-ending because once it runs out you just flip the glass over again. This could be imagined as the town of Macando being flipped upside down and having the events happen again, and it will just keep on repeating itself. This plays into the mirror aspect of the town. When the hourglass is flipped, the same town is pictured as if it is a reflected image of Macando. At the end of the book, we discover the entire book had already been written by a wandering storyteller named Melquiades in code. It is only when the final character of the story finally breaks the code and does not only the story end, but the entire town of Macando ends. This image depicts that there is no hope left in the town similar to the sands of the hourglass diminishing. But as described early, the people did not even realize that this was going to happen like as said, "The only candle that will make him come is always lighted" (Márquez 204). Also they were hopeful from the beginning. "From then on, concerned about his own faith, the priest did not come back to visit him and dedicated himself to hurrying along the building of the church. Rebecca felt her hopes being reborn" (Márquez 83). But it is sad because they are trapped and have no idea. It is later perceived that the whole story was composed of the mirages of the character's imaginations as if it was a city of mirrors. "Before reaching the final line, however, he had already understood that he would never leave that room, for it was foreseen that the city of mirrors (or mirages) would be wiped out by the wind and exiled from the memory of men at the precise moment when Aureliano Babilonia would finish deciphering the parchments, and that everything written on them was unrepeatable since time immemorial and forever more, because races condemned to one hundred years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth" (Márquez 416-417).

The destruction of his family is foretold in the prophecies and in fate that those prophecies describe. The people of the town feel as if they can predict what is going to happen sometimes. "Other people predicted that he would be a prophet. She on the other hand, shuddered from the certainty that the deep moan was a first indication of the fearful pig tail…" (Márquez 249). With the introduction to mirrors poses us to question the reality of Macondo and forces us to be aware of our own act of reading and imagining the story of the town. A "city of mirrors," then, is a city in which everything is reflected in writing because when Aureliano reads about himself reading about himself he feel as if he were looking into a speaking mirror.