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What gives an object meaning: its value or the memories associated with it? In
“No One Writes to the Colonel” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the main character, the Colonel, owns little material substance, and the items he holds dear are little worth the recognition of the reader. Yet with their meagerness, Marquez is capable of turning an innocuous object, such as the Colonel’s umbrella, into an item of regard to the colonel. In comparison with the character Sabas, who is the richest man in town, many of the colonel’s possessions either enhance the characteristics of the colonel or are personified by him. The intimacy between object and character therefore becomes an important aspect in the threaded plot of the characters.
A central object of the colonel’s that carries its own personality is the umbrella the colonel takes to the trumpet player’s funeral. Eaten away by moths, it represents both a time of contented happiness and the hardships of the present. Once, “The colonel, his wife, and their son, Agustin - who was then eight – watched a show until the end, under the umbrella” (Marquez 5), yet as time has passed and the satin material has been eaten away, “‘the only thing it’s good for now is to count the stars’” (Marquez 5). Just as the umbrella has been worn out, so, too, have the colonel and his wife. Even though both have lived a natural span of years, they continue on in this life with little or no purpose. The umbrella itself consists of only spokes and a handle; similar to the handle holding both the colonel and his wife to this earth. Both the colonel and his wife live off the memories of their dead son, from making a living through his rooster, to carrying an umbrella with no purpose. Harmless as it may be, it is also a burden to carry for its lack of purpose. This is what the colonel and his wife have both become: a burden to the town that cares for them through the rooster. And yet the colonel and his wife never give back to the town,...