Thousands of people are massacred and their bodies are disposed of by putting them in the sea. This leads to five years of rain and the resulting flood destroys the city of Macondo and most of its people. Only a few members of the Buendía family remain. Aureliano and Amaranta Ursula, who are related, parent a child. This child is born with a pig"s tail, something that the founders of the town always feared would happen to them. Amaranta Ursula dies during the birth, while Aureliano wanders the town trying to come to terms with what has happened. By the time he realizes he has left the child alone, it is too late. He finds the child beginning to be eaten by ants. Ths reminds him of Melquiades" parchment and he ignores the child and rushes to the study to read the parchment. Aureliano reads the history of the family, as a cyclone begins to destroy the house. In the final line, of the parchment he reads about himself reading the parchment while Macondo is destroyed by a cyclone and forgotten. This final ending reveals that the life of the village and the Buendías has always been known. The Buendías were fated to their tragic lives. The story of the town and of the Buendías family is one of tragedy. To understand the meaning of the novel, it is necessary to look more deeply into what the story of the Buendías means.

             As noted, the novel is not one that can be understood in terms of plot. It is not focused on a central character. Instead, it is focused on the story of an entire town and its people. This places the novel as having meaning politically and socially. Essentially, it can be considered as the story of a society. As one author notes, it is not just the story of any society, but the story of Latin America:.

             the story of the Buendia family is obviously a metaphor for the history of the continent since Independence, that is, for the neocolonial period. More than that, though, it is also, I believe, a narrative about the myths of Latin American history (Martin 97).