27 pages • 54 minutes read
Gabriel García MárquezOne Of These Days
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 2008A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Time
The motif of time is announced in the title, “One of These Days,” which evokes both the sameness of Aurelio’s days (one day among many) and the threat of delayed but inevitable retribution for the Mayor’s political crimes (as in, one of these days, you’ll get what’s coming to you). The story depicts a single day in Aurelio’s life, and the opening scene establishes the repetitive tasks that occupy Aurelio’s days. As the scene opens, he is meticulously polishing a gold tooth in his quiet and disheveled office, doing much the same thing he does every day. When the Mayor appears, the monotonous flow of time is refined to a single highly focused point, and this ordinary day, indistinguishable from all the others, becomes specific and charged with significance.
Pensive Buzzards
Buzzards are typically associated with death and calamity since they are carrion birds (they eat carcasses). Them being pensive in the story suggests that they are waiting for the next victim who might be their next meal. Although no one will die in the encounter between the dentist and the Mayor, they each threaten the other with physical violence, highlighting the theme of
Related Titles
By Gabriel García Márquez
A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings
Gabriel García Márquez, Peter Ferguson, Michael Buckley
Balthazar's Marvelous Afternoon
Gabriel García Márquez
Chronicle of a Death Foretold
Gabriel García Márquez
Death Constant Beyond Love
Gabriel García Márquez
Eyes of a Blue Dog
Gabriel García Márquez, Joss Whedon, Brett Matthews, Will Conrad
In Evil Hour
Gabriel García Márquez
Innocent Erendira
Gabriel García Márquez, Tamora Pierce
Leaf Storm
Gabriel García Márquez
Love in the Time of Cholera
Gabriel García Márquez
Memories of My Melancholy Whores
Jojo Moyes, Gabriel García Márquez
News of a Kidnapping
Gabriel García Márquez, Catherine Coulter
No One Writes To The Colonel
Gabriel García Márquez
Of Love And Other Demons
Gabriel García Márquez, Julia Quinn
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Gabriel García Márquez
Strange Pilgrims
Gabriel García Márquez
The Autumn of the Patriarch
Gabriel García Márquez, Transl. Gregory Rabassa
The General in His Labyrinth
Gabriel García Márquez
The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World
Gabriel García Márquez
The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews and of His Friend Mr. Abraham Adams
Henry Fielding, Anne McLean, Gabriel García Márquez
The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor
Gabriel García Márquez, Conn Iggulden