Gabriel García Márquez

Gabriel García Márquez Study questions

One Hundred Years of Solitude

Facts about Gabriel García Márquez

➾ Gabriel García Márquez did not meet his mother until he was almost eight years old.

➾ He derived his rich, pungent writing style directly from the storytelling mannerisms of his grandmother.

➾ He quit law school because he felt that the study of law “had nothing to do with justice”.

➾ As a reporter, he once staged a fake rebellion using sirens and drums in a remote jungle village to create a news story.

➾ An exposé he wrote on a shipwrecked sailor revealed that the naval destroyer had been carrying black market goods, which deeply embarrassed the government.

➾ He rewrote his novel No One Writes to the Colonel a remarkable eleven times.

➾ During extreme poverty in Paris, he sustained himself by re-boiling chicken bones to make daily broth.

➾ His hotel landlord trusted him enough to allow him to accumulate massive debt because they saw him constantly writing in his room.

➾ He later reflected that his three years of poverty taught him that “nobody dies of hunger” and one is capable of sleeping under bridges.

➾ He worked for a magazine sometimes nicknamed Venezuela Pornografica and stated that he read and believed all the gossip within.

➾ After experiencing writer’s block, he broke it by turning his family car around and barricading himself at home for 15 months to write One Hundred Years of Solitude.

Gabriel García Márquez MCQs

1. What is the full name of the author, born March 6, 1928?

A. Gabo Jimenez
B. Gabriel José García Márquez
C. Luis Alejandro Velasco
D. William Faulkner

B. Gabriel José García Márquez
This is his full birth name, though he is often known by his affectionate nickname, Gabo.

2. What is one of the common nicknames Gabriel García Márquez is known by?

A. Gabby
B. Gabito
C. Colonel
D. Maestro

B. Gabito
“Gabito” (or “Gabo”) was a popular and affectionate nickname used for him throughout Latin America.

3. In which Colombian village was Gabriel García Márquez born?

A. Sucre
B. Macondo
C. Bogotá
D. Aracataca

D. Aracataca
He was born in Aracataca, which became the real-life inspiration for the fictional town of Macondo.

4. In which year did Gabriel García Márquez die?

A. 1982
B. 1999
C. 2012
D. 2014

D. 2014
He died of pneumonia at the age of 87 in Mexico City.

5. What was the immediate cause of Gabriel García Márquez’s death?

A. Lymphatic cancer
B. Dementia
C. Pneumonia
D. Heart failure

C. Pneumonia
Though he suffered from cancer and dementia, his death in 2014 was attributed to pneumonia.

6. García Márquez was diagnosed with what type of cancer in 1999?

A. Lung
B. Lymphatic
C. Bone
D. Skin

B. Lymphatic
He was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer in 1999 but recovered following treatment.

7. What was García Márquez reported to be suffering from in 2012?

A. A severe infection
B. Paralysis
C. Dementia
D. Writer’s block

C. Dementia
In 2012, his brother announced that García Márquez was suffering from dementia.

8. What is considered García Márquez’s first serious writing or novella, published in 1955?

A. The Evil Hour
B. Big Mama’s Funeral
C. Leaf Storm (La Hojarasca)
D. The Colonel

C. Leaf Storm (La Hojarasca)
Leaf Storm was his first novella and the first work to introduce the fictional town of Macondo.

9. Which novel, published in 1985, is described as his second most well-known work?

A. The Autumn of the Patriarch
B. Chronicle of a Death Foretold
C. Love in the Time of Cholera
D. Leaf Storm

C. Love in the Time of Cholera
After One Hundred Years of Solitude, this is his most celebrated novel.

10. Who raised García Márquez for the first ten years of his life?

A. His father
B. His mother
C. His maternal grandparents
D. Fidel Castro

C. His maternal grandparents
He was raised by his maternal grandparents, who had a profound influence on his storytelling.

11. García Márquez credited his grandmother with providing the foundation for what aspect of his work?

A. His political views
B. His financial stability
C. His pungent style
D. His love of cinema

C. His pungent style
His grandmother’s “pungent style” of telling fantastic stories matter-of-factly inspired magical realism.

12. The author’s grandfather became the model for what archetype character in his fiction?

A. The Seaman
B. The Dictator
C. The Colonel
D. The Telegraph Operator

C. The Colonel
His grandfather, a veteran of the War of a Thousand Days, became the model for the recurring colonel archetype.

13. What traumatic Colombian civil war did García Márquez’s grandfather participate in?

A. La Violencia
B. The War of a Thousand Days
C. The Cuban Revolution
D. The Spanish Civil War

B. The War of a Thousand Days
His grandfather was a colonel in this devastating civil war, a recurring theme in his novels.

14. The village of Aracataca is the real-life inspiration for what fictional town?

A. Sucre
B. Cartagena
C. Cienaga
D. Macondo

D. Macondo
Macondo, the setting of One Hundred Years of Solitude, is based on his childhood home of Aracataca.

15. What US company established a banana headquarters in Aracataca, leading to massacres?

A. Standard Oil
B. The United Fruit Company
C. Chiquita Brands
D. Wells Fargo

B. The United Fruit Company
The 1928 “Banana Massacre” by this company became a key event in One Hundred Years of Solitude.

16. When did García Márquez first publish short stories?

A. 1955
B. 1967
C. 1947 while a student
D. 1970

C. 1947 while a student
He began his literary career publishing short stories in newspapers while he was a student.

17. After abandoning his higher studies, what profession did García Márquez fully commit to?

A. Film direction
B. Pharmacy
C. Journalism
D. Political activism

C. Journalism
He dropped out of law school to become a journalist, a profession that deeply shaped his writing style.

18. What newspaper column did García Márquez write for El Heraldo in Barranquilla?

A. El Espectador
B. La Hojarasca
C. La Jirafa
D. El Pueblo

C. “La Jirafa”
He wrote a regular column called “La Jirafa” (The Giraffe) under the name “Septimus.”

19. Which literary quality characterized García Márquez’s early journalistic writings?

A. Academic formality
B. Irony and mordant humor
C. Pure naturalism
D. Excessive pathos

B. Irony and mordant humor
His early columns were known for their biting humor and ironic observations.

20. García Márquez preferred to cover what type of stories as a reporter for El Espectador?

A. Editorials
B. Foreign correspondence
C. Fires and crimes
D. Political analysis

C. Fires and crimes
He preferred covering the “police beat” and sensational stories, like fires and crimes.

21. The fabricated rebellion story in Quibdo was staged to protest what?

A. Government corruption
B. The correspondent’s assignment
C. Censorship
D. The price of bananas

B. The correspondent’s assignment
He staged the story out of boredom and frustration with his assignment in the remote town.

22. What did the sailor Luis Alejandro Velasco reveal that embarrassed the Rojas Pinilla government?

A. The storm was fabricated
B. The destroyer carried black market goods
C. The sailor was a spy
D. The storm hit in New Orleans

B. The destroyer carried black market goods
Velasco revealed the shipwreck was due to contraband, not a storm, embarrassing the dictatorship.

23. When was The Tale of A Shipwrecked Sailor first published under García Márquez’s name?

A. 1954
B. 1966
C. 1970
D. 1982

C. 1970
Though written as a newspaper series in 1955, it was first published in book form in 1970.

24. Which of his novels was García Márquez rewriting eleven times while stuck jobless in Paris?

A. Leaf Storm
B. The Evil Hour
C. One Hundred Years of Solitude
D. No One Writes to the Colonel

D. No One Writes to the Colonel
He wrote this novella, a masterpiece of conciseness, during a period of extreme poverty in Paris.

25. What was García Márquez’s first novel focused on the theme of violence?

A. La Hojarasca
B. La Mala Hora (The Evil Hour)
C. El Coronel
D. Cien años de soledad

B. La Mala Hora (The Evil Hour)
This novel was his first to directly confront the theme of *La Violencia*, the political violence in Colombia.

26. What conclusion did García Márquez reach after three years of poverty in Paris?

A. That he required political asylum
B. That he needed a US visa
C. That nobody dies of hunger
D. That he should stop writing

C. That nobody dies of hunger
His experience of extreme poverty in Paris gave him a sense of resilience and this philosophical conclusion.

27. Who was the fiancée and eventual wife of García Márquez, described as having a “beautiful neck”?

A. Luisa Santiaga
B. Pilar Ternera
C. Mercedes Barcha
D. Consuelo

C. Mercedes Barcha
He married Mercedes Barcha, his childhood sweetheart, in 1958.

28. García Márquez finished which short story collection while working in Caracas, Venezuela?

A. No One Writes to the Colonel
B. Big Mama’s Funeral
C. Leaf Storm
D. The Tale of A Shipwrecked Sailor

B. Big Mama’s Funeral
He completed this collection (Los funerales de la Mamá Grande) while living in Venezuela.

29. After the Cuban revolution, García Márquez opened the Bogotá office for what Cuban news agency?

A. El Espectador
B. Momento
C. Prensa Latina
D. Alternativa

C. Prensa Latina
His support for the revolution led him to help establish the Bogotá office for Cuba’s official news agency.

30. García Márquez’s political leanings, since his student days, are described as being what?

A. Liberal
B. Conservative
C. Revolutionary, even communist
D. Federalist

C. Revolutionary, even communist
He was a committed leftist and socialist his entire life, stemming from his student activism.

31. While representing Prensa Latina at the UN, what famous incident did García Márquez witness?

A. Castro’s long speech
B. Khruschev using his shoe as a gavel
C. The signing of a peace treaty
D. An assassination attempt

B. Khruschev using his shoe as a gavel
He was present for the infamous (and possibly apocryphal) incident of Khruschev banging his shoe.

32. García Márquez’s US visa was withdrawn around 1961 due to what reason?

A. Financial debt
B. His political leanings and association with Cuba
C. Criminal activities
D. A dispute with immigration officials

B. His political leanings and association with Cuba
His left-wing politics and friendship with Castro made him a target of the US government.

33. García Márquez traveled through the US Deep South by bus as an homage to which writer?

A. Ben Hecht
B. Ernest Hemingway
C. John Steinbeck
D. William Faulkner

D. William Faulkner
He deeply admired Faulkner and traveled through his territory, the American South, by Greyhound bus.

34. What period of intense political violence and repression in Colombia occurred around 1948?

A. The Banana Massacre
B. The War of a Thousand Days
C. La Violencia
D. The Latin Boom

C. La Violencia
“La Violencia” (The Violence) was a brutal ten-year civil war that became a major theme in his work.

35. Who was the famed Mexican novelist with whom García Márquez collaborated on screenplays?

A. Julio Cortázar
B. Jorge Rojas
C. Carlos Fuentes
D. Juan Ramon Jimenez

C. Carlos Fuentes
He formed a close friendship with Fuentes, and they worked together on several film projects in Mexico.

36. What did García Márquez realize he lacked working on film scripts compared to novels?

A. Sufficient money
B. Technical expertise
C. The writer’s complete control over the work
D. Critical acclaim

C. The writer’s complete control over the work
He felt that in filmmaking, the writer’s vision was diluted by the collaborative process.

37. García Márquez experienced a four-year period of difficulty known as what, before writing his masterpiece?

A. Exile
B. Writer’s block
C. Political imprisonment
D. Journalism fatigue

B. Writer’s block
He suffered a severe writer’s block for four years before his breakthrough inspiration for his masterpiece.

38. While driving from Mexico City to Acapulco, García Márquez began planning which masterpiece?

A. The Evil Hour
B. Chronicle of a Death Foretold
C. One Hundred Years of Solitude
D. Love in the Time of Cholera

C. One Hundred Years of Solitude
He had a sudden flash of inspiration for the novel while on this drive, ending his writer’s block.

39. Approximately how long did García Márquez work on writing One Hundred Years of Solitude?

A. Six months
B. Eighteen months
C. Three years
D. Ten years

B. Eighteen months
He locked himself away for 18 months, writing in a haze of creative energy to complete the novel.

40. In which year was One Hundred Years of Solitude first published in Spanish (Cien años de soledad)?

A. 1961
B. 1967
C. 1970
D. 1982

B. 1967
The novel was an immediate and massive success upon its 1967 publication in Buenos Aires.

41. Which Argentinean writer, alongside Carlos Fuentes, was an early supporter of Cien Años de Soledad?

A. Jorge Luis Borges
B. Julio Cortázar
C. Pablo Neruda
D. Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza

B. Julio Cortázar
Julio Cortázar, a major figure of the “Latin Boom,” was an important early champion of the novel.

42. Who was the translator who rendered One Hundred Years of Solitude into English?

A. William Kennedy
B. Gregory Rabassa
C. Ben Hecht
D. Luisa Santiaga

B. Gregory Rabassa
Rabassa’s 1970 translation was highly acclaimed by García Márquez himself as a work of art.

43. What term describes the rise in popularity of Latin-American writing in the 1960s and 1970s?

A. The New Wave
B. The Latin Boom
C. Modernism
D. Postmodernism

B. The Latin Boom
His novel was a central work of the “Latin Boom,” which brought global attention to Latin American authors.

44. One Hundred Years of Solitude is considered a central work in which literary movement?

A. Postmodernism
B. Naturalism
C. Magical realism
D. Existentialism

C. Magical realism
The novel is the most famous example of magical realism, blending the fantastic with the mundane.

45. In 1973, following the assassination of Salvador Allende, García Márquez co-founded which left-wing magazine?

A. El Espectador
B. Prensa Latina
C. Alternativa
D. Momento

C. Alternativa
He co-founded this political magazine in Colombia in response to the coup in Chile.

46. What novel, published in 1975, focused on the theme of dictatorship and power?

A. Love in the Time of Cholera
B. The Autumn of the Patriarch
C. Chronicle of a Death Foretold
D. The Evil Hour

B. The Autumn of the Patriarch
This dense, experimental novel is a portrait of an archetypal Caribbean dictator, isolated by absolute power.

47. García Márquez established a personal relationship with which Cuban leader?

A. Che Guevara
B. Fidel Castro
C. Omar Torrijos
D. Salvador Allende

B. Fidel Castro
His controversial and long-standing friendship with Fidel Castro often drew criticism from the West.

48. In which year was García Márquez awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature?

A. 1967
B. 1970
C. 1981
D. 1982

D. 1982
He was awarded the Nobel Prize for his novels and short stories, which combined the fantastic and realistic.

49. García Márquez claimed that the atmosphere of his books is the atmosphere of what stage of life?

A. Old age
B. Journalism
C. Childhood
D. Adulthood

C. Childhood
He stated that his style was based on his grandmother’s way of telling stories, rooted in his childhood.

50. In his Nobel lecture, García Márquez expressed belief in the possibility of creating what?

A. Scientific advancement
B. Eternal solitude
C. The opposite utopia
D. Universal warfare

C. The opposite utopia
He concluded his lecture with a powerful call for a “new and sweeping utopia of life.”

Memories of My Melancholy Whores MCQs

1. What age was the narrator when he desired a night with a virgin?

A. Forty-two years
B. Eighty years
C. Ninety years
D. One hundred

C. Ninety years.
The narrator initiated his quest for an adolescent virgin on the exact day that he turned ninety years old.

2. Who was the owner of the illicit house the narrator called?

A. Florina de Dios
B. Damiana
C. Rosa Cabarcas
D. Ximena Ortiz

C. Rosa Cabarcas.
Rosa Cabarcas was the madam of the illicit house who would inform her specific clients when new girls arrived.

3. What did the narrator describe himself as physically?

A. Handsome, formal, old
B. Ugly, shy, anachronistic
C. Mediocre, brilliant, quiet
D. Well-dressed, timid, young

B. Ugly, shy, anachronistic.
He described himself as ugly, shy, and anachronistic, but he pretended to be the complete opposite.

4. Where was the narrator’s colonial house located?

A. Barrio Chino
B. San Nicolás Park
C. Paseo Colón
D. San Basilio

B. San Nicolás Park.
The narrator lived in a colonial house situated on the sunny side of San Nicolás Park for his entire life.

5. What was the narrator’s mother’s name?

A. Rosa Cabarcas
B. Damiana
C. Ximena Ortiz
D. Florina de Dios

D. Florina de Dios.
His mother was Florina de Dios Cargamantos, known for being a beautiful, talented interpreter of Mozart.

6. For forty years, what was the narrator’s primary newspaper role?

A. Music critic
B. Sunday columnist
C. Cable editor
D. Latin grammar teacher

C. Cable editor.
He spent forty years as the cable editor at El Diario de La Paz, reconstructing news caught via shortwaves.

7. What did the doctor attribute the narrator’s back pain to at age forty-two?

A. Sudden arthritis
B. Natural pain
C. A serious leak
D. Old age

B. Natural pain.
The doctor stated that the type of back pain the narrator experienced was natural at his age.

8. What did the narrator believe was the first symptom of old age?

A. Lapses of memory
B. Aching bones
C. Resembling his father
D. Loss of friends

C. Resembling his father.
He heard that the first sign of old age is when a person begins to look like their own father.

9. What classical text did the narrator cite to discuss old people and memory?

A. Galdó’s Episodios
B. Cicero
C. Saint-Exupéry
D. Don Andrés Bello

B. Cicero.
Cicero illustrated that old men do not forget where they have carefully hidden their valuable treasure.

10. What event caused the narrator to finally call Rosa Cabarcas for a libertine night?

A. An eclipse
B. The riverboat’s bellow
C. Sudden rainstorm
D. Pain in his back

B. The riverboat’s bellow.
The bellow of the mail riverboat arriving at port created a magical evocation that spurred his decision.

11. How many women did the narrator record having been with by age fifty?

A. Twenty-two
B. Eighty
C. Five hundred
D. Five hundred fourteen

D. Five hundred fourteen.
By age fifty, his meticulously kept record listed 514 women with whom he had been intimate.

12. What was the key condition of the narrator’s unusual relationship with Damiana?

A. Always in public
B. Paid double
C. From the back
D. During dinner

C. From the back.
He paid Damiana an increased salary based on “one mounting a month, always while she was doing the laundry, and always from the back”.

13. What was the students’ nickname for the narrator?

A. Maestro of Love
B. Professor Gloomy Hills
C. Cable Editor
D. Mudarra the Bastard

B. Professor Gloomy Hills.
His students secretly called him Professor Gloomy Hills, based on a line from his favorite poem.

14. Where did the narrator often gather state secrets overheard from bigwigs?

A. Café Roma
B. Social Club
C. Brothel partitions
D. Editorial offices

C. Brothel partitions.
He overheard political secrets through the cardboard partitions of the brothels in the Barrio Chino.

15. Who was the woman the narrator became engaged to?

A. Casilda Armenta
B. Castorina
C. Ximena Ortiz
D. Damiana

C. Ximena Ortiz.
The narrator became engaged to Ximena Ortiz after seeing her naked during an embarrassing siesta intrusion.

16. How did the engaged couple pass the “useless hours” before the wedding?

A. Writing letters
B. Crocheting booties
C. Planning children
D. Playing music

B. Crocheting booties.
They crocheted infant booties—blue for boys and pink for girls—to pass the time until their wedding.

17. What caused Ximena Ortiz to leave the country?

A. A fight
B. Narrator’s abandonment
C. Marriage annulment
D. Unanswered calls

D. Unanswered calls.
The narrator ignored the phone and locked himself in the house on the wedding day, causing her to leave.

18. What was the prevailing myth of the city at the turn of the twentieth century?

A. Love
B. Nostalgia
C. Progress
D. Revolution

C. Progress.
The twentieth century arrived with such force that “Progress became the myth of the city”.

19. What reason did the narrator adopt for his bachelorhood late in life?

A. Financial poverty
B. Lack of talent
C. Whores left no time
D. Too old to marry

C. Whores left no time.
He chose the explanation that whores left him insufficient time to be properly married.

20. What surprising secret did Damiana reveal to the narrator upon leaving the house?

A. She hated him
B. She was still a virgin
C. She was wealthy
D. She was marrying

B. She was still a virgin.
Damiana revealed, “You won’t believe me but thanks be to God, I’m still a virgin”.

21. What was the drawback Rosa Cabarcas mentioned about the girl she found?

A. Too beautiful
B. Just turned fourteen
C. Too afraid
D. Not a virgin

B. Just turned fourteen.
Rosa warned the narrator that the girl was available and a virgin, but she had just turned fourteen.

22. What was the girl’s daily factory job?

A. Folding linen
B. Cleaning floors
C. Attaching buttons
D. Serving drinks

C. Attaching buttons.
The girl worked all day attaching buttons in a factory to help feed her family.

23. What specific scent did the narrator obsess over on the sleeping girl?

A. Perfume
B. Acid breath
C. Licorice
D. Sweat

B. Acid breath.
The narrator was enveloped by the ambience of the girl’s “acid breath” when she turned toward him.

24. What unique physical feature characterized the sleeping girl’s feet?

A. Large and rough
B. Sensitive toes
C. Covered in polish
D. Small and delicate

B. Sensitive toes.
The best part of her body was her large, silent-stepping feet with toes as sensitive as fingers.

25. What did the narrator realize was the pleasure of contemplating the sleeping girl?

A. Modesty
B. No urgencies of desire
C. Immediate action
D. Pure innocence

B. No urgencies of desire.
He found pleasure in contemplating her body “without the urgencies of desire or the obstacles of modesty”.

26. What was the name the narrator decided to give the girl?

A. Saturnina
B. Nicolasa
C. Delgadina
D. Filomena

C. Delgadina.
He named her Delgadina after the character in the melancholy song he sang while drying her.

27. What surprising sight appeared on the bathroom mirror after the second night?

A. A heart drawn
B. Tiger does not eat
C. Delgadina’s name
D. A love note

B. Tiger does not eat.
Written in lipstick on the mirror was the sentence: “The tiger does not eat for away”.

28. Who did the narrator imagine was helping him save books during the rainstorm?

A. Rosa Cabarcas
B. Damiana
C. Delgadina
D. His mother

C. Delgadina.
During the extreme rainstorm, he evoked Delgadina helping him save his books and battle the flooding.

29. What type of items did the narrator bring to improve the room for Delgadina?

A. Gold coins, drinks
B. Books, scented soap
C. Food, new sheets
D. Old clothing

B. Books, scented soap.
He brought a fan, a painting, toothbrushes, scented soap, and licorice lozenges to improve the room.

30. What was Diva Sahibí’s prediction about Delgadina’s future relationships?

A. Dark man won’t last
B. She will marry him
C. Eight children total
D. Dark man is true love

A. Dark man won’t last.
Diva Sahibí predicted Delgadina had a dark man now, but he would not be the man of her life.

31. What did the narrator discover was the real cause of his obsession with order?

A. Financial acuity
B. Hiding inner disorder
C. Mother’s teaching
D. Public function

B. Hiding inner disorder.
He realized his strict discipline was a system of pretense to hide the fundamental disorder of his nature.

32. What genre did the narrator begin writing his Sunday columns as?

A. Political analysis
B. Love letters
C. Literary criticism
D. Old age laments

B. Love letters.
His columns were written as love letters to Delgadina that readers embraced as their own.

33. What did Rosa Cabarcas say when the narrator proposed marrying the girl?

A. It is a great sin
B. He is too old
C. It will be cheaper
D. The girl will refuse

C. It will be cheaper.
Rosa Cabarcas, thinking pragmatically, suggested marriage because it would prove to be a more cost-effective solution.

34. What was the condition of the banker found stabbed to death in the brothel?

A. Fully dressed
B. Naked with shoes
C. Wearing glasses
D. On the floor

B. Naked with shoes.
The large corpse of the banker, J.M.B., was found naked but still wearing his shoes on the blood-soaked bed.

35. What specific item did the dead banker wear on his sex?

A. A gold ring
B. A canvas truss
C. A condom
D. A silk cloth

C. A condom.
The narrator observed that the corpse wore an unused condom on his sex, shrunken by death.

36. Who was the official censor who frequently crossed out the narrator’s work?

A. Marco Tulio
B. J.M.B.
C. Jerónimo Ortega
D. Pedro Biava

C. Jerónimo Ortega.
The censor, called the Abominable No-Man, was Jerónimo Ortega, known for his blood-red pencil.

37. What did the Abominable No-Man do to the narrator’s resignation column?

A. Ignored it
B. Published it
C. Crossed it out
D. Sent protest note

C. Crossed it out.
The censor declared the article inadmissible and crossed it out from top to bottom, inadvertently saving the column.

38. What object’s destruction caused the narrator to fear for Delgadina’s life?

A. Broken fan
B. Burnt cat
C. Ruined bicycle
D. Glass cupola

C. Ruined bicycle.
He saw scrap metal from a bicycle lying in a pool of bright blood and feared it was Delgadina’s.

39. What confirmed the girl injured in the bicycle crash was not Delgadina?

A. Her short hair
B. Her black-and-blue face
C. The name Rosalba
D. Her feet

D. Her feet.
The narrator only needed to see the injured girl’s feet to know she was not his Delgadina.

40. What was the name of the girl who recognized the narrator in the shirt factory?

A. Rosalba Ríos
B. Delgadina
C. Unnamed girl
D. Martina Laborde

C. Unnamed girl.
An unnamed girl in the factory recognized him and shouted, asking if he wrote the love letters.

41. What did Rosa Cabarcas confess to doing to Delgadina’s valuable jewelry?

A. Stolen it
B. Borrowed it
C. Rented it out
D. Replaced the stones

D. Replaced the stones.
Rosa Cabarcas admitted that the gold jewelry she rented out had glass stones and tin metals.

42. What revelation intensified the narrator’s jealousy during his rage?

A. Delgadina’s job
B. Rosa’s betrayal
C. Honeymoon for three
D. Fake virginity

C. Honeymoon for three.
He shouted that Rosa Cabarcas had organized a “honeymoon for three” using the girl and the lawyer.

43. What did the narrator discover about his deceased mother’s “valuable” jewels?

A. They were stolen
B. The stones were fake
C. Worth a fortune
D. Purchased in Madrid

B. The stones were fake.
A colossal Bedouin revealed that Florina de Dios herself had previously changed the legitimate stones for fake ones.

44. What was the name of the old love-for-hire who consoled the narrator?

A. Martina Laborde
B. Casilda Armenta
C. Sacramento Montiel
D. Diva Sahibí

B. Casilda Armenta.
Casilda Armenta, an old lover who married a Chinese farmer, consoled him during his suffering.

45. What final advice did Casilda Armenta give the narrator about Delgadina?

A. Do not see her
B. Fuck her brains out
C. Marry her quickly
D. Give her money

B. Fuck her brains out.
She advised him not to let himself die without knowing the “wonder of fucking with love”.

46. What was the name of the girl who initiated the narrator at age twelve?

A. Castorina
B. Ximena
C. Damiana
D. Delgadina

A. Castorina.
Castorina was the queen of the brothel who initiated the narrator into love shortly before his twelfth birthday.

47. What did the new doctor conclude about the narrator’s health at age ninety-one?

A. He needed surgery
B. The condition was the best
C. He was dying soon
D. He had solar blindness

B. Condition was the best.
The doctor stated that his condition was the best it could possibly be for a man of his current age.

48. What did the narrator see in his bed that acted as a “final warning” of death?

A. His father’s ghost
B. Florina de Dios
C. His old cat
D. The Grim Reaper

B. Florina de Dios.
He saw his mother, Florina de Dios, in his bed, giving him the same blessing as before her death.

49. What did the narrator hear at midnight on his ninety-first birthday?

A. The clock striking
B. Delgadina weeping
C. The cat meowing
D. Bells of glory

D. Bells of glory.
He counted the twelve strokes of midnight, followed by the bells of glory and fiesta fireworks.

50. What final revelation did Rosa Cabarcas share about the girl’s feelings for him?

A. She only wants money
B. She is over her fear
C. She is deeply in love
D. She is returning home

C. She is deeply in love.
Rosa Cabarcas reassured the narrator that the poor creature was head over heels in love with him.

Brief Overview

Memories of My Melancholy Whores is a novel written by Gabriel García Márquez. It was initially published in Spanish in 2004, with an English translation by Edith Grossman published in October 2005. The novel explains the desires of an old journalist. He decides on his ninetieth birthday to celebrate by spending a night with a young, untouched girl.

This man is ugly, shy, and lives alone in a large colonial house. He has worked as a writer and taught Latin grammar. He calls Rosa Cabarcas, who runs an illicit house, for help finding a girl.

Rosa Cabarcas finds a girl who is just fourteen. The old man gives money to Rosa Cabarcas and goes to the room. The girl is asleep because she was given medicine to calm her. He sits on the bed and looks at her, feeling a strange spell. He examines her body but does not wake her because he feels too sad and humiliated. He calls her Delgadina.

He leaves the room when the bells strike midnight, marking his ninety-first birthday. He later returns to the room several times to watch her sleep, reading books to her and decorating the space.

He falls deeply in love with her while she is sleeping. His love for her changes his life, and he writes columns about love that become very popular.

Later, the old man decides to buy the whole house where Delgadina is. He plans to live there with her, remodeling the room. Rosa Cabarcas tells him that the girl is also head over heels in love with him. He realizes his heart is safe, and he is now condemned to die of happy love after his hundredth birthday.