Big Mama's Funeral (original Spanish-language title: Los funerales de la Mamá Grande), a long short story, is a satirical commentary on Latin American life and culture by Gabriel García Márquez. Most of the place names mentioned come from Colombia. It displays the exaggeration associated with magic realism. "Big Mama" herself is an exaggeration of the 'cacique' (political boss), a familiar figure in Latin American history and tradition; the term itself comes from a Native American word for a tribal chief.
Big Mama's funeral is mentioned in Marquez's famous novel One Hundred Years of Solitude soon after Melquiades' death, an example of Marquez's tendency to tie together his literary works.
|
Famous quotes containing the words big, mama and/or funeral:
“Haggerty: Girls! Girls! Girls! Be careful of my hats.
Chorus Girl: Well, we gotta get down on the stage.
Haggerty: I don’t care. I won’t allow you to ruin them.
Dressing Room Matron: See, I told you. They were too high and too wide.
Haggerty: Well, Big Woman, I designed the costumes for the show, not the doors for the theater.
Dressing Room Matron: I know that. If you had, they’d have been done in lavender.”
—James Gleason (1886–1959)
“My Mama has made bread
and Grampaw has come
and everybody is drunk
and dancing in the kitchen”
—Lucille Clifton (b. 1936)
“And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own funeral drest in his shroud.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)