All 22 Uses of
pretext
in
One Hundred Years of Solitude
- Jose Arcadio Buendia did not know at what moment or because of what adverse forces his plan had become enveloped in a web of pretexts, disappointments, and evasions until it turned into nothing but an illusion.†
Chpt 1
- Days later the woman suddenly called him to her house, where she was alone with her mother, and she had him come into the bedroom with the pretext of showing him a deck of cards.†
Chpt 2
- She tried to get near him under any pretext.†
Chpt 5 *
- Then Dr. Noguera closed the window with the pretext that there was too much sun, and explained to him in simple terms that it was a patriotic duty to assassinate Conservatives.†
Chpt 5
- On Sunday, although no one had revealed it openly, al -though no action on the part of the military had disturbed the tense calm of those days, the whole town knew that the officers were ready to use any manner of pretext to avoid responsibility for the execution.†
Chpt 7
- On the contrary, at a certain moment he seemed so enthusiastic with the idea of a new war that Colonel Gerineldo Marquez thought that he was only waiting for a pretext to proclaim it.†
Chpt 9
- The pretext was offered, in fact, when the president of the republic refused to award any military pensions to former combatants, Liberal or Conservative, until each case was examined by a special commission and the award approved by the congress.†
Chpt 9
- But the only reply from the government was the reinforcement of the military guard that had been placed at the door of his house with the pretext of protecting him, and the prohibition of all types of visits, Similar methods were adopted all through the country with other leaders who bore watching.†
Chpt 9
- The doors of the house, wide open from dawn until bedtime, were closed during siesta time under the pretext that the sun heated up the bedrooms and in the end they were closed for good.†
Chpt 11
- First, with the pretext of taking the burden off his wife, he transferred his parties.†
Chpt 13
- Then, with the pretext that the animals were losing their fertility, he transferred his barns and stables.†
Chpt 13
- Finally, with the pretext that it was cooler in his concubine's house, he transferred the small office in which he handled his business.†
Chpt 13
- With the pretext that his wedding bedroom was at the mercy of the moths in spite of the destruction of Remedios' appetizing dolls, he hung a hammock in the workshop and then he would leave it only to go into the courtyard to take care of his necessities.†
Chpt 13
- The rolls of music that she herself had thrown into the trash with the pretext that they had rotted from dampness kept spinning and playing in her memory.†
Chpt 14
- Finally she made use of the American redhead who was spending his vacation in Macondo at that time and with the pretext of learning about new models of cars she had him take her to the garage.†
Chpt 14
- When the table was still raised up on bricks and the chairs put on planks so that those at the table would not get their feet wet, she still served with linen tablecloths and fine chinaware and with lighted candles, because she felt that the calamities should not be used as a pretext for any relaxation in customs.†
Chpt 16
- Convinced that Ursula would carry the secret to her grave, Aureliano Segundo hired a crew of diggers under the pretext that they were making some drainage canals in the courtyard and the backyard, and he himself took soundings in the earth with iron bars and all manner of metal-detectors without finding anything that resembled gold in three months of exhaustive exploration.†
Chpt 16
- His point of view, contrary to the general interpretation, was that Macondo had been a prosperous place and well on its way until it was disordered and corrupted and suppressed by the banana company, whose engineers brought on the deluge as a pretext to avoid promises made to the workers.†
Chpt 17
- He did not have the pretext of climate to hasten their return because nature had endowed him with a colonial liver which resisted the drowsiness of siesta time and water that had vinegar worms in it.†
Chpt 19
- Every time he saw her, and worse yet when she showed him the latest dances, he felt the same spongy release in his bones that had disturbed his great-great-grandfather when Pilar Ternera made her pretexts about the cards in the granary.†
Chpt 19
- Even the proprietress, who normally did not take part in the conversation argued with a madam's wrathful passion that Colonel Aureliano Buendia, of whom she had indeed heard speak at some time, was a figure invented by the government as a pretext for killing Liberals.†
Chpt 19
- It was such an unforeseen attitude that Amaranta Ursula felt humiliated by the idea that she had given her husband the pretext that he had wanted in order to abandon her to her fate.†
Chpt 20
Definition:
-
(pretext) a false reason presented to hide the real reason for doing something