Time's nature plays a crucial role in determining fate in the novel. Throughout the story, time progresses in nonlinear ways. When Ursula sees Aureliano Triste planning the railroad, much like his grandfather Jose Arcadio planned Macondo's growth, it "confirmed her impression that time was going in a circle." She observes similar patterns in her great-grandson Jose Arcadio Segundo, whose actions echo those of her son, Colonel Aureliano. As Ursula grows older, time becomes disordered for her, leading her to relive past events. Later, Jose Arcadio Segundo and the last Aureliano come to understand that the first Jose Arcadio wasn't insane but rather realized "that time also stumbled and had accidents and could therefore splinter and leave an eternalized fragment in a room." Pilar Ternera, having observed the Buendia family's entire history, knows that time's cyclical nature ensures the family cannot escape their destiny: "A century of cards and experience had taught her that the history of the family was a machine with unavoidable repetitions, a turning wheel that would have gone on spilling into eternity were it not for the progressive and irremediable wearing of the axle." The family's time is limited, even as Aureliano recognizes how it "coexists in one instant" within the manuscript. As he finishes reading the pages, he understands that "everything written on them was unrepeatable since time immemorial and forever more, because races condemned to One Hundred Years of Solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth."