Úrsula iguarán

Úrsula Iguarán is the matriarch of the Buendía family and is wife and cousin to José Arcadio Buendía. She lives to be well over 100 years old and she oversees the Buendía household through six of the seven generations documented in the novel. She has a business of making candy animals and pastries which she continues until the arrival of Fernanda. She exhibits a very strong character and often succeeds where the men of her family fail, for example finding a route to the outside world from Macondo. She deeply fears her family resuming their incestuous practices as her inbred relatives tended to have animalistic features. From a strong and active matriarch, Úrsula is reduced to a plaything for Amaranta Úrsula and Aureliano in her last years and shrinks to the size of a newborn baby when she finally dies.