The houses of Gabriel García Márquez; the chronotope or a literary analysis of time and space

This article proposes an analytical perspective on time and space in three works of Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez El coronel no tiene quien le escriba (1961), Cien años de soledad (1967) and El otoño del patriarca (1975). More than the axis of narrative structure, time and space embody the nuclear core of the narratives in the house as a symbol, motif, and theme. Such corresponds to the notion of chronotope, as Mikhail Bakhtin studied it. In every narrative of this Colombian author, the houses intersect time and space, thus influencing decisively the threads and knots of the plot. Following the studies of Mikhail Bakhtin and his Dialogic Imagination and Gaston Bachelard’s La poétique de l’espace , this article offers a literary view on the relevance and impact of time and space in Gabriel García Márquez’s universe.