Throughout the first chapter of "Chronicle of a Death Foretold", there were many very prominent and obvious societal norms being set. There is a very distinguishable religion in the region based on the company that is present in this chapter. With the presence of the Bishop the reader can come to many conclusions about the moral and philosophical beliefs of the town as a whole. The catholic religion comes with many rules per say, but there are also many qualities of this religion that are of defending the family name or upholding a certain image in the community. Marquez uses these together in a few contradictory way. The bible and the catholic church say "Thou shalt not kill", yet the morals and values of the community say that one shall not let their family name and honor be damaged. But the insult the Vicario brothers feel is at such a depth, that they feel death is the only punishment. While I'm sure this feeling rang true for many of the families of this time and religion, I thought it was very interesting how Marquez immediately pins the two against each other. Another religious belief and not only moral but physical quality the author uses is that one should be a virgin upon marriage. And this here, is the premise of why Nassar is being killed. While the two beliefs seem to juxtapose each other, most people may have used one or the other to get an arousal out of those around them. This is also seemingly what turns out for the brothers. They did not want to kill Nassar but felt they had to, and due to the lack of other moral grounds to stand on no one felt the obligation to let the poor man know.
In Act 1 of the novel Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Gabriel García Márquez introduces factors that alludes to the Kitty Genovese Case, which allows him to convey the inability for the law to logically punish the bystanders of the incident. In this incident, a man named Winston Moseley killed Kitty Genovese, and Moseley was convicted. However, about 30 years later, the case was brought back into spotlight, partly to find whether her neighbors could have done anything to save the victim. These people did not call the police, and instead merely watched the crime scene and allowed the criminal to flee the area. Based on this story, the author wrote the novel, Chronicle of a Death Foretold. Just like in the Kitty Genovese case, a man named Santiago Nasar was killed. Furthermore, many people in the town were aware that two men were trying to kill Nasar, yet no one bothered to even warn him. Although they may be negatively viewed for not trying to help, there may be proper reasons on why they did not warn him. For example, the narrator says, “No one even wondered whether Santiago Nasar had been warned, because it seemed impossible to all that he hadn’t “(20). Here, according to the narrator, no one warned Nasar, because they thought that since so many people knew about it, someone had already told him. This assumption is called the bystander effect, and this form of thinking has led to the death of Nasar. However, the statement made by the narrator indicates that they didn’t warn the people due to ulterior motives, but it was simply because they thought that he did not need to. If they did not have any evil motives, the law cannot punish the people from not acting. Subsequently, the author is not stating that there was not any ulterior motives. For example, according the Divina Flor, her mother “hadn’t said anything to Santiago Nasar because in the depths of her heart she wanted them to kill him” (13). Here, the author clearly indicates that Victoria Guzmán didn’t warn Nasar because she wanted him to die. Although her motives were clearly evil, not all characters had the same evil motive. Divina Flor, for example, “didn’t warn him because she was nothing but a frightened child at the time, incapable of a decision of her own” (13). Here, the narrator states that Divina could not warn Nasser because she was scared and just a child. Because this girl does not have an ulterior motive, the law cannot punish her for not acting. The author includes characters with evil and pure motives in order to convey that although there may of been people who purposely did not act to help the victims, there were also people with good will, making it impossible to punish the bystanders.
The first few pages of Gabriel García Márquez’s, “Chronicle of a Death Foretold” include pseudo journalistic recounts of the weather on Santiago Nasar’s death. People of the town seem to contradict one another; some recall, “a radiant morning with a sea breeze coming in” while still others describe that the weather was “funereal, with a cloudy, low sky” (Márquez 2). Again the nameless narrator describes how Plácida Linero, Santiago Nasar’s mother, “advised him to take along an umbrella” while Victoria Guzmán swears that there wasn’t any rain or in fact, any rain, “during the whole month of February” (7). Recurrence of the questioning of the day’s weather emphasized the maxim that “It’s never just rain”. So why does Márquez repeatedly write about a supposed trivial matter? Contradictions of the weather provides a sense of uncertainty that accentuates the reader’s discomfort to the anonymity of the narrator. It informs the reader that the villagers’ recounts are not solid fact, but distorted through time and perceptions. Sunshine and pleasant weather in literature often foreshadows good fortune and creates a positive connotation to the reader, while rain and cloudiness enforces a negative implication. This negative implication goes back to Santiago Nasar’s dream of “a gentle drizzle” where “he was happy in his dream, but when he awoke he felt completely spattered with bird shit.” (1). All those who encountered Santiago Nasar that day agreed that he was “in a good mood” which coincides with his mood in his rainy dream, yet in reality he woke to “bird shit” just like how on that day he meets death (2,1).
I found it interesting how Victoria Guzmán, claims absolutely no rain on Santiago’s death while Plácida Linero, his mother, recalls a rainy day. Divina Flor, Victoria’s daughter, later confesses that the reason why Victoria didn’t warn Nasar of rumors of his planned death was because, “in the depths of her heart she wanted them to kill him” (13). It’s likely that Victoria did want Santiago dead (describing him as “‘A shit’”) so it makes sense that she associates it with a day without rain; a day with positive connotations (9). Juxtaposing Victoria, Santiago’s mourning mother recollects the day her son died as one with rainfall. This reveals an interesting point on how the villagers’ perspectives differ in varying degrees— which can be explored by the pseudo journalistic narrative of the novel.
In Chapter 1 of “Chronicle of a Death Foretold” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, I noticed a theme right from the beginning that caught my attention. Using several different flashbacks of the same event from various people, Marquez introduces a motif of memory and to what extent can we believe it. This motif was seen most prominently in the repetition of the different accounts for the weather, on the day that Santiago Nasar was murdered. Many people, like his mother, was confident that it was a fine, beautiful and clear day, while Victoria Guzman and “most agreed that the weather was funereal, with a cloudy, low sky and the thick smell of still waters…” (Marquez 4). The disagreement of the different accounts sets a tone of suspicion and distrust in the reader, he/she has no set idea of what actually occured, or whether or not to even believe what the narrator is saying. This theme connects well to my psychology class, and our unit on false memories. We studied many cases where victims and/or witnesses were asked to recall the exact events of murders over 20 years before. The court often takes their accounts as valid evidence and even uses it to prosecute people. However looking back on many of the cases in hindsight, a lot of the memories were proven to be false and often times provoked by therapists. When one tries to recall events that were never stored in the long term memory, what often happens is completely false accounts are planted in the brain without the person even noticing, causing them to have full confidence in their false memories. This is seen further in the popular podcast, “Serial”, where a journalist studies a case about a man that was supposedly wrongly accused for murder, almost 30 years later. In “Chronicle”, the narrator even specifies that he talked to Nasar’s mother “twenty-seven years later” (3). With this knowledge of false memories taken into account, it is important to question every recollection provided, even the ones by someone as close as his mother. I like the uneasy feeling of mystery that stems from this, it leaves the reader hanging in interested in discovering what actually happened on the day Santiago Nasar was killed.
I really like how you connected the two classes english and psychology here. I also notices this and especially when you highlighted it. This is also very relevant to the Kitty Genovese case we reviewed. Who knows if how the bystanders recalled what they actually told others to be true. This type of false memory or recall issue could be triggered by the stress of the event that occurred. Especially with your mention of the time that has passed between the event and documented story that the novel follows, I think it really adds to your argument.
The first chapter of "Chronicle of a Death Foretold" goes straight into describing the events that took place, and every detail is significant. “...the weather was funereal, with a cloudy, low sky and the thick smell of still waters, and that at the moment of the misfortune a thin drizzle was falling…” (Marquez 4). The first few pages set the mood for the story, and this sentence is a critical part. The word “funereal” can be taken almost literally, since the reader knows a murder is about to take place. However, the mood Marquez sets up is not the urgent one one would expect in the face of impending violence and death; it is somber, slow. The words “cloudy, low sky and the thick smell” have an oppressive and groggy atmosphere, reflecting the mood of the townspeople. The reader learns that the townspeople are hungover due to the party the night prior, so the parallel between them and the weather is appropriate; how the people are feeling is a possible factor in the mystery of the novel, why no one acted, so letting the reader not only know the mood but feel aids in their understanding. The “still waters” are another parallel. The water is not moving, groggy and passive, just like everyone who knew of the upcoming murder. Even the rain is not coming at full force, a light drizzle instead of heavy precipitation. Heavier rain would be too much of a sad, negative mood, since it would be overwhelming. Instead, the light drizzle reflects the ambivalence prevalent in the novel, from the twins hesitating in what they felt was their duty to the uncaring attitude of others, and the fact that in this time period, such actions were not as big a deal.
In chapter 1 of the “Chronicle of a Death Foretold” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the book begins with a description of Santiago’s dream prior to his death, “He’d dreamed he was going through a grove of timber trees where a gentle drizzle was falling, and for an instant he was happy in his dream, but when he awoke he felt completely spattered with bird shit”( Marquez 3).Santiago’s dream foreshadows and represents the day of his murder. On the day Santiago Nasar is killed he begins his day in a joyful mood, he was a “little sleepy but in a good mood, and he remarked to all of them in a casual way that it was a very beautiful day” (4). What was suppose to be a seemingly happy day for Santiago due to the visitation of the bishop turned into Santiago Nasar's last day.His awakening from his happy dream through the presence of bird poop represents his death . Santiago Nasar’s supposedly beautiful day is abruptly and unpleasantly ruined due to his death. Also, interestingly, Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s first mention of trees is in Santiago’s dream. Throughout chapter one there is a recurrence of trees in the text possibly implying a deeper meaning to the trees. Also, Santiago’s dream the week before was about him flying through a forest of almond trees without bumping into anything. This dream seems to represent his problem free life before all of these accusations were made. The maximum “flight is freedom” is apparent because in his dream he is flying in an airplane throughout the forest. The freedom he once had is gone because he is the basis of town gossip and the victim of the murderous action of the Vicario twins.
I really liked your analysis of the dream, and how you noticed the motif of trees throughout the chapter. I thought that the trees could potentially symbolize life and mortality. Trees are living things, and they come with connotations of healthiness and being able to thrive. At the same time, the use of the word "timber" in describing the trees signifies that the trees are soon to be cut down, and their life will be ended. The fate of the trees symbolizes the fate of Santiago Nasar, as he is going to die soon but he is unaware of the fact, and remains joyous, much like how the trees remain perfectly healthy up until the point when they are cut down.
In chapter 1 of "A Chronicle of a Death Foretold", there are many uses of symbolism which begin to give way to the author's theme of the story. One that really caught my attention was how much the weather was mentioned and I began to wonder if the weather is a symbolism for something. One prominent aspect of this story is that the narrator is asking several members of the town about the setting of the day in which Santiago Nassar was murdered. Each character gives a different account of the murder and I found it interesting how each character also gives a different account of the weather. It seems that the characters' interpretation of what the weather was that day, portrays how they feel about the murder. His mother believed that the weather was rainy as she explains," for her son not to get soaked i the rain, since she'd heard him sneeze while he was sleeping. She advised him to take an umbrella but hr waved goodbye and left the room"(8). The reason Nassar's mother believes it was rainy is because she had advise he was getting a cold, therefore, advised him. From this, I got the interpretation that the explanation behind a character's memory of the weather, for example the specific reason for which they believe the weather was a certain way, gives way to our understanding of how accurate their claim is. In his mother's case, the justification is very solid, and the nature of weather was gloomy, rainy and sad, which describes her feelings about that day clearly. Another character, Victoria Guzman, believed that it was a sunny day on the day of Nassar's murder. It is then explained in the book that when she was younger she had an affair with Santiago's father, Ibrahim, and maybe despised the fact that he had a son with another woman, therefore, that day was actually one good day to remember for her. This could represent why she believed the weather was sunny on that day. One of our maxims says "It's never just rain" and I believe that is clearly exhibited in the first chapter of "A Chronicle of a Death Foretold", as the author uses the weather as a mechanism to show the personalities and pasts of the characters and their relationship with Santiago Nassar who was murdered.
In Chapter One of Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Gabriel Garcia Marquez uses Magical Realism to create a sense of vagueness and uncertainty over what is true in the the narrator’s report and what is not. Garcia Marquez begins this trend on the very first page, when he introduces Santiago Nasar, saying, “He’d dreamed that he was going through a grove of timber trees where a gentle drizzle was falling, and for an instant he was happy in his dream, but when he awoke he felt completely spattered with bird shit” (1). Here, Garcia Marquez uses dreamy imagery with phrases such as “grove of timber trees” and “gentle drizzle” falling to create a tone of surrealness in the audience when they read the line. The fact that it seems so surreal leads readers to question however, whether what the narrator is describing actually really happened in the dream. The fact that the narrator would include this detail seems to suggest that it has some deeper meaning and significance, but if that were the case, the plot of the story would be seen as unrealistic because dreams are not directly linked to reality; they are just a figment of people’s imaginations. This uncertainty created in the readers that is created by Garcia Marquez’s inclusion of the dream is only one example of the Magical Realism technique that he applies throughout the first chapter. When talking about another one of Santiago Nasar’s dreams, Garcia Marquez elaborates a bit on Nasar’s mother’s ability to interpret dreams, saying, “She had a well-earned reputation as an accurate interpreter of other people’s dreams, provided they were told before eating, but she hadn’t noticed any ominous augury in those two dreams of her son's” (1). The notion that someone in the story could interpret dreams suggests that they must possess some sort of supernatural power, but the second half of the quote suggests that his mother cannot actually interpret dreams; she merely likes to boast that she can. This creates a sense of vagueness in the reader because the facts the narrator is giving seem both magical and realistic at the same time.
In Chapter 2 of , “Chronicle of a Death Foretold”, Marquez reveals why Santiago Nasar was murdered, although he still leaves it a mystery whether or not he was guilty or at fault. Angela told her brothers that the one who took her virginity was Santiago, and she “looked for it in the shadows, she found it at first sight among the many, many easily confused names from this world…” (Marquez 47). Marquez says very vaguely that she found the name Santiago out many confusing names (which seems fitting as all the characters in this book have very similar names), giving the reader the idea that she made it up out of thin air, possibly to protect the one who was actually at fault. This chapter reveals a lot about the cultural norms in the Latin American town that the book is set in, which I connected closely to the norms set in Padua, in The Taming of the Shrew. This idea of strict parental consent for marriage in “Chronicle” closely mirrored that of “Taming”, as Angela openly did not love or want to marry Bayardo, but as a women in that society her word was taken with a grain of salt. Because Bayardo was attractive, very wealthy, and from a highly esteemed family, the Vicarios insisted on the marriage taking place regardless of Angela’s position. This materialistic point of view was also present in Taming of the Shrew, when Baptista essentially sells her daughter off to which ever suitor can provide the most money. Like in many societies, the men in this town have complete freedom while the women, partying and drinking freely the night of the wedding. Marquez never says anything about women joining the festivities, even saying the the mother of the bride fell asleep at 11 o’clock, after her and her daughters cleaned up the “devastation” of the ceremony, most likely set by the men.
I like how you connected the cultural norm to “sell” off the daughter in “Chronicle of a Death Foretold” to Shakespeare’s “Taming of the Shrew.” I also noticed this similarity between Angela Vicario and Katherina Minola; both were coerced into the marriage and was expected to marry by their families and society. What I found interesting about these similarities was how both these characters ended up falling in love in the end (although some may disagree with the idea that Kate did fall in love). Also both Petruchio and Bayardo San Román display their wealth, which mainly to not impress the women, but to gain the approval of the father, as the narrator describes that Bayardo, “hadn’t even tried to court her, but had bewitched the family with his charm,” where the charm really means his wealth and status (Márquez 37). I think readers could also assume in “A Doll’s House” that Nora didn’t have much choice in her marriage to Torvald Helmer, and it’s also known that Mrs. Linde had to marry not out of love, but of duty to her family. Despite these three works written in different times and cultures, it’s interesting to see how these similar themes are reused.
In chapter 2 and 3 of Chronicle of a Death Foretold”, Marquez uses various forms of foreshadowing. One idea lured by foreshadowing is that the marriage between Bayardo and Angela was doomed from the beginning. There are several instances of foreshadowing that describe this. The first example of this is when the author describes the character of Bayardo, describing him as arrogant as he says, “ When I wake up, remind that I’m going to marry her” (29). Here, he is saying that he is going to marry her by just seeing her out of his window. Never having talked to her before, how will he know her personality and he is only judging on her looks. Later when the first conversation between Angela and Bayardo is described, the narrator explains that Angela had “confessed to me that he’d managed to impress her, but for reasons opposite those of love. “ I detected conceited men, and I’d never seen one so stuck-up” ( 29). Here, we see that she is also attracted to him for the wrong reasons, for their relationship is now based on marriage qualities but based on image and deceit. I found this to be an example of foreshadowing for I knew that, the outline of these qualities exchanged between Angela and Bayardo in deciding for their marriage, has been pointed out by the author for the purpose of showing how wrong their marriage is going to be and how unsuccessful as well. Other examples that also support this are that Angela expresses how her family wanted her to marry him and she didn’t want to, and also how Bayardo showed his affection only through money, by buying her the house she thought was the most beautiful and by spending lots of money on their wedding. These all are foreshadowing to how their marriage was never going to last, because it was happening for the wrong reasons.
In chapters 2 and 3 of "Chronicle of a Death Foretold", Marquez explores the types of people in the town and how honor plays into the ultimate murder of Santiago Nassar. Nassar is seen as a more upper class citizen within this town so there is already a certain ora around him. Many can be found envious of him and his money. But one thing that really stood out to me while reading was the ignorance of the people of the town even while the Vicaro brothers were so open and absolute about their intentions. People such as the butcher thought they were kidding. The narrator continuously calls the brothers "good people". This statement causes the reader to really consider how much of being a good person plays into defending one's beliefs. And also how much one can consider how much a good person someone is before it stops them from committing a crime such as the murder of the novel. In this culture the defense of their sister's honor is seemed to be more esteemed than it would've been for the men not to do anything at all. But there was a high red flag raised in the whole process of the event unfolding. The police were made well aware of the intentions of the brother and had no real inclination to go stop them, or help, or warn Nassar. This is possibly a social commentary by Marquez on the role of the police and how they carry out their jobs. At least in Columbia for that is where the author is most familiar with those sort of police.
In Chapter 3 of “Chronicle of a Death Foretold”, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, on prominent theme I noticed was the theme of drinking alcohol, and all of its negative connotations. Marquez sets a tone of darkness and almost evilness when referring to alcohol in his book, as though drinking it puts you into a more sinful state. This could’ve been one of Marquez’s most important messages he was trying to display, as he accompanies nearly every wrong action with drinking. In Chapter 2 we see the men partying and making a mess of the wedding ceremony, and then proceeding to drink more at spend the rest of the night at Maria Alejandrina Cervantes’s brothel. In Chapter 3 the focus is more on the twins and the events leading up to the actual crime, and by now both twins have been well characterized as good-natured people, but at the same time heavy drinkers. One of the many reasons that the townspeople didn’t believe the Vicario twins would kill Nasar was because, “their reputation as good people was so well-founded that no one paid any attention to them” (Marquez 52). This is important as it clearly shows the two personas that a person can take on, and how wicked it can get after they start to drink. While the twins waited to kill Nasar, the were often seen at Clotilde Armenta’s bar, where they drank bottles after bottles leading up to the murder. However it is interesting because Marquez writes that, “Clotilde Armenta had a good reason when it seemed to her that the twins weren’t as resolute as before, and she served them a bottle of rotgut rum with the hope of getting them dead drunk” (63). It is possible that the more the twins drank the less “resolute” they seemed to Armenta, which is why she would try to knock them out to stop them entirely. It is an interesting juxtaposition of morals in this case, because Armenta is using a very immoral technique (drinking) to stop the twins from committing a murder, which in itself is an unspeakable crime.
I really like how you noticed the theme of alcohol, it made me notice how it connects to the narration. When people have consumed a lot of alcohol, their perception and motor skills are impaired; everything is hazy. I think that the haziness And impairment that one experiences when drinking alcohol reflects the unreliable narration of the narrator. Many times in the book, the narrator doesn't give the full picture and shows his bias. We are just getting his viewpoint of Santiago Nasar's death and not anyone else's. Therefore the narration is hazy, like when someone drinks alcohol.
In chapter 2 of the play Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Gabriel García Márquez conveys to the readers that a simple lie can lead to a disaster. In this act, a man named Bayardo San Roman asked to marry Angela Vicario. Her family was completely supportive of the marriage, since Bayardo was the son of a war hero. Although Angela Vicario did not want to marry him, her mother forced her will against her, making her reluctantly agree. The problem, however, was that Angela was not a virgin, and back then, that was unacceptable for a bride. Although she was going to tell the truth to her mother (and also kill herself), her friends persuaded her to instead hide the fact that she lost her virginity by deceiving her new husband. According to the narrator, “they assured her that almost all women lose their virginity in childhood accident” (38). Here, her friends say that lots of women lost their virginity in their childhood, which is a way of telling Angela that lying about her virginity is no big deal. Trusting her friends, Angela indeed lied about her virginity and proceeded to the marriage. However, this lie did not stay hidden, in which Bayardo brought Angela back to her home and called the marriage off. This revelation has caused her mother to brutally beat Angela. Furthermore, in response to the beating, the Vicario brothers didn’t blame their mother but instead put the blame on the person who took Angela’s virginity. As soon as Angela revealed the person as “Santiago Nasar” (47), the Vicario brothers became determined on killing him. Notice how at the start of a simple lie, many events led to the other and ultimately resulted in the death of a man. Thus, the focus of this chapter was to convey that even the most simple lie can result in a catastrophe.
In chapter 3 of the play Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Gabriel García Márquez makes the point that the actual killers were not the only ones that were responsible for the death of Santiago Nasar. First of all, the Vicario brothers did not want to truly kill Nasar. When it is narrated, “the Vicario brothers... had done much more than could be imagine to have someone to stop them from killing him, and they had failed’ (49), the narrator is stating that the Vicario brothers wanted others to prevent them from committing a murder. Indeed, whenever the two brothers had the chance to talk to someone, they would reveal their intentions by saying, “We’re going to kill Santiago Nasar” (52). If the two brothers were really trying to kill Nasar, they wouldn’t reveal their plan to do so, because there is a possibility that the people will warn him. Thus, the brothers revealed their plan so people will try and stop them or at least warn Nasar. However, as it was narrated in the previous quote, “they had failed” in having others prevent them from committing the crime. When the narrator says, “while fake customers buying milk they didn’t need and asking for food items that didn’t exist went in and out with the purpose of seeing whether it was true that they were waiting for Santiago Nasar to kill him “(64), he is saying that the people in the town took the time to go to Clotilde Armenta’s store to confirm if the Vicario brothers were actually going to kill Nasar. Despite the fact that they confirmed that Nasar’s life was in fact in danger, the people did not even bother to confirm if Nasar himself knew about it. Although some characters had good reasons in not warning Nasar, people such as Father Amador did not, in which “he’d forgotten completely” (70). Because the Vicario brothers wanted to be stopped, if the people had actually stepped up and acted to help, the incident may not have occurred. Thus, the author conveys to the readers in this chapter that the Vicario brothers are not all to blame for the death of Nasar, in which the people’s failure to warn Nasar are at fault as well.
Gabriel Garcia Márquez’s, “Chronicle of a Death Foretold” displays the expectation of men and women to take roles in machismo and marianismo. Machismo and marianismo, linked to Latin American culture, is traced from the Spanish colonization and the influence of Roman Catholic theology. While machismo values male dominance and aggressive masculine behavior, marianismo refers to a hyperfemininity based on the Virgin Mary—women are expected to be pure and tolerant of a their partner’s aggressiveness. Although machoism relates to holding honor and valor, it often connotates a more negative aspect, where superiority is validated by culture. In the second chapter of Márquez’s novel, he depicts the roles the two sexes are raised in. The narrator depicts that in the Vicario household that, “The brothers were brought up to be men. The girls had been reared to get married.” (Márquez 34). Juxtaposing the roles, the narrator describes how the Vicario brothers were raised “to be men” connotating the machismo culture (34). This machismo is displayed when one of the Vicario twins, Pablo, tells the reason why he didn’t say anything to Angela Vicario’s forced obligation into marriage because, “‘It looked to us like woman problems’” (38). The idea of getting involved in an issue deemed as feminine, follows the macho ideal of exaggerated masculinity. Bayardo San Román’s courtship of Angela also displays machismo, he boldly buys all the tickets at the raffle to win the music box, and buys the prettiest house according to Angela, and according to the narrator, Bayardo “hadn’t even tried to court her, but had bewitched the family with his charm” (37). In his extravagant displays of money, he courts Angela who “didn’t want to marry him” (37). Machoism also includes sexual power; it’s accepted that men visit prostitutes despite being betrothed as Santiago Nasar and even the narrator go to the “house of mercies” on the wedding night (50). While with marianismo, women are expected to be pure and premarital sex is extremely frowned upon to the point where the entire family’s honor is placed above human life. When Angela is returned to the Vicario’s, her mother beats her until her “face [is] all bruised” and to the point where the offender, Nasar, is killed in the name of honor (52).
I really enjoyed how you mentioned the different gender roles and specifically mentioned it’s link of machismo and marianismo in relation to the Latin American culture. It was clear that Bayardo and Angela were held at two very different standards within this setting. Women had to be very pure and feminine, while the men were expected to have sexual dominance and power. This gender role between men and women was also evident between Santiago Nasar and the house servant, Divina Flor. It was expected that Santiago would put sexual advances on Divina when the time came, “she was destined for Santiago Nasar’s furtive bed, and that idea brought out a premature anxiety in her” (10). Santiago Nasar’s and Divina Flor are another example of the gender roles present in this book.
Throughout Chapter Two of Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Gabriel Garcia Marquez foreshadows the eventual conclusion of the chapter through the behavior and descriptions of Bayardo San Roman and Angela Vicario. Garcia Marquez wastes no time in establishing the character of San Roman; the very first sentence of the chapter reads, “ Bayardo San Roman, the man who had given back his bride, had turned up in August the year before: six months before the wedding” (27). By immediately establishing San Roman as “the man who had given back his bride”, Garcia Marquez establishes an ominous tone in his character, giving readers the sense that his presence will cause nothing but problems in the town. This notion is given great support at the end of the sentence, when Garcia Marquez hints that the wedding that took place the night before Nasar’s murder was in fact San Roman’s wedding, suggesting that San Roman’s abandonment of his bride played some sort of role in Nasar’s killing. A little further into the chapter, Garcia Marquez begins to reveal even more about San Roman’s relation to the death of Nasar. He writes, “But above all, he seemed to me like a very sad man. At that time he had already formalized his contract of love with Angela Vicario” (30). Firstly, the name-dropping of Angela Vicario in this here further fuels the suspicion in the readers that San Roman played some sort of role in Nasar’s death, because his fiance shares the her last name with the twin brothers that murdered Nasar. Secondly, Garcia Marquez foreshadows the eventual San Roman’s eventual abandonment of Vicario as his bride by describing their love as a “contract”. The word “love” often comes with connotations of trust and mutual feelings, but describing it as a contract corrupts these pleasant connotations, as the word “contract” has cold connotations of opposing stances and mistrust between two different parties. By describing their love in this way, Garcia Marquez foreshadows the eventual departure of San Roman when he learns that Angela Vicario is not a virgin
The idea of a sealed fate reveals itself in chapter three of, “Chronicle of a Death Foretold” by Gabriel García Márquez. This chapter describes the events leading up to Santiago Nasar’s murder, where the narrator interviews several people who admit to have known of the Vicario twins’ plan. Despite the twins explicit comments, “‘We’re going to kill Santiago Nasar’” no one directly informs Nasar, doubting the twins’ resolve (Márquez 59). Gabriel García Márquez suggests the idea of accepting fate as legitimizing it itself. The twins display their hesitation, as shown by explicitly telling everyone of their intent on murder. Even Clotilde Armenta’s acknowledges that the, “brothers were not eager to carry out the sentence as to find someone who would do them the favor of stopping them.” (65). Although it’s evident that Pablo and Pedro Vicario desired to avoid committing murder, they relied on the hope that someone intervening would be an act of fate, and since no one truly did, they understood it as, “‘There’s no way out of this,’ . . . ‘It’s as if it had already happened.’” (70). This acceptance of no villager intervening as fate, and the idea of since there’s no intervention it must be fate, only serves to try to justify the Vicario brothers’ actions (besides the justification of honor). Although the villagers remain responsible in their inaction, which only confirmed to the twins that Santiago Nasar’s death was inevitable, their acceptance of their fate allowed for fate to take certainty (whether Nasar was fated to die or not).
Also, the repetition of the Pablo and Pedro Vicario’s explicit comments and the villagers’ continuous disbelief reminded me a bit about “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” in that no one seemed to believe in their statements. While in “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”, it makes sense that the villagers would come to ignore the boy’s statements, it makes less sense for the villagers in the Latin American river village to discredit the twins’ warnings. It’s a phenomenon where people are less likely to take such explicit comments like the Vicario brothers seriously compared to more subtle ones. By calling attention to yourself, no one suspects you to actually go through with whatever action you claim. No one suspects the loud, rowdy one; the quiet one in juxtaposition, however, is quite easy to be suspicious of. With the brothers’ bold statements, it made it easier for most villagers passed it off as simply a drunkard’s talk.
Yena, I really agree with your connection of the Vicario brother’s comments about wanting to kill Santiago Nasar to the boy who cried wolf. It was clear that the Vicario brothers were trying to get another person's attention to possibly prevent them from going through with this murder. However, like you mentioned, the villagers seemed to take their comments less seriously because they continuously made threats about killing Santiago, ‘“I thought they were so drunk,’ Faustino Santos told me,”’ (51). Due to the repetition of their comments many villagers did not take the Vicario brothers comments seriously.
Chapter 2 describes Bayardo San Roman’s appearance and the timeline of his and Angela’s relationship. The reader learns a lot about Angela and her family, and one aspect that seems to follow them around is the relation to death. When she was first spotted by Bayardo San Roman, she and her mother were “dressed in the unforgiving black worn by the only two living creatures in the morass of two o’clock in the afternoon” (28). The family was still in mourning of a lost sister years after her passing. Death lingered with them, and it was apparent wherever they went. The image of the “only two living creatures in the morass” gives off an eerie tone, as if they were otherwordly creatures that symbolized death yet were still alive. The description of “only two living creatures” implies that everything else around them is dead in some way, and they are the ones bringing it. Someone says about the sisters in the Vicario family, “they’ve been raised to suffer” (31). While not directly relating to death, this quote illustrates the suffering the women have gone through just from how they were brought up. Suffering and death are often closely related, so it is as if they “grew up with death.” The suffering they had gone through could also kill their spirits, which would fit with Angela’s somber attitude throughout the chapter. Finally, after she was beaten by her mother for being brought back in shame, Angela says, “I felt as if the drowsiness of death had finally been lifted from me, and the only thing I wanted was for it all to be over quickly so I could flop down and go to sleep” (47). “Drowsiness of death” makes it seem almost peaceful, not a big deal, and Angela’s wording makes her seem all too familiar with the feeling. How she describes her subsequent feelings shows her brushing it off as nothing, something simply tiring that she wanted to sleep off. Her familiarity with death is treated as nothing unusual; the family is just a symbol of it. Angela and her family are the ones that bring death in the novel, too; Angela is the cause, and her twin brothers carry it out for the sake of their family.
Chapter 3 tells the story from the twins’ perspective, giving more insight into their characters. The townspeople say they were good men, and were surprised when they were capable of murder, and the chapter portrays the twins as people who put up a facade in one way or another. One instance, out of context, seems like a jest between friends. The narrator says, “‘Everybody knows that, you dope,’ Pablo Vicario answered him good-naturedly” (51). Pablo is described as good-natured, yet insults the person he is speaking to, condescendingly implying then telling him he’s stupid. The mix of words and tone are playful; everyone has poked fun at a close acquaintance at some point in their life, and this man is no exception. However, their situation is not such a playful, lighthearted one. They are sharpening their knives to kill Santiago Nasar, and making no secret of it. Pablo keeps up a friendly, joking attitude despite this, which can be interpreted in two different ways. First, he could be faking his mood so it doesn’t seem out of the ordinary, trying to distract himself and others from the task he must complete with his brother. However, he may not be faking at all, and is instead just being himself; the good-natured, playful part of him may be such a big part of his personality that it remains even while plotting murder. A combination of both of these would make the most sense. The situation and the mood do not fit here at all, so something suspicious has to be up. Later, both brothers are shaving; one uses a straight butcher blade, the other a safety razor. The fact that they are identical twins is incredibly symbolic of duality, possibly the duality that can reside in one person. One twin is trying to seem tougher and manlier, while the other is cautious and practical. The latter may be how the twins usually are, but the former is what they feel they have to be in this test of honor.
In chapter 2 of, “Chronicle of a Death Foretold”, Gabriel Garcia Marquez makes it evident the importance of family honor. Throughout chapter two it becomes very clear that from the beginning that Angela Vicario was not excited about the idea of marrying Bayardo San Roman. Bayardo San Roman was very self conceited and would often gloat about his money. However, due to Bayardo's status and wealth he would bring great honor to the Vicario household. The Vicario family didn’t have much, they, “lived in a modest house with brick walls and a palm roof” (Marquez 39). A marriage between Angela Vicario and Bayardo San Roman would bring much fortune to the Vicario family, thus causing them to push Angela into a rushed and unwanted marriage. Angela’s family, as well as Bayardo leave no room for Angela to make her own decisions in this situation, they “imposed on her obligation to marry a man whom she had barely seen”( 34). Angela Vicario goes through with this wedding not out of love, but in order to please her family and bring honor to the Vicario name. Even though Angela’s feelings for Bayardo are lacking this seems to be an insignificant detail for both Bayardo and the Vicario family. ‘“Angela only dared hint at the inconvenience of a lack of love, but her mother demolished it with a single phrase: ‘Love can be learned too”’ (35). The happiness of Angela and her free will is lost due to the more crucial factor of family status. Towards the end of chapter two when Bayardo discovers that Angela has lied and is not a virgin he returns her back to her family. Due to the shame Angela has brought to their family her own mother brutally beats her. She was, “beating me with the other with such rage that I thought she was going to kill me”(46). This scene is ironic because prior to Pura Vicario’s beating on Angela, Bayardo San Roman tells her, “You’re a saint” (46). Angela is treated horrifically due to the dishonor and disgrace she has brought to the Vicario name after shamefully being returned by Bayardo.
I agree with you in how Angela Vicario really did not want to marry Bayardo San Roman but was pressured into doing so by family and societal expectations. This really emphasizes the role women were expected to play; while men brought in honor by their own means, women obtained honor through marriage. Angela’s marriage was really more an arranged one than one out of love. What’s very interesting, is how the narrator goes on a tangent to tell the relationship of Angela Vicario and Bayardo San Roman decades after the murder, despite the purpose of the narrator to recollect the “Chronicle “ of Santiago Nasar’s death. To me, it was very peculiar how Angela fell into an obsessive love for Bayardo when just moments before she admitted that her hesitance in marriage. This display furthers the idea of how people often desire after things only after they lose them.
In chapter 3 of “The Chronicle of the Death Foretold” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Marquez questions the extent of an outsider's responsibility in situations that don’t necessarily involve them. Throughout chapter 3 the Vicario twins perspective and thoughts behind their murderous behaviours towards Santiago Nasar are revealed. Prior to Santiago’s death the Vicario brothers casually tell multiple people their plan to kill Santiago. Throughout this long process of trying to track down Santiago, both brothers at one point or another have doubts about killing Santiago in order to fulfill their family's honor. They tell many people about their plan to kill santiago as a cry for help. By doing this they gave people the opportunity to stop themselves from going through with this murder, “She was certain that the Vicario brothers were not as eager to carry out the sentence as to find someone who could do them the favor of stopping them” (Marquez 57). It is quite possible that Santiago’s death could have been prevented. Had one of the townspeople stepped in or taken further actions into insuring that the Vicario brothers aborted their original plan a life could have been saved . Instead when questioned by the narrator most townspeople made up an excuse to why they didn’t prevent this death, “When I saw them I thought that they were nothing, but a pair of bluffers” (56). It is evident that the Vicario brothers are not at nature murders and in fact weren’t excited to end the life of Santiago Nasar. By telling a vast amount of people their plan they hoped to increase the chance of their actions being prevented, “The Vicario brothers had told their plans to more than a dozen people who had gone out to buy milk, and these had spread the news everywhere before six o’clock” (58). This scenario is quite similar to Kitty Genovese and the neighbors who did hardly anything to help save her life. In both situations for most of the bystanders the murder had little to no impact and majority of the reasons for not stepping in was out of laziness. Should these bystanders be held responsible for doing nothing?
In Chapter Three of Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Gabriel Garcia Marquez utilizes symbolism and metaphors to convey that Pedro and Pablo Vicario were very frightened at the notion that they were going to kill Santiago Nasar, and it was almost as if they were hoping that someone would stop them from doing the deed. Garcia Marquez’s use of symbolism and metaphors can be found when the Vicario twins are sharpening their knives in the butcher shop to prepare for the murder. Garcia Marquez describes their behavior while they do this, writing, “Finally, they made the knives sing on the stone, and Pablo laid his behind the lamp so the steel sparkled” (59). The symbolism in this sentence lies in the knives; they represent the intent of the twins to commit the murder, which everyone who has come across them is seriously doubting. Garcia Marquez builds upon this symbolism by using a metaphor when describing the blades as “singing”. Singing often has connotations of being noticeable and attracting of attention, and that is exactly what the twins are trying to do at the moment: they want to broadcast to everyone that they seriously plan to kill Santiago Nasar, so that someone will finally realize they are serious and take action to stop them. This same idea is used in another metaphor later in the sentence, when Garcia Marquez describes the steel as “sparkling”. Like singing, sparkling also has connotations of attracting attention and standing out. The use of the this metaphor helps paint a picture in the reader’s mind of how desperately the twins were trying to attract attention towards their concerning behavior so that someone would stop them. The reason they did this rather than simply deciding that they should stop was because they felt that they had a duty to protect their sister’s honor; this is confirmed when Pablo says, “ ‘Before God and before men … it was a matter of honor’ “ (56). However, Garcia Marquez includes this sentence with symbolism and metaphors to show that they were truly scared to commit the crime, and had a feeling of doubt in the backs of their minds.
In chapter 4 of the novel Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Gabriel García Márquez makes the readers wonder if Angela Vicario was truly in love. Firstly, Angela Vicario initially married Bayardo through reluctance, in which her family forced her family to do so. Furthermore, when she tried to hide the fact that she lost her virginity, she failed, and she put the blame on none other than Santiago Nasar. However, it is not confirmed in the novel that he was the one to take her virginity. In fact, there are narrations that disproves Angela’s statement. For example, when the narrator says, “Angela Vicario was protecting someone who really loved her had had chosen Santiago Nasar’s name” (90), he is stating that Angela lied that Santiago took her virginity in order to protect the real person who did so. This protection indicates that Angela has feelings for the person whom she protected, and perhaps this love of hers was the reason why she was reluctant in marrying Bayardo. Up until this point in the novel, the readers will most likely not doubt that Angela is in love, but the author hits them with quite a surprise, which is that after Angela and Bayardo has left each other, she actually fell in love with him. This intense feeling is evident in the narration, “She wrote a weekly letter for over a half a lifetime. ‘Sometimes I couldn’t think of what to say,’ she told me, dying with laughter, ‘but is was enough for me to know that he was getting them’” (93-94). Here, the narrator emphasizes the fact that she was continuously sending letters to Bayardo for a long period of time and was sending them with the hope that he was receiving them. The strong preservation of Angela and her hope of reaching Bayardo illustrates her intense feelings towards them. Although this intense feeling should be called love, it must be noted that she previously was in love with some to the point of protecting him from possible conflicts. Thus, the author leaves the readers with following question: Was Angela in love with Bayardo or the person she protected, or was she even in love in the first place?
The characterization of Bayardo in this book was very interesting to me, he was the most dynamic character of anyone else in the book. When he first arrived to the town, he was portrayed as almost god-like, wearing lots of gold and being skilled in basically anything you could imagine. He left the town and then returned soon after the murder, most likely because of all of Angela’s letters to him. When he returns he is described as balding and overweight, a radical change from when we last saw him. This says a lot about what love has done to him, ruining him from the inside out. He seemed to be almost stripped of all, probably because of the embarrassment of marrying someone that was not a virgin. It also helps send a message about Nasar’s effect, because he is another character that went through a devastating change after the murder.
Chapter four of “Chronicle of a Death Foretold” brings the supernatural elements in magical realism to Gabriel García Márquez’s novel. Besides the soul of Yolanda Xius making an appearance, another element in this chapters spoke about the smell of Santiago Nasar. It’s interesting that the narrator describes the autopsy of Nasar in graphic detail, but doesn’t describe the smell of the corpse, calling it just a “smell of death” (Márquez 84). Anyone who has smelled a decaying carcass knows that its malodorous scent is just as striking as its visual appearance. Scent is also heavily related to one’s memory. The fact that the narrator does not describe the smell also reveals that he’s also attempting to rid of the guilt he feels. María Alejandrina Cervantes couldn’t sleep with the narrator rejecting him saying, “‘You smell of him’” (90). Nasar’s scent clinging to the narrator symbolically represents feelings of guilt the narrator likely feels. The narrator describes that “Everything continued smelling of Santiago Nasar that day” depicting that the entire village felt responsible for Nasar’s death (90). Although the Vicario twins were in a jail cell, they claim to smell Nasar to the point where Pedro tells the narrator, “‘No matter how much I scrubbed with soap and rags, I couldn’t get rid of the smell’” (90). This supernatural element where the brothers could smell Nasar’s body and that they “‘couldn’t get rid of the smell’” reveals that they did feel guilty to some extent (90). Despite their attempts to cleanse themselves, the Nasar’s smell stuck with the twins, just like how their subconscious guilt pervaded in them. Although the brothers refuse to repent, the description of how “the only thing that worried them was the persistence of the smell” suggests that they did feel a degree of guilt or unsettling fear of possible retribution (91). Using the supernatural element of magical realism and the lack of descriptive scent imagery, Márquez demonstrates the how the murder of Santiago Nasar did have an effect on the villagers and Vicario brothers.
Yena, like you said in your blog, the Vicario brothers felt guilty about the killing of Santiago Nasar, and they said they committed the crime to preserve their honor. Likewise, the people in the town also used honor as an excuse for not intervening in the incident. However, there are many evidences in the novel where the author hints that Nasar was not the one who took Angela Vicario’s virginity. If that is the case, the Vicario brothers killing Nasar had nothing to do with their family honor, meaning that the town people’s reason for not warning Nasar is invalid.
In Chronicle of a Death Foretold, practically everyone in the town knew that the Vicario brothers were going to kill Santiago Nasar, yet no one tried to warn him. Though there are many stated reason for this silence, chapter 5 focuses on a specific factor: sense perception. Sense perception is the use of the 5 senses to understand something. However, these senses can at times convey false knowledge. In chapter 5 of the novel Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Gabriel García Márquez creates a series of misunderstandings to convey how sense perception can lead one away from the truth. An example of this deception is when the chapter focuses on Cristo Bedoya’s attempt to warn Nasar, in which Bedoya says, “It didn’t occur to me that he could be there... because those people never got up before noon” (111). Here, Bedoya starts to explain that he didn’t think Nasar would go to Flora Miguel’s home. He perceived this fact above because because he knew through one of the senses that the people never wake up before noon. However, in reality, they woke up at 12 o’clock. Although his senses gave him the knowledge of the resident’s typical routine of waking up, it caused him to overlook the unexpected, which caused Bedoya to misunderstand that Nasar was heading to Bedoya’s house to have breakfast. This misunderstanding resulted in Bedoya failing to warn Nasar. Another example of the misleadings of sense perception is during the interaction between Nasar and his engagement partner, Flora Miguel. When she says to Nasar, “I hope they kill you” (113), she becomes infuriated because she perceived that Nasar had taken Angela’s virginity. This perception was most likely made from the spread of rumors about the relationship between Nasar and Angela. However, there is evidence that Nasar was in fact not the one to blame for Angela’s loss of virginity. Not knowing this, Flora closed the door on Nasar and did not try to help him. If she had tried to warn him, she most likely would have done a better job in persuading Nasar to hide in the house than her father (who actually did warn Nasar but failed to keep him in his home), which may of once again prevented the crime from occurring. Thus, the author created the misunderstandings in order to convey to the readers that sense perception can cause people to make assumptions that are far from truth.
In Chapter 4 of “Chronicle of a Death Foretold”, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, we see the aftermath of the murder of Santiago Nasar, and what the effect was in each person. A theme of “karma” is introduced in this chapter, reminded me of “Siddhartha”. What goes around really seems to come around in this chapter, and Marquez uses symbolism to in order to convey the negative effect murder has on a person. The most impactful symbol I noticed what the smell of Santiago Nasar. It was seen on three people, the narrator and the Vicario twins. Although Nasar was killed, it seems as though you can’t rid of him that easy, since he still is having an effect on people even when he’s dead. The twins were unable to get his smell off them, which would be very unsettling especially if it was someone that you killed. This gives a negative connotation for murder and a very strong message, that if you make the choice to take the life from someone, they will stay with you forever, whether you want it or not. In a more interesting situation, the narrator also smelled like Santiago Nasar (according to Maria), and she refused to have any sexual relation with him because of it. The narrator was a friend of Santiago and it is interesting that Maria would be reminded of Santiago because of him, as the narrator never specifies any event where Santiago’s smell would be put unto him. My guess is that it is more of a psychological thing happening with Maria, she is clearly very upset by the murder, and of course would refuse to have any relation to someone she is so used to seeing with Santiago. The quick and crude autopsy and quick burial gives the sad notion that the town really wasn’t that concerned with Santiago or heavily affected by his death, though it’s clear he still has his impact on many people that were close to him.
In Chapter 5 of “Chronicle of a Death Foretold”, By Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Marquez explores the two sides of Santiago Nasar’s death. We get some reassurance from Cristo Bedoya, who actually seemed to care about Santiago’s life and tried to warn him about the Vicario twin’s plan. However, this book is a story of everything falling into place in the wrong way, and she was unable to find him after she had left him to talk to Yamill. Her mother also just happened to close the door to the house when she heard her son was already home, which turned out to be the cause of Santiago’s doom. It’s a twisted and depressing mood, that Santiago’s own mother could be considered one that indirectly helped his death. In this chapter we also learn a lot about the human nature of the average person in this town (or maybe people in general). Other than Cristo, Yamill, and Clotilde, there was not much of an attempt at all to save Santiago, instead people actually started to “take their seats” in order to see the murder actually happen. This is powerful and depressing at the same time, that people would rather see something wicked happen, more so than actually stopping the event. This could be a reflection of people’s lives in this town, that they are so bored and uninterested with their own lives that they’ll take anything to spice it up, even a murder. The colonel is the epitome of this idea, basically failing to do his job because he didn’t care. Even though he was aware of what was taking place, he took too long to get to the scene and missed it. If the ones that are paid by the state to keep you safe can’t protect you, who are you to trust?
I agree about your comment that the chapter explored both sides of the death. But it is also essential to the story to have a full understanding on how he died. I thought it was very interesting on what you said about people sitting back and watching and the comparison you made. I also agree with this because due to none of the towns people saying anything to Nasar, it makes them accessory to the murder. This does in turn make them wicked and honestly just as guilty as the Vicario brothers.
In chapter 4 of "Chronicle of a Death Foretold" by Gabriel Marquez, there were many very meaningful and prominent ideas and symbols that add immensely to the novel. There was one detail that added immensely to the ideals of the novel as a whole. After years and years of of Angela sending Bayardo letters, he finally comes to see her. There is a catch though. None of the letters are opened. While they are all organized and colored and all of the extremities, none of them are opened. Usually, within a novel when letters are sent, all are opened and hold a very high sentimental value. This emotional value is found in the content and the formulaic nature of all love notes with confessions of longing are usually what keeps someone on the hook. But for Bayardo the sentiment was found in the persistence of the reception of the letters. If Angela was sending one letter a week for 17 years, Bayardo received almost 900 letters. Opened or not, there is something to be said and noticed about Angela's character with her dedication and persistence to this man after all of the events that took place with him. There is a sort of irony in this. In the beginning of their relationship Bayardo chased and chased after Angela, but now the tables have turned. Angela relentlessly chases after Bayardo for years and years. These letters are potentially the basis of a relationship that could be sparked again. This causes the audience to question if the relationship was possibly more than had been alluded to earlier in the novel. The union of two people usually wasn't up to women at this time but maybe Angela was somewhat on board with this relationship.
While chapter 5 of "Chronicle of a Death Foretold" follows a similar plot line the rest of the novel, it stands as very unique in comparison to the rest of the book. As it is the last chapter any reader or audience member would rightfully assume that the novel would come to a clear and definite conclusion. In the case of "Chronicle of a Death Foretold", it would seem that the conclusion would be the reveal of who Angela Vicario loses her virginity. But there is a definite absence of this conclusion. This absence of a conclusion can be seen as a true testiment to the novel as a whole. With no one being able to reveal or take the responsibility of the adultery or murder, it shows how the town as a whole acts more as an audience and accessory to the murder than people who would aid in the cover up. The town as a whole seems more willing to ignore the issue than act as a crime stopper. The complicity of the town shows the lack of authority of anyone within the town surrounding the issue of defending one's honor. This poses the question on whether or not honor stands as a legitimate defense for a crime. While it does not stand now, it can be seen that this questions truly a question of a time period or location. In the 50's this could be seen as truly acceptable or in Latin America it is all the same.
I agree that chapter 5 does not have a definite ending, but I believe, however, that it does provide a strong hint for as to whether Santiago Nasar was responsible for taking Angela Vicario’s virginity. For example, even though Pedro Vicario stabbed Nasar multiple times in the same spot, not a drop of blood came out of him. This occurrence is an element of magical realism, since it is impossible for someone to not bleed after being directly stabbed. The absence of blood represents Nasar’s purity, which indicates that Nasar was innocent and did not take Angela Vicario’s virginity. Thus, Gabriel García Márquez uses elements of magical realism to convey to the readers that Nasar was the true victim of the incident.
In Chapter Four of Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Gabriel Garcia Marquez uses the town’s clumsy and insensitive actions in the aftermath of Santiago Nasar’s death to reinforce the theme of Nasar’s ridiculous, seemingly fate-determined misfortune. The ineptness of the town’s officials in dealing with the death is shown immediately at the beginning of the chapter in the first sentence, when Garcia Marquez writes, “The damage from the knives was only a beginning for the unforgiving autopsy that Father Carmen Amador found himself obliged to perform in Dr. Dionisio Iguaran’s absence. ‘It was as if we killed him all over again after he was dead’ ” (83). The absence of the town’s only doctor in the time when the town needed him most is the first point that Garcia Marquez uses to show the town’s ineptness. This plot point is an example of magical realism, because it as if fate had controlled everything to work against Santiago Nasar, even after his death. This point is further reinforced by the fact that Nasar’s misfortune has been a common theme throughout the play; the dream that Santiago Nasar experiences in the first chapter was a symbol for his inevitable, fate-determined misfortune. The second sentence of the quote supports the theme of Nasar’s continued misfortune as well, showing that even after death Nasar is still suffering the same misfortune that he followed him when he was alive. The theme of Nasar’s misfortune is continued a few pages into the chapter when Garcia Marquez writes about how the dogs are acting around Nasar’s corpse. Garcia Marquez writes, “...the dogs, aroused by the smell of death, increased the uneasiness. They hadn’t stopped howling since I went into the house, when Santiago Nasar was still in his death throes in the kitchen and I found Divina Flor weeping in great howls and holding them off with a stick” (84-86). The use of auditory imagery of both the howling of the dogs and the weeping of Divina Flor contribute to the tone of misfortune surrounding Nasar. The howling of dogs comes with connotations of uneasiness and potential danger, while people weeping causes the reader to think of frantic lament over an unfortunate event. Both of these images play into the theme of misfortune befalling Nasar.
Roy this is a very interesting observation. It reminds of what we talked About in class during the chapter presentations of how sense perception plays a big role in the plot of the story. For example Davina Flor " saw" Santiago walk in through the door which caused his mom to lock the door and that caused Santiago to not be able to enter the front door and eventually get killed. There was also an error in hearing where placía, santiago's mom, though she heard him upstairs but he was really trying to get inside the house and this error in hearing contributed to him getting stabbed.
In chapter 4 of "Chronicle of A Death Foretold" by Gabriel Marquez, there are many symbols used that portray a specific tone to the chapter. The tone of chapter is grim, guilty and depressing. The use of symbolism gives insight into this. Symbolism is used to portray death and the spirit of the dead. Santiago's smell is a symbol used to portray guiltiness felt by the whole town after his death. Smell is something that travels, and this specific aspect of Santiago is symbolized to show a uniform sense of guilty ness felt by the towns people. When introducing this symbol, Marquez writes, "“Everything continued smelling of Santiago Nasar that day. The Vicario brothers could smell him on the jail…” No matter how much I scrubbed with soap and rags, I couldn’t get rid of the smell”(pg. 78). Here, it is showed that the brothers who committed the murder cannot get rid of the smell of Santiago. This portrays that whatever they do, and even if their actions were justified by saving their sister's honor, they still feel guilty for ending another man's life. Also, he writes "everything continued" which suggests that not only to the murderers , but other people of the town this smell was recognizable, therefore, saying that they all felt guilt or remorse as a result of this occurring. Another quote suggests," At that moment they were comforted by the honor of having done their duty, and the only thing that worried them was the persistence of the smell” (pg.79). Here, again, the everlasting smell is shown, and the inability of ending it. Another symbol that is used to portray death is a the symbol of phosphorescent bird. Marquez writes, "“The widower Xius told the mayor that he’d seen a phosphorescent bird fluttering over his former home, and he thought it was the soul of his wife who was going about demanding what was hers” (pg 84). Now the widower has been introduced before, but his insignificance at this exact point in the story, suggests that his statement was not out of nowhere. This statement is a symbol of dead returning for something. These two symbols are some examples of how symbolism is used to portray death in the fourth chapter of "Chronicle of A Death Foretold".
In Chapter Five of Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Garcia Marquez explores the reliability of the narrator as an accurate reporter of the crime. Garcia Marquez uses both symbolism and bias in the narrator’s report to illustrate that his account may not be an entirely reliable resource in revealing the truth behind the death of Nasar. When giving a report of how he collected evidence about the magistrate’s investigation into Nasar’s death, the narrator’s questionable reliability becomes evident. Garcia Marquez uses symbolism in the narrator’s description of the office in which he salvaged the magistrate’s brief, writing, “The ground floor would be flooded by high tides and the unbound volumes floated about the deserted offices” (116). The tides described by Marquez in this sentence is a symbol for how the narrator is unable to give an accurate, truthful account of the details, motives, and aftermath of Nasar’s death. Tides are regular events that happen on intervals, reflecting how there is always an inhibiting factor in the narrator’s attempts to gather evidence that cannot be avoided. Also the imagery of “unbound volumes floating about the deserted offices” reflects the inability of the narrator to provide a solid, crystal-clear reasoning as to why Nasar was not warned. Instead, all the narrator provides is scattered, inconsistent anecdotes from the townspeople, as the imagery of the disorganized, drifting volumes of evidence illustrates. Besides his inability to gather concrete evidence, the narrator’s account is also limited by his bias, having grown up with Nasar in the town. After rambling on, giving a string of loosely connected facts and accounts, the narrator says, “My personal impression is that he died without understanding his death” (118). The language chosen by Garcia Marquez in this sentence fully showcase the bias in the narrator’s report. The word’s “personal” and “impression” both have connotations of subjectiveness, illustrating that the narrator has nothing more valuable to offer than his subjective opinion. The fact that the narrator waited until the last chapter in the book to reveal this demonstrates that the narrator feels that his opinion is the most valuable thing he has to offer, because authors often save their concluding, final statements for the end of their work. By suggesting that his personal opinion trumps everything else, the narrator devalues the other evidence he has presented, effectively rendering his account as unreliable.
In the last chapter of “Chronicle of a Death Foretold” by Gabriel García Márquez, the narrator introduces a variety new characters. In books I have read, it’s not the norm for authors to structure books like this; new characters are rarely introduced towards the end of the story, and if so, the book often times has a sequel. While the majority of the characters introduced in this last chapter are not pivotal to the novel, the fact that the narrator includes them in this pseudojournalism demonstrates that they are important to some extent. Introducing new characters at the end of the novel only accentuate how the villagers avoided getting involved, but after the crime has been done, many came forward to testify. Very few tried to prevent the death of Santiago Nasar and yet when it came to testify, the investigative magistrate had to “ask for troop reinforcements to control the crowd that was pouring in to testify without having been summoned” (Márquez 115). The narrator points out the hypocrisy of those who didn’t act consoling themselves that they were “giving access only to those who are part of the drama” while later, the arrival of the magistrate makes, “everyone eager to show off his own important role in the drama” (115). So by introducing several new characters in the last chapter of the chronicle, it helps emphasize the human tendency to pass off responsibility while later claiming it to be a part of the drama (no one wants to do the work, but still wants to be praised for it).
The author's use of late introductions definitely does say a lot about people and society as a whole, like you pointed out. There may be many other reasons he chose to do so, as well; one I thought of while reading your response was how it ties into the "mystery" aspect, the odd series of events leading to the man's death that pseudojournalistic story explores. It is as if when one part was solved, another issue came up, adding more questions than answers and creating a seemingly neverending pattern of mystery. The author gives the reader this feeling using character introductions; the reader thinks all the characters have been introduced, so all they supply has been given, so the reader expects more deep analysis of their points of view and actions, or even a solid conclusion. However, another character is introduced, another perspective given, which throws off the reader's notions of the events and forces them to alter their conclusions or expectations to fit the new information, which is much like everyday life and adds to the troubling, mysterious tone of the novel.
The theme of magical realism is very prevalent in Chapter 4. When describing his interview with Pedro, the narrator says, “‘I was awake for eleven months,’ he told me, and I knew him well enough to know that it was true” (80). Not sleeping for eleven months is generally a bad idea, and may have side effects including: Death. So, clearly, it’s either not literal, or it is and this is just a normal occurrence, which would make it magical realism. The metaphorical interpretation could tie into the theme of the lucidity of the brothers during and after they had committed the murder, which is meant to highlight the fact that they knew exactly what they were doing/had done. The increase in unusual events in this chapter would make sense, though, since a lot of it takes place after the murder. The magical, surreal aspect of many of the events may be tied to the recent death; the murder affected everyone, and since death is such a spiritual topic in Latin America, its prevalence in the community is causing more strange (at least, to readers) events to happen, the veil between physical and spiritual world thinning. Another surreal event is when the women of Bayardo San Roman’s family visit, and they are described as walking up the hill barefoot and “pulling out strands of hair by the roots and wailing loudly with such high-pitched shrieks that they seemed to be shouts of joy” (85). The women are not mourning the death of a man, but rather the horrible things that had befallen their family member. Their actions certainly seem to be overreactions, but also reminded me of parts of folklore and mythology, tales that are known for their magical, surreal qualities. Even later and more obvious is the communication with a dead woman, when “the soul of Yolanda Xius confirmed in her own handwriting that it was in fact she who was recovering the knickknacks of her happiness for her house of death” (87). The soul of a dead person coming back and taking possessions is very obviously a supernatural event, but the way the author writes it treats it as a very casual, normal thing to happen. He does not elaborate on the event any more, leaving the reader to wonder what just happened and perhaps hesitate to keep reading in order to think about it.
In the final chapter, the concept of fate solidifies its mark on the book and the events therein. On the very first page of the chapter, the narrator says, “none of us could go on living without an exact knowledge of the place and the mission assigned to us by fate” (96). Everyone in the village accepted fate as a fact of life, especially after the murder. One reason they could be so preoccupied by it is the sequence of events that led to the murder, everything lining up exactly, everyone’s timing just a bit off and many making the wrong decisions, just so Santiago Nasar could wind up dead. They believe it all happened the way it did because it was fated to go this way; the narrative then follows Cristo Bedoya, using his failure of finding his place in fate as a segway to his actions during the day of the murder, implying that that day was part of his fated path, as it was with everyone else. Later on, the narrator’s sister says, “I’d seen [Santiago] when I passed...and he already had the face of a dead man” (110). Clairvoyance is a common theme in magical realism, so it is no surprise it comes into play alongside fate. Whether clairvoyance or intuition, Margot could tell Santiago was going to die no matter what. The actions of others, the attempts to save him, were all futile, and she already knew the inevitable. Even if he was innocent, Santiago Nasar was fated to die, the theme the entire book aimed to investigate.
In chapter 4 of “Chronicle of a Death Foretold” by Gabriel Marquez, Marquez shows the dynamic change in the characterization of Angela Vicario . During a much later time period after Santiago Nasar’s death, the narrator questions Angela about the past events leading up to the murder of Santiago Nasar. Upon first seeing her, the narrator describes Angela as, “a women half in mourning, with steel rimmed glasses and yellowish gray hair, and hanging high above her head was a cage with a canary that didn’t stop singing. Through his use of color imagery Marquez allows the audience to imagine Angela as old, undesirable and worn out. Both the color steel and yellowish gray are not very appetizing and are more faded colors. Also, the canary represents Angela’s attitude, even with all of the misfortunes in her life she still lives her life happily. The maxim, flight is freedom is also apparent because the caged canary represents her constriction of freedom. After her failed marriage, Angela Vicario was limited on what she could do and was labelled by her community for her past actions. These judgments and labels compressed Angela’s abilities and freedom. However, through her experience of her relationship with Bayardo it also allowed Angela to grow as a person. Similar to the bird, Angela continually never let people’s opinions of her control who she could become. The narrator takes note of Angela Vicario’s drastic change, “She has nothing in common with the person who’d been obliged to marry without love at the age of twenty” (89). Angela is so much more, “mature and witty that it was difficult to believe that she was the same person” (89). Through Angela’s r past mistakes that contained her capabilities of who she could become they also allowed Angela to see the world differently and come to a better understanding of who she was.
Diana you made some really interesting points and I see exactly how Marquez shows the dynamic change in the characterization of Angela Vicario. Some other examples that could show this dynamic growth more could be when he describes her relationship with Bayardo and writes, “The more letters she sent the more the coals of her fever burned, but the happy rancor she felt for her mother also heated up” (108).This could show how Angela has changed to love Bayardo. This is significant because the first 3 chapters, the narrator talks about the forced nature of their relationship, Angela not wanting to marry him and Bayardo only attracting her and her family by money. Now, through this quote, it is shown has Angela has shifted to love him and through this she dealt with her life situation following that night.
In chapter 5 of “Chronicle of a Death Foretold” by Gabriel Marquez, it is evident that multiple people were aware of the Vicario brother’s plan to kill Santiago Nasar, but none of them were willing to warn Santiago himself. This brings up the question, do bystanders hold any responsibility in a situation similar to Santiago Nasar’s?People’s inability to step into situations, even if they play a role as a bystander syncs up to fate and it’s inevitable characteristics . Nobody in the entire time decides to warn Santiago or step in drastically to prevent the Vicario brothers from going through with their actions. Whenever someone is about to warn Santiago Nasar the events in the story prevent the warning. Some people refused to warn Santiago Nasar about his possible murder because of ulterior motives, as well as disbelief and denial. ‘“They’re looking for him to kill him.’ Victoria Guzman forgot her innocence. ‘Those poor boys won’t kill anybody”’ (105). Also, a couple of people made ridiculous excuses to why they couldn’t help him, “‘I got all mixed up,’ Celeste Dangond told me , “because it suddenly seemed to me that they couldn’t be killing him, if he was so sure of what he was going to do”’ (103). Everybody’s excuses and inability to warn Santiago Nasar seems to play a role into the Magical realism aspect of this book. A key component to magical realism and big belief is that fate is extremely important. It is quite possible that Santiago’s fate was death. It was unavoidable and one of the reasons none of the bystanders were able to warn Santiago in time. Fate explains an aspect of why people were incapable of helping Santiago. Santiago was suppose to die, but it is still questionable whether all of these bystanders who knew about the murder plans should be held responsible for Santiago’s death.
That is a good moral dilemma that you bring up, however it is very difficult to answer, because it plays to each individual’s values. My personal opinion is that in this particular situation, every citizen who knew of the plan had a responsibility to help Santiago. This is especially important in this situation because it is made clear to us that the local enforcement is essentially useless. The townspeople in reality not only didn’t tell Santiago at all, but they all sat around to watch, letting him be killed. This says a lot about the lack of empathy in all the townspeople, although it is true that for many people they would argue that they have no responsibility to save someone that has nothing to do with them. It also could be that they put family honor over human life, justifying the murder and even wanting him to die.
Throughout the first chapter of "Chronicle of a Death Foretold", there were many very prominent and obvious societal norms being set. There is a very distinguishable religion in the region based on the company that is present in this chapter. With the presence of the Bishop the reader can come to many conclusions about the moral and philosophical beliefs of the town as a whole. The catholic religion comes with many rules per say, but there are also many qualities of this religion that are of defending the family name or upholding a certain image in the community. Marquez uses these together in a few contradictory way. The bible and the catholic church say "Thou shalt not kill", yet the morals and values of the community say that one shall not let their family name and honor be damaged. But the insult the Vicario brothers feel is at such a depth, that they feel death is the only punishment. While I'm sure this feeling rang true for many of the families of this time and religion, I thought it was very interesting how Marquez immediately pins the two against each other. Another religious belief and not only moral but physical quality the author uses is that one should be a virgin upon marriage. And this here, is the premise of why Nassar is being killed. While the two beliefs seem to juxtapose each other, most people may have used one or the other to get an arousal out of those around them. This is also seemingly what turns out for the brothers. They did not want to kill Nassar but felt they had to, and due to the lack of other moral grounds to stand on no one felt the obligation to let the poor man know.
ReplyDeleteIn Act 1 of the novel Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Gabriel García Márquez introduces factors that alludes to the Kitty Genovese Case, which allows him to convey the inability for the law to logically punish the bystanders of the incident. In this incident, a man named Winston Moseley killed Kitty Genovese, and Moseley was convicted. However, about 30 years later, the case was brought back into spotlight, partly to find whether her neighbors could have done anything to save the victim. These people did not call the police, and instead merely watched the crime scene and allowed the criminal to flee the area. Based on this story, the author wrote the novel, Chronicle of a Death Foretold. Just like in the Kitty Genovese case, a man named Santiago Nasar was killed. Furthermore, many people in the town were aware that two men were trying to kill Nasar, yet no one bothered to even warn him. Although they may be negatively viewed for not trying to help, there may be proper reasons on why they did not warn him. For example, the narrator says, “No one even wondered whether Santiago Nasar had been warned, because it seemed impossible to all that he hadn’t “(20). Here, according to the narrator, no one warned Nasar, because they thought that since so many people knew about it, someone had already told him. This assumption is called the bystander effect, and this form of thinking has led to the death of Nasar. However, the statement made by the narrator indicates that they didn’t warn the people due to ulterior motives, but it was simply because they thought that he did not need to. If they did not have any evil motives, the law cannot punish the people from not acting. Subsequently, the author is not stating that there was not any ulterior motives. For example, according the Divina Flor, her mother “hadn’t said anything to Santiago Nasar because in the depths of her heart she wanted them to kill him” (13). Here, the author clearly indicates that Victoria Guzmán didn’t warn Nasar because she wanted him to die. Although her motives were clearly evil, not all characters had the same evil motive. Divina Flor, for example, “didn’t warn him because she was nothing but a frightened child at the time, incapable of a decision of her own” (13). Here, the narrator states that Divina could not warn Nasser because she was scared and just a child. Because this girl does not have an ulterior motive, the law cannot punish her for not acting. The author includes characters with evil and pure motives in order to convey that although there may of been people who purposely did not act to help the victims, there were also people with good will, making it impossible to punish the bystanders.
ReplyDeleteThe first few pages of Gabriel García Márquez’s, “Chronicle of a Death Foretold” include pseudo journalistic recounts of the weather on Santiago Nasar’s death. People of the town seem to contradict one another; some recall, “a radiant morning with a sea breeze coming in” while still others describe that the weather was “funereal, with a cloudy, low sky” (Márquez 2). Again the nameless narrator describes how Plácida Linero, Santiago Nasar’s mother, “advised him to take along an umbrella” while Victoria Guzmán swears that there wasn’t any rain or in fact, any rain, “during the whole month of February” (7). Recurrence of the questioning of the day’s weather emphasized the maxim that “It’s never just rain”. So why does Márquez repeatedly write about a supposed trivial matter? Contradictions of the weather provides a sense of uncertainty that accentuates the reader’s discomfort to the anonymity of the narrator. It informs the reader that the villagers’ recounts are not solid fact, but distorted through time and perceptions. Sunshine and pleasant weather in literature often foreshadows good fortune and creates a positive connotation to the reader, while rain and cloudiness enforces a negative implication. This negative implication goes back to Santiago Nasar’s dream of “a gentle drizzle” where “he was happy in his dream, but when he awoke he felt completely spattered with bird shit.” (1). All those who encountered Santiago Nasar that day agreed that he was “in a good mood” which coincides with his mood in his rainy dream, yet in reality he woke to “bird shit” just like how on that day he meets death (2,1).
ReplyDeleteI found it interesting how Victoria Guzmán, claims absolutely no rain on Santiago’s death while Plácida Linero, his mother, recalls a rainy day. Divina Flor, Victoria’s daughter, later confesses that the reason why Victoria didn’t warn Nasar of rumors of his planned death was because, “in the depths of her heart she wanted them to kill him” (13). It’s likely that Victoria did want Santiago dead (describing him as “‘A shit’”) so it makes sense that she associates it with a day without rain; a day with positive connotations (9). Juxtaposing Victoria, Santiago’s mourning mother recollects the day her son died as one with rainfall. This reveals an interesting point on how the villagers’ perspectives differ in varying degrees— which can be explored by the pseudo journalistic narrative of the novel.
In Chapter 1 of “Chronicle of a Death Foretold” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, I noticed a theme right from the beginning that caught my attention. Using several different flashbacks of the same event from various people, Marquez introduces a motif of memory and to what extent can we believe it. This motif was seen most prominently in the repetition of the different accounts for the weather, on the day that Santiago Nasar was murdered. Many people, like his mother, was confident that it was a fine, beautiful and clear day, while Victoria Guzman and “most agreed that the weather was funereal, with a cloudy, low sky and the thick smell of still waters…” (Marquez 4). The disagreement of the different accounts sets a tone of suspicion and distrust in the reader, he/she has no set idea of what actually occured, or whether or not to even believe what the narrator is saying. This theme connects well to my psychology class, and our unit on false memories. We studied many cases where victims and/or witnesses were asked to recall the exact events of murders over 20 years before. The court often takes their accounts as valid evidence and even uses it to prosecute people. However looking back on many of the cases in hindsight, a lot of the memories were proven to be false and often times provoked by therapists. When one tries to recall events that were never stored in the long term memory, what often happens is completely false accounts are planted in the brain without the person even noticing, causing them to have full confidence in their false memories. This is seen further in the popular podcast, “Serial”, where a journalist studies a case about a man that was supposedly wrongly accused for murder, almost 30 years later. In “Chronicle”, the narrator even specifies that he talked to Nasar’s mother “twenty-seven years later” (3). With this knowledge of false memories taken into account, it is important to question every recollection provided, even the ones by someone as close as his mother. I like the uneasy feeling of mystery that stems from this, it leaves the reader hanging in interested in discovering what actually happened on the day Santiago Nasar was killed.
ReplyDeleteI really like how you connected the two classes english and psychology here. I also notices this and especially when you highlighted it. This is also very relevant to the Kitty Genovese case we reviewed. Who knows if how the bystanders recalled what they actually told others to be true. This type of false memory or recall issue could be triggered by the stress of the event that occurred. Especially with your mention of the time that has passed between the event and documented story that the novel follows, I think it really adds to your argument.
DeleteThe first chapter of "Chronicle of a Death Foretold" goes straight into describing the events that took place, and every detail is significant. “...the weather was funereal, with a cloudy, low sky and the thick smell of still waters, and that at the moment of the misfortune a thin drizzle was falling…” (Marquez 4). The first few pages set the mood for the story, and this sentence is a critical part. The word “funereal” can be taken almost literally, since the reader knows a murder is about to take place. However, the mood Marquez sets up is not the urgent one one would expect in the face of impending violence and death; it is somber, slow. The words “cloudy, low sky and the thick smell” have an oppressive and groggy atmosphere, reflecting the mood of the townspeople. The reader learns that the townspeople are hungover due to the party the night prior, so the parallel between them and the weather is appropriate; how the people are feeling is a possible factor in the mystery of the novel, why no one acted, so letting the reader not only know the mood but feel aids in their understanding. The “still waters” are another parallel. The water is not moving, groggy and passive, just like everyone who knew of the upcoming murder. Even the rain is not coming at full force, a light drizzle instead of heavy precipitation. Heavier rain would be too much of a sad, negative mood, since it would be overwhelming. Instead, the light drizzle reflects the ambivalence prevalent in the novel, from the twins hesitating in what they felt was their duty to the uncaring attitude of others, and the fact that in this time period, such actions were not as big a deal.
ReplyDeleteIn chapter 1 of the “Chronicle of a Death Foretold” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the book begins with a description of Santiago’s dream prior to his death, “He’d dreamed he was going through a grove of timber trees where a gentle drizzle was falling, and for an instant he was happy in his dream, but when he awoke he felt completely spattered with bird shit”( Marquez 3).Santiago’s dream foreshadows and represents the day of his murder. On the day Santiago Nasar is killed he begins his day in a joyful mood, he was a “little sleepy but in a good mood, and he remarked to all of them in a casual way that it was a very beautiful day” (4). What was suppose to be a seemingly happy day for Santiago due to the visitation of the bishop turned into Santiago Nasar's last day.His awakening from his happy dream through the presence of bird poop represents his death . Santiago Nasar’s supposedly beautiful day is abruptly and unpleasantly ruined due to his death. Also, interestingly, Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s first mention of trees is in Santiago’s dream. Throughout chapter one there is a recurrence of trees in the text possibly implying a deeper meaning to the trees. Also, Santiago’s dream the week before was about him flying through a forest of almond trees without bumping into anything. This dream seems to represent his problem free life before all of these accusations were made. The maximum “flight is freedom” is apparent because in his dream he is flying in an airplane throughout the forest. The freedom he once had is gone because he is the basis of town gossip and the victim of the murderous action of the Vicario twins.
ReplyDeleteI really liked your analysis of the dream, and how you noticed the motif of trees throughout the chapter. I thought that the trees could potentially symbolize life and mortality. Trees are living things, and they come with connotations of healthiness and being able to thrive. At the same time, the use of the word "timber" in describing the trees signifies that the trees are soon to be cut down, and their life will be ended. The fate of the trees symbolizes the fate of Santiago Nasar, as he is going to die soon but he is unaware of the fact, and remains joyous, much like how the trees remain perfectly healthy up until the point when they are cut down.
DeleteIn chapter 1 of "A Chronicle of a Death Foretold", there are many uses of symbolism which begin to give way to the author's theme of the story. One that really caught my attention was how much the weather was mentioned and I began to wonder if the weather is a symbolism for something. One prominent aspect of this story is that the narrator is asking several members of the town about the setting of the day in which Santiago Nassar was murdered. Each character gives a different account of the murder and I found it interesting how each character also gives a different account of the weather. It seems that the characters' interpretation of what the weather was that day, portrays how they feel about the murder. His mother believed that the weather was rainy as she explains," for her son not to get soaked i the rain, since she'd heard him sneeze while he was sleeping. She advised him to take an umbrella but hr waved goodbye and left the room"(8). The reason Nassar's mother believes it was rainy is because she had advise he was getting a cold, therefore, advised him. From this, I got the interpretation that the explanation behind a character's memory of the weather, for example the specific reason for which they believe the weather was a certain way, gives way to our understanding of how accurate their claim is. In his mother's case, the justification is very solid, and the nature of weather was gloomy, rainy and sad, which describes her feelings about that day clearly. Another character, Victoria Guzman, believed that it was a sunny day on the day of Nassar's murder. It is then explained in the book that when she was younger she had an affair with Santiago's father, Ibrahim, and maybe despised the fact that he had a son with another woman, therefore, that day was actually one good day to remember for her. This could represent why she believed the weather was sunny on that day.
ReplyDeleteOne of our maxims says "It's never just rain" and I believe that is clearly exhibited in the first chapter of "A Chronicle of a Death Foretold", as the author uses the weather as a mechanism to show the personalities and pasts of the characters and their relationship with Santiago Nassar who was murdered.
In Chapter One of Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Gabriel Garcia Marquez uses Magical Realism to create a sense of vagueness and uncertainty over what is true in the the narrator’s report and what is not. Garcia Marquez begins this trend on the very first page, when he introduces Santiago Nasar, saying, “He’d dreamed that he was going through a grove of timber trees where a gentle drizzle was falling, and for an instant he was happy in his dream, but when he awoke he felt completely spattered with bird shit” (1). Here, Garcia Marquez uses dreamy imagery with phrases such as “grove of timber trees” and “gentle drizzle” falling to create a tone of surrealness in the audience when they read the line. The fact that it seems so surreal leads readers to question however, whether what the narrator is describing actually really happened in the dream. The fact that the narrator would include this detail seems to suggest that it has some deeper meaning and significance, but if that were the case, the plot of the story would be seen as unrealistic because dreams are not directly linked to reality; they are just a figment of people’s imaginations. This uncertainty created in the readers that is created by Garcia Marquez’s inclusion of the dream is only one example of the Magical Realism technique that he applies throughout the first chapter. When talking about another one of Santiago Nasar’s dreams, Garcia Marquez elaborates a bit on Nasar’s mother’s ability to interpret dreams, saying, “She had a well-earned reputation as an accurate interpreter of other people’s dreams, provided they were told before eating, but she hadn’t noticed any ominous augury in those two dreams of her son's” (1). The notion that someone in the story could interpret dreams suggests that they must possess some sort of supernatural power, but the second half of the quote suggests that his mother cannot actually interpret dreams; she merely likes to boast that she can. This creates a sense of vagueness in the reader because the facts the narrator is giving seem both magical and realistic at the same time.
ReplyDeleteIn Chapter 2 of , “Chronicle of a Death Foretold”, Marquez reveals why Santiago Nasar was murdered, although he still leaves it a mystery whether or not he was guilty or at fault. Angela told her brothers that the one who took her virginity was Santiago, and she “looked for it in the shadows, she found it at first sight among the many, many easily confused names from this world…” (Marquez 47). Marquez says very vaguely that she found the name Santiago out many confusing names (which seems fitting as all the characters in this book have very similar names), giving the reader the idea that she made it up out of thin air, possibly to protect the one who was actually at fault. This chapter reveals a lot about the cultural norms in the Latin American town that the book is set in, which I connected closely to the norms set in Padua, in The Taming of the Shrew. This idea of strict parental consent for marriage in “Chronicle” closely mirrored that of “Taming”, as Angela openly did not love or want to marry Bayardo, but as a women in that society her word was taken with a grain of salt. Because Bayardo was attractive, very wealthy, and from a highly esteemed family, the Vicarios insisted on the marriage taking place regardless of Angela’s position. This materialistic point of view was also present in Taming of the Shrew, when Baptista essentially sells her daughter off to which ever suitor can provide the most money. Like in many societies, the men in this town have complete freedom while the women, partying and drinking freely the night of the wedding. Marquez never says anything about women joining the festivities, even saying the the mother of the bride fell asleep at 11 o’clock, after her and her daughters cleaned up the “devastation” of the ceremony, most likely set by the men.
ReplyDeleteI like how you connected the cultural norm to “sell” off the daughter in “Chronicle of a Death Foretold” to Shakespeare’s “Taming of the Shrew.” I also noticed this similarity between Angela Vicario and Katherina Minola; both were coerced into the marriage and was expected to marry by their families and society. What I found interesting about these similarities was how both these characters ended up falling in love in the end (although some may disagree with the idea that Kate did fall in love). Also both Petruchio and Bayardo San Román display their wealth, which mainly to not impress the women, but to gain the approval of the father, as the narrator describes that Bayardo, “hadn’t even tried to court her, but had bewitched the family with his charm,” where the charm really means his wealth and status (Márquez 37). I think readers could also assume in “A Doll’s House” that Nora didn’t have much choice in her marriage to Torvald Helmer, and it’s also known that Mrs. Linde had to marry not out of love, but of duty to her family. Despite these three works written in different times and cultures, it’s interesting to see how these similar themes are reused.
DeleteIn chapter 2 and 3 of Chronicle of a Death Foretold”, Marquez uses various forms of foreshadowing. One idea lured by foreshadowing is that the marriage between Bayardo and Angela was doomed from the beginning. There are several instances of foreshadowing that describe this. The first example of this is when the author describes the character of Bayardo, describing him as arrogant as he says, “ When I wake up, remind that I’m going to marry her” (29). Here, he is saying that he is going to marry her by just seeing her out of his window. Never having talked to her before, how will he know her personality and he is only judging on her looks. Later when the first conversation between Angela and Bayardo is described, the narrator explains that Angela had “confessed to me that he’d managed to impress her, but for reasons opposite those of love. “ I detected conceited men, and I’d never seen one so stuck-up” ( 29). Here, we see that she is also attracted to him for the wrong reasons, for their relationship is now based on marriage qualities but based on image and deceit. I found this to be an example of foreshadowing for I knew that, the outline of these qualities exchanged between Angela and Bayardo in deciding for their marriage, has been pointed out by the author for the purpose of showing how wrong their marriage is going to be and how unsuccessful as well. Other examples that also support this are that Angela expresses how her family wanted her to marry him and she didn’t want to, and also how Bayardo showed his affection only through money, by buying her the house she thought was the most beautiful and by spending lots of money on their wedding. These all are foreshadowing to how their marriage was never going to last, because it was happening for the wrong reasons.
ReplyDeleteIn chapters 2 and 3 of "Chronicle of a Death Foretold", Marquez explores the types of people in the town and how honor plays into the ultimate murder of Santiago Nassar. Nassar is seen as a more upper class citizen within this town so there is already a certain ora around him. Many can be found envious of him and his money. But one thing that really stood out to me while reading was the ignorance of the people of the town even while the Vicaro brothers were so open and absolute about their intentions. People such as the butcher thought they were kidding. The narrator continuously calls the brothers "good people". This statement causes the reader to really consider how much of being a good person plays into defending one's beliefs. And also how much one can consider how much a good person someone is before it stops them from committing a crime such as the murder of the novel. In this culture the defense of their sister's honor is seemed to be more esteemed than it would've been for the men not to do anything at all. But there was a high red flag raised in the whole process of the event unfolding. The police were made well aware of the intentions of the brother and had no real inclination to go stop them, or help, or warn Nassar. This is possibly a social commentary by Marquez on the role of the police and how they carry out their jobs. At least in Columbia for that is where the author is most familiar with those sort of police.
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ReplyDeleteIn Chapter 3 of “Chronicle of a Death Foretold”, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, on prominent theme I noticed was the theme of drinking alcohol, and all of its negative connotations. Marquez sets a tone of darkness and almost evilness when referring to alcohol in his book, as though drinking it puts you into a more sinful state. This could’ve been one of Marquez’s most important messages he was trying to display, as he accompanies nearly every wrong action with drinking. In Chapter 2 we see the men partying and making a mess of the wedding ceremony, and then proceeding to drink more at spend the rest of the night at Maria Alejandrina Cervantes’s brothel. In Chapter 3 the focus is more on the twins and the events leading up to the actual crime, and by now both twins have been well characterized as good-natured people, but at the same time heavy drinkers. One of the many reasons that the townspeople didn’t believe the Vicario twins would kill Nasar was because, “their reputation as good people was so well-founded that no one paid any attention to them” (Marquez 52). This is important as it clearly shows the two personas that a person can take on, and how wicked it can get after they start to drink. While the twins waited to kill Nasar, the were often seen at Clotilde Armenta’s bar, where they drank bottles after bottles leading up to the murder. However it is interesting because Marquez writes that, “Clotilde Armenta had a good reason when it seemed to her that the twins weren’t as resolute as before, and she served them a bottle of rotgut rum with the hope of getting them dead drunk” (63). It is possible that the more the twins drank the less “resolute” they seemed to Armenta, which is why she would try to knock them out to stop them entirely. It is an interesting juxtaposition of morals in this case, because Armenta is using a very immoral technique (drinking) to stop the twins from committing a murder, which in itself is an unspeakable crime.
ReplyDeleteI really like how you noticed the theme of alcohol, it made me notice how it connects to the narration. When people have consumed a lot of alcohol, their perception and motor skills are impaired; everything is hazy. I think that the haziness And impairment that one experiences when drinking alcohol reflects the unreliable narration of the narrator. Many times in the book, the narrator doesn't give the full picture and shows his bias. We are just getting his viewpoint of Santiago Nasar's death and not anyone else's. Therefore the narration is hazy, like when someone drinks alcohol.
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ReplyDeleteIn chapter 2 of the play Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Gabriel García Márquez conveys to the readers that a simple lie can lead to a disaster. In this act, a man named Bayardo San Roman asked to marry Angela Vicario. Her family was completely supportive of the marriage, since Bayardo was the son of a war hero. Although Angela Vicario did not want to marry him, her mother forced her will against her, making her reluctantly agree. The problem, however, was that Angela was not a virgin, and back then, that was unacceptable for a bride. Although she was going to tell the truth to her mother (and also kill herself), her friends persuaded her to instead hide the fact that she lost her virginity by deceiving her new husband. According to the narrator, “they assured her that almost all women lose their virginity in childhood accident” (38). Here, her friends say that lots of women lost their virginity in their childhood, which is a way of telling Angela that lying about her virginity is no big deal. Trusting her friends, Angela indeed lied about her virginity and proceeded to the marriage. However, this lie did not stay hidden, in which Bayardo brought Angela back to her home and called the marriage off. This revelation has caused her mother to brutally beat Angela. Furthermore, in response to the beating, the Vicario brothers didn’t blame their mother but instead put the blame on the person who took Angela’s virginity. As soon as Angela revealed the person as “Santiago Nasar” (47), the Vicario brothers became determined on killing him. Notice how at the start of a simple lie, many events led to the other and ultimately resulted in the death of a man. Thus, the focus of this chapter was to convey that even the most simple lie can result in a catastrophe.
ReplyDeleteIn chapter 3 of the play Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Gabriel García Márquez makes the point that the actual killers were not the only ones that were responsible for the death of Santiago Nasar. First of all, the Vicario brothers did not want to truly kill Nasar. When it is narrated, “the Vicario brothers... had done much more than could be imagine to have someone to stop them from killing him, and they had failed’ (49), the narrator is stating that the Vicario brothers wanted others to prevent them from committing a murder. Indeed, whenever the two brothers had the chance to talk to someone, they would reveal their intentions by saying, “We’re going to kill Santiago Nasar” (52). If the two brothers were really trying to kill Nasar, they wouldn’t reveal their plan to do so, because there is a possibility that the people will warn him. Thus, the brothers revealed their plan so people will try and stop them or at least warn Nasar. However, as it was narrated in the previous quote, “they had failed” in having others prevent them from committing the crime. When the narrator says, “while fake customers buying milk they didn’t need and asking for food items that didn’t exist went in and out with the purpose of seeing whether it was true that they were waiting for Santiago Nasar to kill him “(64), he is saying that the people in the town took the time to go to Clotilde Armenta’s store to confirm if the Vicario brothers were actually going to kill Nasar. Despite the fact that they confirmed that Nasar’s life was in fact in danger, the people did not even bother to confirm if Nasar himself knew about it. Although some characters had good reasons in not warning Nasar, people such as Father Amador did not, in which “he’d forgotten completely” (70). Because the Vicario brothers wanted to be stopped, if the people had actually stepped up and acted to help, the incident may not have occurred. Thus, the author conveys to the readers in this chapter that the Vicario brothers are not all to blame for the death of Nasar, in which the people’s failure to warn Nasar are at fault as well.
ReplyDeleteGabriel Garcia Márquez’s, “Chronicle of a Death Foretold” displays the expectation of men and women to take roles in machismo and marianismo. Machismo and marianismo, linked to Latin American culture, is traced from the Spanish colonization and the influence of Roman Catholic theology. While machismo values male dominance and aggressive masculine behavior, marianismo refers to a hyperfemininity based on the Virgin Mary—women are expected to be pure and tolerant of a their partner’s aggressiveness. Although machoism relates to holding honor and valor, it often connotates a more negative aspect, where superiority is validated by culture. In the second chapter of Márquez’s novel, he depicts the roles the two sexes are raised in. The narrator depicts that in the Vicario household that, “The brothers were brought up to be men. The girls had been reared to get married.” (Márquez 34). Juxtaposing the roles, the narrator describes how the Vicario brothers were raised “to be men” connotating the machismo culture (34). This machismo is displayed when one of the Vicario twins, Pablo, tells the reason why he didn’t say anything to Angela Vicario’s forced obligation into marriage because, “‘It looked to us like woman problems’” (38). The idea of getting involved in an issue deemed as feminine, follows the macho ideal of exaggerated masculinity. Bayardo San Román’s courtship of Angela also displays machismo, he boldly buys all the tickets at the raffle to win the music box, and buys the prettiest house according to Angela, and according to the narrator, Bayardo “hadn’t even tried to court her, but had bewitched the family with his charm” (37). In his extravagant displays of money, he courts Angela who “didn’t want to marry him” (37). Machoism also includes sexual power; it’s accepted that men visit prostitutes despite being betrothed as Santiago Nasar and even the narrator go to the “house of mercies” on the wedding night (50). While with marianismo, women are expected to be pure and premarital sex is extremely frowned upon to the point where the entire family’s honor is placed above human life. When Angela is returned to the Vicario’s, her mother beats her until her “face [is] all bruised” and to the point where the offender, Nasar, is killed in the name of honor (52).
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed how you mentioned the different gender roles and specifically mentioned it’s link of machismo and marianismo in relation to the Latin American culture. It was clear that Bayardo and Angela were held at two very different standards within this setting. Women had to be very pure and feminine, while the men were expected to have sexual dominance and power. This gender role between men and women was also evident between Santiago Nasar and the house servant, Divina Flor. It was expected that Santiago would put sexual advances on Divina when the time came, “she was destined for Santiago Nasar’s furtive bed, and that idea brought out a premature anxiety in her” (10). Santiago Nasar’s and Divina Flor are another example of the gender roles present in this book.
DeleteThroughout Chapter Two of Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Gabriel Garcia Marquez foreshadows the eventual conclusion of the chapter through the behavior and descriptions of Bayardo San Roman and Angela Vicario. Garcia Marquez wastes no time in establishing the character of San Roman; the very first sentence of the chapter reads, “ Bayardo San Roman, the man who had given back his bride, had turned up in August the year before: six months before the wedding” (27). By immediately establishing San Roman as “the man who had given back his bride”, Garcia Marquez establishes an ominous tone in his character, giving readers the sense that his presence will cause nothing but problems in the town. This notion is given great support at the end of the sentence, when Garcia Marquez hints that the wedding that took place the night before Nasar’s murder was in fact San Roman’s wedding, suggesting that San Roman’s abandonment of his bride played some sort of role in Nasar’s killing. A little further into the chapter, Garcia Marquez begins to reveal even more about San Roman’s relation to the death of Nasar. He writes, “But above all, he seemed to me like a very sad man. At that time he had already formalized his contract of love with Angela Vicario” (30). Firstly, the name-dropping of Angela Vicario in this here further fuels the suspicion in the readers that San Roman played some sort of role in Nasar’s death, because his fiance shares the her last name with the twin brothers that murdered Nasar. Secondly, Garcia Marquez foreshadows the eventual San Roman’s eventual abandonment of Vicario as his bride by describing their love as a “contract”. The word “love” often comes with connotations of trust and mutual feelings, but describing it as a contract corrupts these pleasant connotations, as the word “contract” has cold connotations of opposing stances and mistrust between two different parties. By describing their love in this way, Garcia Marquez foreshadows the eventual departure of San Roman when he learns that Angela Vicario is not a virgin
ReplyDeleteThe idea of a sealed fate reveals itself in chapter three of, “Chronicle of a Death Foretold” by Gabriel García Márquez. This chapter describes the events leading up to Santiago Nasar’s murder, where the narrator interviews several people who admit to have known of the Vicario twins’ plan. Despite the twins explicit comments, “‘We’re going to kill Santiago Nasar’” no one directly informs Nasar, doubting the twins’ resolve (Márquez 59). Gabriel García Márquez suggests the idea of accepting fate as legitimizing it itself. The twins display their hesitation, as shown by explicitly telling everyone of their intent on murder. Even Clotilde Armenta’s acknowledges that the, “brothers were not eager to carry out the sentence as to find someone who would do them the favor of stopping them.” (65). Although it’s evident that Pablo and Pedro Vicario desired to avoid committing murder, they relied on the hope that someone intervening would be an act of fate, and since no one truly did, they understood it as, “‘There’s no way out of this,’ . . . ‘It’s as if it had already happened.’” (70). This acceptance of no villager intervening as fate, and the idea of since there’s no intervention it must be fate, only serves to try to justify the Vicario brothers’ actions (besides the justification of honor). Although the villagers remain responsible in their inaction, which only confirmed to the twins that Santiago Nasar’s death was inevitable, their acceptance of their fate allowed for fate to take certainty (whether Nasar was fated to die or not).
ReplyDeleteAlso, the repetition of the Pablo and Pedro Vicario’s explicit comments and the villagers’ continuous disbelief reminded me a bit about “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” in that no one seemed to believe in their statements. While in “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”, it makes sense that the villagers would come to ignore the boy’s statements, it makes less sense for the villagers in the Latin American river village to discredit the twins’ warnings. It’s a phenomenon where people are less likely to take such explicit comments like the Vicario brothers seriously compared to more subtle ones. By calling attention to yourself, no one suspects you to actually go through with whatever action you claim. No one suspects the loud, rowdy one; the quiet one in juxtaposition, however, is quite easy to be suspicious of. With the brothers’ bold statements, it made it easier for most villagers passed it off as simply a drunkard’s talk.
Yena, I really agree with your connection of the Vicario brother’s comments about wanting to kill Santiago Nasar to the boy who cried wolf. It was clear that the Vicario brothers were trying to get another person's attention to possibly prevent them from going through with this murder. However, like you mentioned, the villagers seemed to take their comments less seriously because they continuously made threats about killing Santiago, ‘“I thought they were so drunk,’ Faustino Santos told me,”’ (51). Due to the repetition of their comments many villagers did not take the Vicario brothers comments seriously.
DeleteChapter 2 describes Bayardo San Roman’s appearance and the timeline of his and Angela’s relationship. The reader learns a lot about Angela and her family, and one aspect that seems to follow them around is the relation to death. When she was first spotted by Bayardo San Roman, she and her mother were “dressed in the unforgiving black worn by the only two living creatures in the morass of two o’clock in the afternoon” (28). The family was still in mourning of a lost sister years after her passing. Death lingered with them, and it was apparent wherever they went. The image of the “only two living creatures in the morass” gives off an eerie tone, as if they were otherwordly creatures that symbolized death yet were still alive. The description of “only two living creatures” implies that everything else around them is dead in some way, and they are the ones bringing it. Someone says about the sisters in the Vicario family, “they’ve been raised to suffer” (31). While not directly relating to death, this quote illustrates the suffering the women have gone through just from how they were brought up. Suffering and death are often closely related, so it is as if they “grew up with death.” The suffering they had gone through could also kill their spirits, which would fit with Angela’s somber attitude throughout the chapter. Finally, after she was beaten by her mother for being brought back in shame, Angela says, “I felt as if the drowsiness of death had finally been lifted from me, and the only thing I wanted was for it all to be over quickly so I could flop down and go to sleep” (47). “Drowsiness of death” makes it seem almost peaceful, not a big deal, and Angela’s wording makes her seem all too familiar with the feeling. How she describes her subsequent feelings shows her brushing it off as nothing, something simply tiring that she wanted to sleep off. Her familiarity with death is treated as nothing unusual; the family is just a symbol of it. Angela and her family are the ones that bring death in the novel, too; Angela is the cause, and her twin brothers carry it out for the sake of their family.
ReplyDeleteChapter 3 tells the story from the twins’ perspective, giving more insight into their characters. The townspeople say they were good men, and were surprised when they were capable of murder, and the chapter portrays the twins as people who put up a facade in one way or another. One instance, out of context, seems like a jest between friends. The narrator says, “‘Everybody knows that, you dope,’ Pablo Vicario answered him good-naturedly” (51). Pablo is described as good-natured, yet insults the person he is speaking to, condescendingly implying then telling him he’s stupid. The mix of words and tone are playful; everyone has poked fun at a close acquaintance at some point in their life, and this man is no exception. However, their situation is not such a playful, lighthearted one. They are sharpening their knives to kill Santiago Nasar, and making no secret of it. Pablo keeps up a friendly, joking attitude despite this, which can be interpreted in two different ways. First, he could be faking his mood so it doesn’t seem out of the ordinary, trying to distract himself and others from the task he must complete with his brother. However, he may not be faking at all, and is instead just being himself; the good-natured, playful part of him may be such a big part of his personality that it remains even while plotting murder. A combination of both of these would make the most sense. The situation and the mood do not fit here at all, so something suspicious has to be up. Later, both brothers are shaving; one uses a straight butcher blade, the other a safety razor. The fact that they are identical twins is incredibly symbolic of duality, possibly the duality that can reside in one person. One twin is trying to seem tougher and manlier, while the other is cautious and practical. The latter may be how the twins usually are, but the former is what they feel they have to be in this test of honor.
ReplyDeleteIn chapter 2 of, “Chronicle of a Death Foretold”, Gabriel Garcia Marquez makes it evident the importance of family honor. Throughout chapter two it becomes very clear that from the beginning that Angela Vicario was not excited about the idea of marrying Bayardo San Roman. Bayardo San Roman was very self conceited and would often gloat about his money. However, due to Bayardo's status and wealth he would bring great honor to the Vicario household. The Vicario family didn’t have much, they, “lived in a modest house with brick walls and a palm roof” (Marquez 39). A marriage between Angela Vicario and Bayardo San Roman would bring much fortune to the Vicario family, thus causing them to push Angela into a rushed and unwanted marriage. Angela’s family, as well as Bayardo leave no room for Angela to make her own decisions in this situation, they “imposed on her obligation to marry a man whom she had barely seen”( 34). Angela Vicario goes through with this wedding not out of love, but in order to please her family and bring honor to the Vicario name. Even though Angela’s feelings for Bayardo are lacking this seems to be an insignificant detail for both Bayardo and the Vicario family. ‘“Angela only dared hint at the inconvenience of a lack of love, but her mother demolished it with a single phrase: ‘Love can be learned too”’ (35). The happiness of Angela and her free will is lost due to the more crucial factor of family status. Towards the end of chapter two when Bayardo discovers that Angela has lied and is not a virgin he returns her back to her family. Due to the shame Angela has brought to their family her own mother brutally beats her. She was, “beating me with the other with such rage that I thought she was going to kill me”(46). This scene is ironic because prior to Pura Vicario’s beating on Angela, Bayardo San Roman tells her, “You’re a saint” (46). Angela is treated horrifically due to the dishonor and disgrace she has brought to the Vicario name after shamefully being returned by Bayardo.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you in how Angela Vicario really did not want to marry Bayardo San Roman but was pressured into doing so by family and societal expectations. This really emphasizes the role women were expected to play; while men brought in honor by their own means, women obtained honor through marriage. Angela’s marriage was really more an arranged one than one out of love. What’s very interesting, is how the narrator goes on a tangent to tell the relationship of Angela Vicario and Bayardo San Roman decades after the murder, despite the purpose of the narrator to recollect the “Chronicle “ of Santiago Nasar’s death. To me, it was very peculiar how Angela fell into an obsessive love for Bayardo when just moments before she admitted that her hesitance in marriage. This display furthers the idea of how people often desire after things only after they lose them.
DeleteIn chapter 3 of “The Chronicle of the Death Foretold” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Marquez questions the extent of an outsider's responsibility in situations that don’t necessarily involve them. Throughout chapter 3 the Vicario twins perspective and thoughts behind their murderous behaviours towards Santiago Nasar are revealed. Prior to Santiago’s death the Vicario brothers casually tell multiple people their plan to kill Santiago. Throughout this long process of trying to track down Santiago, both brothers at one point or another have doubts about killing Santiago in order to fulfill their family's honor. They tell many people about their plan to kill santiago as a cry for help. By doing this they gave people the opportunity to stop themselves from going through with this murder, “She was certain that the Vicario brothers were not as eager to carry out the sentence as to find someone who could do them the favor of stopping them” (Marquez 57). It is quite possible that Santiago’s death could have been prevented. Had one of the townspeople stepped in or taken further actions into insuring that the Vicario brothers aborted their original plan a life could have been saved . Instead when questioned by the narrator most townspeople made up an excuse to why they didn’t prevent this death, “When I saw them I thought that they were nothing, but a pair of bluffers” (56). It is evident that the Vicario brothers are not at nature murders and in fact weren’t excited to end the life of Santiago Nasar. By telling a vast amount of people their plan they hoped to increase the chance of their actions being prevented, “The Vicario brothers had told their plans to more than a dozen people who had gone out to buy milk, and these had spread the news everywhere before six o’clock” (58). This scenario is quite similar to Kitty Genovese and the neighbors who did hardly anything to help save her life. In both situations for most of the bystanders the murder had little to no impact and majority of the reasons for not stepping in was out of laziness. Should these bystanders be held responsible for doing nothing?
ReplyDeleteIn Chapter Three of Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Gabriel Garcia Marquez utilizes symbolism and metaphors to convey that Pedro and Pablo Vicario were very frightened at the notion that they were going to kill Santiago Nasar, and it was almost as if they were hoping that someone would stop them from doing the deed. Garcia Marquez’s use of symbolism and metaphors can be found when the Vicario twins are sharpening their knives in the butcher shop to prepare for the murder. Garcia Marquez describes their behavior while they do this, writing, “Finally, they made the knives sing on the stone, and Pablo laid his behind the lamp so the steel sparkled” (59). The symbolism in this sentence lies in the knives; they represent the intent of the twins to commit the murder, which everyone who has come across them is seriously doubting. Garcia Marquez builds upon this symbolism by using a metaphor when describing the blades as “singing”. Singing often has connotations of being noticeable and attracting of attention, and that is exactly what the twins are trying to do at the moment: they want to broadcast to everyone that they seriously plan to kill Santiago Nasar, so that someone will finally realize they are serious and take action to stop them. This same idea is used in another metaphor later in the sentence, when Garcia Marquez describes the steel as “sparkling”. Like singing, sparkling also has connotations of attracting attention and standing out. The use of the this metaphor helps paint a picture in the reader’s mind of how desperately the twins were trying to attract attention towards their concerning behavior so that someone would stop them. The reason they did this rather than simply deciding that they should stop was because they felt that they had a duty to protect their sister’s honor; this is confirmed when Pablo says, “ ‘Before God and before men … it was a matter of honor’ “ (56). However, Garcia Marquez includes this sentence with symbolism and metaphors to show that they were truly scared to commit the crime, and had a feeling of doubt in the backs of their minds.
ReplyDeleteIn chapter 4 of the novel Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Gabriel García Márquez makes the readers wonder if Angela Vicario was truly in love. Firstly, Angela Vicario initially married Bayardo through reluctance, in which her family forced her family to do so. Furthermore, when she tried to hide the fact that she lost her virginity, she failed, and she put the blame on none other than Santiago Nasar. However, it is not confirmed in the novel that he was the one to take her virginity. In fact, there are narrations that disproves Angela’s statement. For example, when the narrator says, “Angela Vicario was protecting someone who really loved her had had chosen Santiago Nasar’s name” (90), he is stating that Angela lied that Santiago took her virginity in order to protect the real person who did so. This protection indicates that Angela has feelings for the person whom she protected, and perhaps this love of hers was the reason why she was reluctant in marrying Bayardo. Up until this point in the novel, the readers will most likely not doubt that Angela is in love, but the author hits them with quite a surprise, which is that after Angela and Bayardo has left each other, she actually fell in love with him. This intense feeling is evident in the narration, “She wrote a weekly letter for over a half a lifetime. ‘Sometimes I couldn’t think of what to say,’ she told me, dying with laughter, ‘but is was enough for me to know that he was getting them’” (93-94). Here, the narrator emphasizes the fact that she was continuously sending letters to Bayardo for a long period of time and was sending them with the hope that he was receiving them. The strong preservation of Angela and her hope of reaching Bayardo illustrates her intense feelings towards them. Although this intense feeling should be called love, it must be noted that she previously was in love with some to the point of protecting him from possible conflicts. Thus, the author leaves the readers with following question: Was Angela in love with Bayardo or the person she protected, or was she even in love in the first place?
ReplyDeleteThe characterization of Bayardo in this book was very interesting to me, he was the most dynamic character of anyone else in the book. When he first arrived to the town, he was portrayed as almost god-like, wearing lots of gold and being skilled in basically anything you could imagine. He left the town and then returned soon after the murder, most likely because of all of Angela’s letters to him. When he returns he is described as balding and overweight, a radical change from when we last saw him. This says a lot about what love has done to him, ruining him from the inside out. He seemed to be almost stripped of all, probably because of the embarrassment of marrying someone that was not a virgin. It also helps send a message about Nasar’s effect, because he is another character that went through a devastating change after the murder.
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ReplyDeleteChapter four of “Chronicle of a Death Foretold” brings the supernatural elements in magical realism to Gabriel García Márquez’s novel. Besides the soul of Yolanda Xius making an appearance, another element in this chapters spoke about the smell of Santiago Nasar. It’s interesting that the narrator describes the autopsy of Nasar in graphic detail, but doesn’t describe the smell of the corpse, calling it just a “smell of death” (Márquez 84). Anyone who has smelled a decaying carcass knows that its malodorous scent is just as striking as its visual appearance. Scent is also heavily related to one’s memory. The fact that the narrator does not describe the smell also reveals that he’s also attempting to rid of the guilt he feels. María Alejandrina Cervantes couldn’t sleep with the narrator rejecting him saying, “‘You smell of him’” (90). Nasar’s scent clinging to the narrator symbolically represents feelings of guilt the narrator likely feels. The narrator describes that “Everything continued smelling of Santiago Nasar that day” depicting that the entire village felt responsible for Nasar’s death (90). Although the Vicario twins were in a jail cell, they claim to smell Nasar to the point where Pedro tells the narrator, “‘No matter how much I scrubbed with soap and rags, I couldn’t get rid of the smell’” (90). This supernatural element where the brothers could smell Nasar’s body and that they “‘couldn’t get rid of the smell’” reveals that they did feel guilty to some extent (90). Despite their attempts to cleanse themselves, the Nasar’s smell stuck with the twins, just like how their subconscious guilt pervaded in them. Although the brothers refuse to repent, the description of how “the only thing that worried them was the persistence of the smell” suggests that they did feel a degree of guilt or unsettling fear of possible retribution (91). Using the supernatural element of magical realism and the lack of descriptive scent imagery, Márquez demonstrates the how the murder of Santiago Nasar did have an effect on the villagers and Vicario brothers.
ReplyDeleteYena, like you said in your blog, the Vicario brothers felt guilty about the killing of Santiago Nasar, and they said they committed the crime to preserve their honor. Likewise, the people in the town also used honor as an excuse for not intervening in the incident. However, there are many evidences in the novel where the author hints that Nasar was not the one who took Angela Vicario’s virginity. If that is the case, the Vicario brothers killing Nasar had nothing to do with their family honor, meaning that the town people’s reason for not warning Nasar is invalid.
DeleteIn Chronicle of a Death Foretold, practically everyone in the town knew that the Vicario brothers were going to kill Santiago Nasar, yet no one tried to warn him. Though there are many stated reason for this silence, chapter 5 focuses on a specific factor: sense perception. Sense perception is the use of the 5 senses to understand something. However, these senses can at times convey false knowledge. In chapter 5 of the novel Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Gabriel García Márquez creates a series of misunderstandings to convey how sense perception can lead one away from the truth. An example of this deception is when the chapter focuses on Cristo Bedoya’s attempt to warn Nasar, in which Bedoya says, “It didn’t occur to me that he could be there... because those people never got up before noon” (111). Here, Bedoya starts to explain that he didn’t think Nasar would go to Flora Miguel’s home. He perceived this fact above because because he knew through one of the senses that the people never wake up before noon. However, in reality, they woke up at 12 o’clock. Although his senses gave him the knowledge of the resident’s typical routine of waking up, it caused him to overlook the unexpected, which caused Bedoya to misunderstand that Nasar was heading to Bedoya’s house to have breakfast. This misunderstanding resulted in Bedoya failing to warn Nasar. Another example of the misleadings of sense perception is during the interaction between Nasar and his engagement partner, Flora Miguel. When she says to Nasar, “I hope they kill you” (113), she becomes infuriated because she perceived that Nasar had taken Angela’s virginity. This perception was most likely made from the spread of rumors about the relationship between Nasar and Angela. However, there is evidence that Nasar was in fact not the one to blame for Angela’s loss of virginity. Not knowing this, Flora closed the door on Nasar and did not try to help him. If she had tried to warn him, she most likely would have done a better job in persuading Nasar to hide in the house than her father (who actually did warn Nasar but failed to keep him in his home), which may of once again prevented the crime from occurring. Thus, the author created the misunderstandings in order to convey to the readers that sense perception can cause people to make assumptions that are far from truth.
ReplyDeleteIn Chapter 4 of “Chronicle of a Death Foretold”, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, we see the aftermath of the murder of Santiago Nasar, and what the effect was in each person. A theme of “karma” is introduced in this chapter, reminded me of “Siddhartha”. What goes around really seems to come around in this chapter, and Marquez uses symbolism to in order to convey the negative effect murder has on a person. The most impactful symbol I noticed what the smell of Santiago Nasar. It was seen on three people, the narrator and the Vicario twins. Although Nasar was killed, it seems as though you can’t rid of him that easy, since he still is having an effect on people even when he’s dead. The twins were unable to get his smell off them, which would be very unsettling especially if it was someone that you killed. This gives a negative connotation for murder and a very strong message, that if you make the choice to take the life from someone, they will stay with you forever, whether you want it or not. In a more interesting situation, the narrator also smelled like Santiago Nasar (according to Maria), and she refused to have any sexual relation with him because of it. The narrator was a friend of Santiago and it is interesting that Maria would be reminded of Santiago because of him, as the narrator never specifies any event where Santiago’s smell would be put unto him. My guess is that it is more of a psychological thing happening with Maria, she is clearly very upset by the murder, and of course would refuse to have any relation to someone she is so used to seeing with Santiago. The quick and crude autopsy and quick burial gives the sad notion that the town really wasn’t that concerned with Santiago or heavily affected by his death, though it’s clear he still has his impact on many people that were close to him.
ReplyDeleteIn Chapter 5 of “Chronicle of a Death Foretold”, By Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Marquez explores the two sides of Santiago Nasar’s death. We get some reassurance from Cristo Bedoya, who actually seemed to care about Santiago’s life and tried to warn him about the Vicario twin’s plan. However, this book is a story of everything falling into place in the wrong way, and she was unable to find him after she had left him to talk to Yamill. Her mother also just happened to close the door to the house when she heard her son was already home, which turned out to be the cause of Santiago’s doom. It’s a twisted and depressing mood, that Santiago’s own mother could be considered one that indirectly helped his death. In this chapter we also learn a lot about the human nature of the average person in this town (or maybe people in general). Other than Cristo, Yamill, and Clotilde, there was not much of an attempt at all to save Santiago, instead people actually started to “take their seats” in order to see the murder actually happen. This is powerful and depressing at the same time, that people would rather see something wicked happen, more so than actually stopping the event. This could be a reflection of people’s lives in this town, that they are so bored and uninterested with their own lives that they’ll take anything to spice it up, even a murder. The colonel is the epitome of this idea, basically failing to do his job because he didn’t care. Even though he was aware of what was taking place, he took too long to get to the scene and missed it. If the ones that are paid by the state to keep you safe can’t protect you, who are you to trust?
ReplyDeleteI agree about your comment that the chapter explored both sides of the death. But it is also essential to the story to have a full understanding on how he died. I thought it was very interesting on what you said about people sitting back and watching and the comparison you made. I also agree with this because due to none of the towns people saying anything to Nasar, it makes them accessory to the murder. This does in turn make them wicked and honestly just as guilty as the Vicario brothers.
DeleteIn chapter 4 of "Chronicle of a Death Foretold" by Gabriel Marquez, there were many very meaningful and prominent ideas and symbols that add immensely to the novel. There was one detail that added immensely to the ideals of the novel as a whole. After years and years of of Angela sending Bayardo letters, he finally comes to see her. There is a catch though. None of the letters are opened. While they are all organized and colored and all of the extremities, none of them are opened. Usually, within a novel when letters are sent, all are opened and hold a very high sentimental value. This emotional value is found in the content and the formulaic nature of all love notes with confessions of longing are usually what keeps someone on the hook. But for Bayardo the sentiment was found in the persistence of the reception of the letters. If Angela was sending one letter a week for 17 years, Bayardo received almost 900 letters. Opened or not, there is something to be said and noticed about Angela's character with her dedication and persistence to this man after all of the events that took place with him. There is a sort of irony in this. In the beginning of their relationship Bayardo chased and chased after Angela, but now the tables have turned. Angela relentlessly chases after Bayardo for years and years. These letters are potentially the basis of a relationship that could be sparked again. This causes the audience to question if the relationship was possibly more than had been alluded to earlier in the novel. The union of two people usually wasn't up to women at this time but maybe Angela was somewhat on board with this relationship.
ReplyDeleteWhile chapter 5 of "Chronicle of a Death Foretold" follows a similar plot line the rest of the novel, it stands as very unique in comparison to the rest of the book. As it is the last chapter any reader or audience member would rightfully assume that the novel would come to a clear and definite conclusion. In the case of "Chronicle of a Death Foretold", it would seem that the conclusion would be the reveal of who Angela Vicario loses her virginity. But there is a definite absence of this conclusion. This absence of a conclusion can be seen as a true testiment to the novel as a whole. With no one being able to reveal or take the responsibility of the adultery or murder, it shows how the town as a whole acts more as an audience and accessory to the murder than people who would aid in the cover up. The town as a whole seems more willing to ignore the issue than act as a crime stopper. The complicity of the town shows the lack of authority of anyone within the town surrounding the issue of defending one's honor. This poses the question on whether or not honor stands as a legitimate defense for a crime. While it does not stand now, it can be seen that this questions truly a question of a time period or location. In the 50's this could be seen as truly acceptable or in Latin America it is all the same.
ReplyDeleteI agree that chapter 5 does not have a definite ending, but I believe, however, that it does provide a strong hint for as to whether Santiago Nasar was responsible for taking Angela Vicario’s virginity. For example, even though Pedro Vicario stabbed Nasar multiple times in the same spot, not a drop of blood came out of him. This occurrence is an element of magical realism, since it is impossible for someone to not bleed after being directly stabbed. The absence of blood represents Nasar’s purity, which indicates that Nasar was innocent and did not take Angela Vicario’s virginity. Thus, Gabriel García Márquez uses elements of magical realism to convey to the readers that Nasar was the true victim of the incident.
DeleteIn Chapter Four of Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Gabriel Garcia Marquez uses the town’s clumsy and insensitive actions in the aftermath of Santiago Nasar’s death to reinforce the theme of Nasar’s ridiculous, seemingly fate-determined misfortune. The ineptness of the town’s officials in dealing with the death is shown immediately at the beginning of the chapter in the first sentence, when Garcia Marquez writes, “The damage from the knives was only a beginning for the unforgiving autopsy that Father Carmen Amador found himself obliged to perform in Dr. Dionisio Iguaran’s absence. ‘It was as if we killed him all over again after he was dead’ ” (83). The absence of the town’s only doctor in the time when the town needed him most is the first point that Garcia Marquez uses to show the town’s ineptness. This plot point is an example of magical realism, because it as if fate had controlled everything to work against Santiago Nasar, even after his death. This point is further reinforced by the fact that Nasar’s misfortune has been a common theme throughout the play; the dream that Santiago Nasar experiences in the first chapter was a symbol for his inevitable, fate-determined misfortune. The second sentence of the quote supports the theme of Nasar’s continued misfortune as well, showing that even after death Nasar is still suffering the same misfortune that he followed him when he was alive. The theme of Nasar’s misfortune is continued a few pages into the chapter when Garcia Marquez writes about how the dogs are acting around Nasar’s corpse. Garcia Marquez writes, “...the dogs, aroused by the smell of death, increased the uneasiness. They hadn’t stopped howling since I went into the house, when Santiago Nasar was still in his death throes in the kitchen and I found Divina Flor weeping in great howls and holding them off with a stick” (84-86). The use of auditory imagery of both the howling of the dogs and the weeping of Divina Flor contribute to the tone of misfortune surrounding Nasar. The howling of dogs comes with connotations of uneasiness and potential danger, while people weeping causes the reader to think of frantic lament over an unfortunate event. Both of these images play into the theme of misfortune befalling Nasar.
ReplyDeleteRoy this is a very interesting observation. It reminds of what we talked About in class during the chapter presentations of how sense perception plays a big role in the plot of the story. For example Davina Flor " saw" Santiago walk in through the door which caused his mom to lock the door and that caused Santiago to not be able to enter the front door and eventually get killed. There was also an error in hearing where placía, santiago's mom, though she heard him upstairs but he was really trying to get inside the house and this error in hearing contributed to him getting stabbed.
DeleteIn chapter 4 of "Chronicle of A Death Foretold" by Gabriel Marquez, there are many symbols used that portray a specific tone to the chapter. The tone of chapter is grim, guilty and depressing. The use of symbolism gives insight into this. Symbolism is used to portray death and the spirit of the dead. Santiago's smell is a symbol used to portray guiltiness felt by the whole town after his death. Smell is something that travels, and this specific aspect of Santiago is symbolized to show a uniform sense of guilty ness felt by the towns people. When introducing this symbol, Marquez writes, "“Everything continued smelling of Santiago Nasar that day. The Vicario brothers could smell him on the jail…” No matter how much I scrubbed with soap and rags, I couldn’t get rid of the smell”(pg. 78). Here, it is showed that the brothers who committed the murder cannot get rid of the smell of Santiago. This portrays that whatever they do, and even if their actions were justified by saving their sister's honor, they still feel guilty for ending another man's life. Also, he writes "everything continued" which suggests that not only to the murderers , but other people of the town this smell was recognizable, therefore, saying that they all felt guilt or remorse as a result of this occurring. Another quote suggests," At that moment they were comforted by the honor of having done their duty, and the only thing that worried them was the persistence of the smell” (pg.79). Here, again, the everlasting smell is shown, and the inability of ending it.
ReplyDeleteAnother symbol that is used to portray death is a the symbol of phosphorescent bird. Marquez writes, "“The widower Xius told the mayor that he’d seen a phosphorescent bird fluttering over his former home, and he thought it was the soul of his wife who was going about demanding what was hers” (pg 84). Now the widower has been introduced before, but his insignificance at this exact point in the story, suggests that his statement was not out of nowhere. This statement is a symbol of dead returning for something.
These two symbols are some examples of how symbolism is used to portray death in the fourth chapter of "Chronicle of A Death Foretold".
In Chapter Five of Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Garcia Marquez explores the reliability of the narrator as an accurate reporter of the crime. Garcia Marquez uses both symbolism and bias in the narrator’s report to illustrate that his account may not be an entirely reliable resource in revealing the truth behind the death of Nasar. When giving a report of how he collected evidence about the magistrate’s investigation into Nasar’s death, the narrator’s questionable reliability becomes evident. Garcia Marquez uses symbolism in the narrator’s description of the office in which he salvaged the magistrate’s brief, writing, “The ground floor would be flooded by high tides and the unbound volumes floated about the deserted offices” (116). The tides described by Marquez in this sentence is a symbol for how the narrator is unable to give an accurate, truthful account of the details, motives, and aftermath of Nasar’s death. Tides are regular events that happen on intervals, reflecting how there is always an inhibiting factor in the narrator’s attempts to gather evidence that cannot be avoided. Also the imagery of “unbound volumes floating about the deserted offices” reflects the inability of the narrator to provide a solid, crystal-clear reasoning as to why Nasar was not warned. Instead, all the narrator provides is scattered, inconsistent anecdotes from the townspeople, as the imagery of the disorganized, drifting volumes of evidence illustrates. Besides his inability to gather concrete evidence, the narrator’s account is also limited by his bias, having grown up with Nasar in the town. After rambling on, giving a string of loosely connected facts and accounts, the narrator says, “My personal impression is that he died without understanding his death” (118). The language chosen by Garcia Marquez in this sentence fully showcase the bias in the narrator’s report. The word’s “personal” and “impression” both have connotations of subjectiveness, illustrating that the narrator has nothing more valuable to offer than his subjective opinion. The fact that the narrator waited until the last chapter in the book to reveal this demonstrates that the narrator feels that his opinion is the most valuable thing he has to offer, because authors often save their concluding, final statements for the end of their work. By suggesting that his personal opinion trumps everything else, the narrator devalues the other evidence he has presented, effectively rendering his account as unreliable.
ReplyDeleteIn the last chapter of “Chronicle of a Death Foretold” by Gabriel García Márquez, the narrator introduces a variety new characters. In books I have read, it’s not the norm for authors to structure books like this; new characters are rarely introduced towards the end of the story, and if so, the book often times has a sequel. While the majority of the characters introduced in this last chapter are not pivotal to the novel, the fact that the narrator includes them in this pseudojournalism demonstrates that they are important to some extent. Introducing new characters at the end of the novel only accentuate how the villagers avoided getting involved, but after the crime has been done, many came forward to testify. Very few tried to prevent the death of Santiago Nasar and yet when it came to testify, the investigative magistrate had to “ask for troop reinforcements to control the crowd that was pouring in to testify without having been summoned” (Márquez 115). The narrator points out the hypocrisy of those who didn’t act consoling themselves that they were “giving access only to those who are part of the drama” while later, the arrival of the magistrate makes, “everyone eager to show off his own important role in the drama” (115). So by introducing several new characters in the last chapter of the chronicle, it helps emphasize the human tendency to pass off responsibility while later claiming it to be a part of the drama (no one wants to do the work, but still wants to be praised for it).
ReplyDeleteThe author's use of late introductions definitely does say a lot about people and society as a whole, like you pointed out. There may be many other reasons he chose to do so, as well; one I thought of while reading your response was how it ties into the "mystery" aspect, the odd series of events leading to the man's death that pseudojournalistic story explores. It is as if when one part was solved, another issue came up, adding more questions than answers and creating a seemingly neverending pattern of mystery. The author gives the reader this feeling using character introductions; the reader thinks all the characters have been introduced, so all they supply has been given, so the reader expects more deep analysis of their points of view and actions, or even a solid conclusion. However, another character is introduced, another perspective given, which throws off the reader's notions of the events and forces them to alter their conclusions or expectations to fit the new information, which is much like everyday life and adds to the troubling, mysterious tone of the novel.
DeleteThe theme of magical realism is very prevalent in Chapter 4. When describing his interview with Pedro, the narrator says, “‘I was awake for eleven months,’ he told me, and I knew him well enough to know that it was true” (80). Not sleeping for eleven months is generally a bad idea, and may have side effects including: Death. So, clearly, it’s either not literal, or it is and this is just a normal occurrence, which would make it magical realism. The metaphorical interpretation could tie into the theme of the lucidity of the brothers during and after they had committed the murder, which is meant to highlight the fact that they knew exactly what they were doing/had done. The increase in unusual events in this chapter would make sense, though, since a lot of it takes place after the murder. The magical, surreal aspect of many of the events may be tied to the recent death; the murder affected everyone, and since death is such a spiritual topic in Latin America, its prevalence in the community is causing more strange (at least, to readers) events to happen, the veil between physical and spiritual world thinning. Another surreal event is when the women of Bayardo San Roman’s family visit, and they are described as walking up the hill barefoot and “pulling out strands of hair by the roots and wailing loudly with such high-pitched shrieks that they seemed to be shouts of joy” (85). The women are not mourning the death of a man, but rather the horrible things that had befallen their family member. Their actions certainly seem to be overreactions, but also reminded me of parts of folklore and mythology, tales that are known for their magical, surreal qualities. Even later and more obvious is the communication with a dead woman, when “the soul of Yolanda Xius confirmed in her own handwriting that it was in fact she who was recovering the knickknacks of her happiness for her house of death” (87). The soul of a dead person coming back and taking possessions is very obviously a supernatural event, but the way the author writes it treats it as a very casual, normal thing to happen. He does not elaborate on the event any more, leaving the reader to wonder what just happened and perhaps hesitate to keep reading in order to think about it.
ReplyDeleteIn the final chapter, the concept of fate solidifies its mark on the book and the events therein. On the very first page of the chapter, the narrator says, “none of us could go on living without an exact knowledge of the place and the mission assigned to us by fate” (96). Everyone in the village accepted fate as a fact of life, especially after the murder. One reason they could be so preoccupied by it is the sequence of events that led to the murder, everything lining up exactly, everyone’s timing just a bit off and many making the wrong decisions, just so Santiago Nasar could wind up dead. They believe it all happened the way it did because it was fated to go this way; the narrative then follows Cristo Bedoya, using his failure of finding his place in fate as a segway to his actions during the day of the murder, implying that that day was part of his fated path, as it was with everyone else. Later on, the narrator’s sister says, “I’d seen [Santiago] when I passed...and he already had the face of a dead man” (110). Clairvoyance is a common theme in magical realism, so it is no surprise it comes into play alongside fate. Whether clairvoyance or intuition, Margot could tell Santiago was going to die no matter what. The actions of others, the attempts to save him, were all futile, and she already knew the inevitable. Even if he was innocent, Santiago Nasar was fated to die, the theme the entire book aimed to investigate.
ReplyDeleteIn chapter 4 of “Chronicle of a Death Foretold” by Gabriel Marquez, Marquez shows the dynamic change in the characterization of Angela Vicario . During a much later time period after Santiago Nasar’s death, the narrator questions Angela about the past events leading up to the murder of Santiago Nasar. Upon first seeing her, the narrator describes Angela as, “a women half in mourning, with steel rimmed glasses and yellowish gray hair, and hanging high above her head was a cage with a canary that didn’t stop singing. Through his use of color imagery Marquez allows the audience to imagine Angela as old, undesirable and worn out. Both the color steel and yellowish gray are not very appetizing and are more faded colors. Also, the canary represents Angela’s attitude, even with all of the misfortunes in her life she still lives her life happily. The maxim, flight is freedom is also apparent because the caged canary represents her constriction of freedom. After her failed marriage, Angela Vicario was limited on what she could do and was labelled by her community for her past actions. These judgments and labels compressed Angela’s abilities and freedom. However, through her experience of her relationship with Bayardo it also allowed Angela to grow as a person. Similar to the bird, Angela continually never let people’s opinions of her control who she could become. The narrator takes note of Angela Vicario’s drastic change, “She has nothing in common with the person who’d been obliged to marry without love at the age of twenty” (89). Angela is so much more, “mature and witty that it was difficult to believe that she was the same person” (89). Through Angela’s r past mistakes that contained her capabilities of who she could become they also allowed Angela to see the world differently and come to a better understanding of who she was.
ReplyDeleteDiana you made some really interesting points and I see exactly how Marquez shows the dynamic change in the characterization of Angela Vicario. Some other examples that could show this dynamic growth more could be when he describes her relationship with Bayardo and writes, “The more letters she sent the more the coals of her fever burned, but the happy rancor she felt for her mother also heated up” (108).This could show how Angela has changed to love Bayardo. This is significant because the first 3 chapters, the narrator talks about the forced nature of their relationship, Angela not wanting to marry him and Bayardo only attracting her and her family by money. Now, through this quote, it is shown has Angela has shifted to love him and through this she dealt with her life situation following that night.
DeleteIn chapter 5 of “Chronicle of a Death Foretold” by Gabriel Marquez, it is evident that multiple people were aware of the Vicario brother’s plan to kill Santiago Nasar, but none of them were willing to warn Santiago himself. This brings up the question, do bystanders hold any responsibility in a situation similar to Santiago Nasar’s?People’s inability to step into situations, even if they play a role as a bystander syncs up to fate and it’s inevitable characteristics . Nobody in the entire time decides to warn Santiago or step in drastically to prevent the Vicario brothers from going through with their actions. Whenever someone is about to warn Santiago Nasar the events in the story prevent the warning. Some people refused to warn Santiago Nasar about his possible murder because of ulterior motives, as well as disbelief and denial. ‘“They’re looking for him to kill him.’ Victoria Guzman forgot her innocence. ‘Those poor boys won’t kill anybody”’ (105). Also, a couple of people made ridiculous excuses to why they couldn’t help him, “‘I got all mixed up,’ Celeste Dangond told me , “because it suddenly seemed to me that they couldn’t be killing him, if he was so sure of what he was going to do”’ (103). Everybody’s excuses and inability to warn Santiago Nasar seems to play a role into the Magical realism aspect of this book. A key component to magical realism and big belief is that fate is extremely important. It is quite possible that Santiago’s fate was death. It was unavoidable and one of the reasons none of the bystanders were able to warn Santiago in time. Fate explains an aspect of why people were incapable of helping Santiago. Santiago was suppose to die, but it is still questionable whether all of these bystanders who knew about the murder plans should be held responsible for Santiago’s death.
ReplyDeleteThat is a good moral dilemma that you bring up, however it is very difficult to answer, because it plays to each individual’s values. My personal opinion is that in this particular situation, every citizen who knew of the plan had a responsibility to help Santiago. This is especially important in this situation because it is made clear to us that the local enforcement is essentially useless. The townspeople in reality not only didn’t tell Santiago at all, but they all sat around to watch, letting him be killed. This says a lot about the lack of empathy in all the townspeople, although it is true that for many people they would argue that they have no responsibility to save someone that has nothing to do with them. It also could be that they put family honor over human life, justifying the murder and even wanting him to die.
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