100 years of solitude - class comment

In response to Becca's post, I suppose it could be relevant to the death of Macondo as it was and as it came to be??

But in terms of communication, I think Ursula is interesting to focus on. I think we discussed in class how Ursula serves as a bridge between the old and new world. She is the person who spans across all of the generations and has accumulated a lot of knowledge about Macondo, it's past, and it's people. In chapter 16 & 17 as she withers away and eventually dies once the rainfall stops, I think it is supposed to signify the rebirth of Macondo. We talked about how the rainfall is an allusion to the flood and plague in the bible, but in the book, it is cleaning Macondo's slate so it can start anew. This relates to communication in that Urusla was the towns communication with it's past. Aside from giving people who were going to die letters to give to other dead people (also a form of communication with their past), people used Ursula to understand their past and the past of the city. She was the correspondent to the people for the history of Macondo, and now she's dead. I think her death, as I've said, signifies rebirth and a chance to forget their past to start anew. They could have a new Ursula who could become the communicator for the vast amount of generations, then, once the town has once more been violated by infiltrators of some sort, another form of the great flood may come again to start the process again. Ursula's death signifies the end of the old Macondo.