Solitude, solidarity and sexuality in one hundred years of solitudeSoledad in Spanish means more than our word "solitude", although it also means that. It suggests loneliness, a sense of being separated from others. While every human being is ultimately alone, as there are parts of our experience we cannot share, some people are lonerer than others. The truly solitary figures in this novel are those who deliberately isolate themselves from other human beings. They are contrasted with characters who fight their loneliness, making strenuous efforts to reach out to others. The founder of Macondo, José Arcadio Buendia, is the first great solitaire. He becomes so obsessed with seeking the truth that he neglects his family and eventually loses all contact with external reality. His wife Ursula is perhaps the greatest anti-solitary figure, the person who more than any other holds the family and home together. She takes in an adopted son and later insists on raising the bastard children of her children and grandchildren. His whole life is dedicated to strengthening social ties. Pilar Ternera, the fortune teller, is also anti-solitary. Her role is to comfort the Buendia men and, as a young woman, sleep with them and give birth to their children. At the end of the book and of her very long life (she stopped counting birthdays after one hundred and forty-five), she is the madam of a wonderful zoological brothel, which in this context represents a generous and generous sexuality. There is a lot of sex in the novel, much of it celebrating the size and power of Buendia's male phallus or the lubricity of women. Sex can be used to combat loneliness, thanks to its power to connect one person to another. The two rapes in the novel also create a close bond: José Arcadio Buendia rapes his wife Ursula to start the family lineage (second chapter), and the last Aureliano rapes Amaranta Ursula (who however is not very resistant), which he will carry on the last in line.