Character List
"Arcadio": José Arcadio III
Pilar Ternera and José Arcadio II, the son of the patriarch, have a son who is baptized José Arcadio, but who is called Arcadio in order to avoid confusion. He is almost the same age as Amaranta Buendía, and the two of them grow up together learning to speak the Guajiro Indian language from a servant. He becomes "the cruelest ruler that Macondo had ever known."
Aureliano José
The illegitimate child of Pilar Ternera and Colonel Aureliano Buendía, Aureliano José is the oldest child of the Colonel's family. He falls hopelessly in love with his aunt, Amaranta. His fate is to fall to wreaking vengeance, and his death becomes a testament of family blood solidarity.
José Arcadio V, son of Aureliano Segundo
The asthmatic, insomniac son of Fernanda del Carpio, José Arcadio V is sent off to Rome to realize Úrsula's wish to have one José Arcadio not only a priest — but Pope!
Aureliano, born with the tail of a pig, the last of the Buendías
At the end of the novel, this baby is carried off by giant ants. He is the last of the family line, the offspring of the incestuous relationship between Aureliano Babilonia and his aunt, Amaranta Úrsula. He fulfills the ancient Buendía fear, first expressed in the novel by Úrsula Iguarán, that incest would eventually produce a child with a pig's tail.
The Seventeen Sons of Colonel Buendía
Colonel Aureliano Buendía has seventeen bastard sons by different mothers. One day they all turn up at the Buendía house, all bearing the name "Aureliano" and the last name of their mothers.
Úrsula Iguarán
The pillar of the Buendías is the wife of Macondo's founder, José Arcadio Buendía. Like her husband, she comes from an old South American family and lives in a sleepy coastal village. During the trek to Macondo, she gives birth to José Arcadio II.
Pilar Ternera
Although she is not a Buendía, Pilar Ternera is next to Úrsula in importance. She becomes the mistress first of José Arcadio II, then of Aureliano. She bears Arcadio III for José Arcadio II and gives birth to Aureliano José for the Colonel. She is summed up best in terms of wasted beauty: "Fat, talkative, with the airs of a matron in disgrace."
Fernanda del Carpio
She is the first and most important female character of the third generation. She appears as the intruding Queen of Madagascar during the carnival celebration over which Remedios the Beauty already reigns. Aureliano Segundo marries her. She is a nervous, rigidly formal woman who tries unsuccessfully to ignore her husband's affair with Petra Cotes.
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