Collected Stories | Characters & Character Analysis

Collected Stories Characters

Eva's cat

Eva is a beautiful young woman who is dying. Through some sort of witchcraft, her soul is transplanted into her cat in a strange ploy to cheat death in "Eva Is Inside Her Cat." Transformations of men into animals, gods, or demi-gods are, of course, common in folk tales and mythology. Garcia Marquez borrows this ancient device to create a new existential dilemma, thus combining a time-honored literary tradition with the most modern of existentialist worldviews. Eva seems to have made some kind of Faustian bargain to swap souls with her cat, in a vain effort to avoid witnessing her own loss of beauty and decay.

Big Mama

Big Mama is the matriarch of most of the Republic of Macondo, a fictional district set in a South American jungle near the sea. She owns most of the land within the republic, and thousands of resident tenant farmers provide her with...
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