The person01–03
01·Who they are
Who is Meme?
Meme is the daughter of Aureliano Segundo and Fernanda del Carpio, baptised Renata Remedios in a compromise between her parents — Fernanda insisting on Renata after her own mother, the Buendía family calling her Meme, a diminutive of Remedios (Chapter 11). The split name is itself a sign of the divided world she inhabits: her mother's cold, aristocratic order on one side, the warmer, more chaotic Buendía household on the other.
02·Arc & motivation
What is Meme's arc and motivation?
Meme's arc moves from a childhood divided between Fernanda's rigidity and Amaranta's bitterness (Chapter 13) to total, permanent silence after Mauricio Babilonia is shot. Her motivation, as the novel reveals it, is love: she keeps thinking about Mauricio Babilonia throughout the entire journey to the convent, and the novel states she would go on thinking about him "for all the days of her life" until she died (Chapter 15). She exercises no agency over her own fate — she boards the train "as if she were walking in her sleep," signs the convent papers "with the same indifference with which she had allowed herself to be led away," and never speaks again (Chapter 15).
03·Key moments
What are Meme's key moments?
- Chapter 11: Her birth and the naming dispute establish her dual identity — Renata to her mother, Meme to everyone else — foreshadowing the erasure Fernanda will eventually complete.
- Chapter 13: She is sent to the nuns' school at the same time her brother José Arcadio leaves for the seminary; Aureliano Segundo and Fernanda return with a clavichord in her place.
- Chapter 15: The central catastrophe. After Mauricio Babilonia is shot in the backyard, Fernanda packs Meme's bags, says only "Let's go, Renata," and takes her by train, riverboat, and mule across the country to the convent. Meme does not speak, does not eat, does not look out of the window. She is led through the iron grating of the cloister by a novice and never seen by Fernanda again. The chapter closes with the information that she died of old age in a hospital in Cracow, still thinking of Mauricio Babilonia, "with her name changed and her head shaved and without ever having spoken a word."
- Chapter 15: Her son is born in the convent and delivered to Fernanda; Meme had refused to open her lips to name him, so the priests baptise him Aureliano after his grandfather.
- Chapter 16: Meme's old room, with its encyclopedia, becomes the space where Aureliano Segundo entertains the children during the deluge — her absence quietly structuring the lives of those who remain.
The cast04–05
04·Relationships
What are Meme's most important relationships?
Meme's relationship with Fernanda is the novel's starkest portrait of maternal control as violence. Fernanda never consults Meme, never explains, and ultimately lies to everyone — including her son José Arcadio — telling him Renata "had expired in the peace of the Lord" of the black vomit (Chapter 15). The silence Fernanda enforces externally is mirrored by the silence Meme maintains until her death. Aureliano Segundo loves his daughter and is enraged by Fernanda's unilateral decision, but he accepts the forged papers showing Meme entered the convent freely and retreats to Petra Cotes (Chapter 15). His failure to act is as damning as Fernanda's cruelty. Mauricio Babilonia is present in the novel only through Meme's consciousness: his "smell of grease" and "halo of butterflies" are what she carries into the convent and keeps until death.
05·Connected characters
How is Meme connected to the other characters?
Study06–07
06·Questions
Questions readers ask about Meme
What is Meme's real name?
Her baptismal name is Renata Remedios — a compromise forced by the dispute between Fernanda, who wanted Renata, and the Buendía family, who wanted Remedios. Fernanda always calls her Renata; her father's family and everyone in town calls her Meme, a diminutive of Remedios (Chapter 11).
Why does Meme stop speaking?
Meme stops speaking after she hears the shot in the backyard and the simultaneous cry of pain from Mauricio Babilonia (Chapter 15). The novel notes that Fernanda never knew whether the silence was a determination of will or the result of the shock of the tragedy, and Meme never speaks again for the rest of her life.
What happens to Meme at the end?
Fernanda takes her to the convent where Fernanda herself was raised, and a novice leads Meme through the iron grating of the cloister. She dies of old age in a hospital in Cracow, with her name changed and her head shaved, without ever having spoken a word, still thinking of Mauricio Babilonia (Chapter 15).
What happens to Meme's son?
He is born in the convent two months after Meme arrives there. Because Meme will not speak to name him, the priests baptise him Aureliano after his grandfather. He is delivered to Fernanda in a basket by a nun, and Fernanda hides him in Colonel Aureliano Buendía's old workshop, telling everyone she found him floating in a basket (Chapter 15).
Does Aureliano Segundo try to save Meme?
He is furious at Fernanda for deciding Meme's fate without his consent and is prepared to rescue her with the help of the police, but Fernanda shows him papers proving that Meme entered the convent of her own free will. Aureliano Segundo does not believe the papers are legitimate, but they serve to ease his conscience and he returns to Petra Cotes without acting (Chapter 15).
What is the significance of the yellow butterflies associated with Meme?
The yellow butterflies accompany Meme even as she boards the train in her dazed state, and she does not notice them. In her cabin on the riverboat she watches the last yellow butterfly destroyed in the blades of a fan, and at that moment she accepts as an irremediable truth that Mauricio Babilonia has died (Chapter 15). The butterflies connect her to Mauricio Babilonia throughout.
07·Essay angles
Use this in your essay
Tool · Essay angles
Silence as resistance and defeat
The politics of naming
Maternal tyranny and the erasure of female desire
The journey as entombment
Inheritance and repetition