Senior Spotlight: Independent Studies, Eliana Shaham: Spanish Literature

Riverdale Review: Please briefly discuss the subject of your independent study.

Eliana Shaham: So, my independent study was about Spanish literature, specifically studying the works of Gabriel García Márquez. He was a really renowned Latin American author and my study explored several of his themes throughout the book One Hundred Years of Solitude, or in Spanish, Cien Años de Soldead, including magical realism, incest, and many more themes. That was basically the basis and the starting point of the project. 

RR: Why did you choose to spend additional time studying this topic? 

ES: I’ve always been interested in languages, and in college I plan on majoring in linguistics. I speak about four languages, and Spanish is just a language that I really connect to and I love going to talk to people in Spanish, even if I don’t know them. And, I thought delving into this independent study would be a great opportunity to learn more about Spanish culture, specifically in Columbia because I really like Colombian culture.

RR: What was the goal of your study or central question you were trying to answer?

ES: The goal of my independent study was essentially to unpack the themes in Cien Años de Soledad and his writing and understand how he wrote a novel which earned him a Nobel Peace Prize. 

RR: Do you feel as though you were successful in either fulfilling this goal or answering said question?

ES: I think so. I mean part of my goal was to improve my Spanish skills, whether that be in writing or speaking, and I ended up giving a 50 minute presentation in Spanish. I think being able to showcase my speaking skills is something that I can’t really do so much in a classroom setting, so the independent study really helped push me and push my Spanish abilities.

RR: What was your biggest challenge during the experience? 

ES: The biggest challenge was understanding the reading because Márquez has a really complex vocabulary and because reading One Hundred Years of Solitude in English is a challenge within itself, trying to understand it in Spanish is just a whole other issue. So really being able to process what he [was] saying literally and then also interpret it figuratively was what was hardest.