Santiago Nasar wakes up in the early hours of the morning to go see the bishop who is potentially coming into town today. It's the day after the wedding and Santiago dresses in his most pristine attire in the hopes of kisses the bishop's ring. There has been much talk around the town about Santiago's murder. Many people talk in hushed tones about who is going to be killed and who is going to kill him. However, people aren't willing to inform Santiago Nasar of just how eventful his morning will be. The town spoke openly and freely of the murder and specifics of the event. Many of the townspeople claim that they believed that the said rumors of his murder where only a fib. Another young girl, Divina Flor, later states that "in the depths of her heart she wanted them to kill him... and she'd been all the more frightened when he grabbed her by the wrist with a hand that felt frozen and stony, like the hand of a dead man." (Garcia Marquez 13) The mistress of Santiago's father wishes to murder him herself, but allows the Vicario twins to do so in her place. The motive of the Vicario brothers is clear: they will murder Santiago Nasar because he was accused of "deflowering" their supposed virgin sister. Bystanders, and nearly everyone living in town, was aware of the situation, and yet they had no intention of halting it. The bystander effect was quite obvious whereas the townspeople had little to no compassion for Santiago Nasar. Seeing as I have never read CODF, I am curious to watch this book unfold.
I agree with what you said about the bystanders - I think it shows a clear connection between CODF and the Genovese syndrome we're learning about. I think there is also something to be said for how quick the Vicario brothers were to blame Nasar for the deflowering of their sister. Angela says, "No one can explain to me how... Nasar ended up being involved," implying that she did not accuse him, and it makes me wonder about how people are quick to assume because they always want the easy answer and truth can be hard to take (Marquez 21). What do you predict were the motives behind accusation and their creepy thirst for Nasar's blood?
Reading this book a second time has really made things more clearer than they were the first time I read it through. The first time I read Chronicles of a Death Foretold, I really didn’t notice how all the towns people reacted so calmly about answering any questions about the death and murder. For example if you found out that someone was planning to kill someone that everyone knew in town, how would you react? A little shocked? Worried maybe? But definitely not calm and open to talk about a plan to kill a human being. It is almost as if everyone in town were more than ready to get rid of Santiago Nasar and they were willing to help in any way possible. It is quite evil when you take a step back and look at the complete perspective but I mean if that was the punishment to sleeping with a virgin who was about to get married in that time period then we can’t change anything.
Chapter 1 - In the spirit of magical realism, I want to dedicate this blog post to pointing out a couple of examples of MR and finding literary elements Marquez uses to execute the writing of this genre. The first example occurs in the first few pages, where Marquez writes, “She had a well-earned reputation as an accurate interpreter of other people’s dreams, provided they were told her before eating, but she hadn’t noticed any ominous augury in those two dreams of her son’s…” (Marquez 4). It is clear that the narrator and people of the town believe in Nasar’s mother’s ability to interpret dreams and predict the future based on those interpretations, even though we know today that dreams are just a reflection of thoughts in the subconscious. Here, Marquez uses very convincing diction to convey the acceptance of this belief in this realistic town, using words such as “well-earned reputation” meaning she has interpreted many dreams and “accurate”, showing how even though we know these interpretations to be lucky, the superstitions of the people in this town are very ingrained in their culture. Another example of magical realism in Chapter 1 is when the narrator is talking about his mother and says, “she knew about everything before anyone else… sometimes she would surprise us with news so ahead of the time that she could only have known it through powers of divination,” (Marquez 20). I’m having a hard time extracting literary elements from this, I would argue that this shows magical realism because the language is so certain. It is clear that the narrator jumps to a magical sixth sense without searching for a logical conclusion first because to that narrator, magic IS a logical conclusion. Did anyone notice any other implications of magical realism in Chapter 1?
I noticed a whole bunch, much more than I did on my first read-through of the book, I wrote a little about it in my blog, but I’ve noticed a lot different characters who have the power of foresight in some way. Santiago Nasar seems to be one of those characters when he expresses his disgust at the disembowelment and then disrespect being shown to rabbits being prepared at his house, this significant once one remembers that Nasar was killed by disembowelment later that day, this seems to indicate that Nasar already knew what would happen to him. This power of foresight, or at least in signs manifesting around him is shown in the effect his dream had- the feeling of being ‘splattered with bird shit’- as well as his headache in the morning and the general extraordinariness of the day he was killed like the patterns he broke in how he was dressed and armed that day.
Reading the very first sentence of Chronicle of a Death Foretold has already given so much of the book away for us. I mean it has given away that the main character, Santiago Nasar is possibly killed by someone, “On the day they were going to kill him, Santiago Nasar got up at five-thirty in the morning to wait for the boat the bishop was coming on” (Marquez 1). This one sentence introduces the main character like a snap of the fingers. It also tells us that this main character is possibly killed by someone and multiple people. Marquez does this I feel to let everyone know who is reading the story that this is how the story ends. There are no secrets her and no major plot reveal. It really doesn’t give all that much room to imagine how things will play out. It then goes on to say, ““He was always dreaming about trees,” Placida Linero, his mother, told me twenty-seven years later, recalling the details of that distressing Monday” (Marquez 1). This reveals to us, the readers, that this book is told from a reporter's point of view about thirty years after the incident happened long ago. We don’t get a name of man or woman talking to us so we really can’t call them anything but a Narrator. Do you guys think the Narrator is someone other than a reporter? And do you think it could be a man or woman? Marquez uses worrying diction like “distressing” and “recalling” which can signify how the killing or murder was not expected or not planned. The family of Santiago Nasar at least did not expect it to happen to their son. All of this information has only been uncovered on the first page of the first chapter of the book. To think about all the information we can gather from one chapter and maybe ever two amazes me.
Comment 1- It's definitely very weird how much is given away in the first chapter! It kind of hooks you into the book because so few other works of literature reveal everything so soon. It supports the idea that life is more about the journey than the destination; sure we know how the book is going to end, but we don't know who knows what and how everything got to be the way it is. That's where the story takes place! It doesn't really focus on the start or the end, just the stuff in between!
Chapter 1- Similarly to Siddhartha, it's clear that Chronicle of a Death Foretold uses different kinds of trees as a means of expressing certain ideas. In chapter 1 alone, timber trees, almond trees and mango trees, are all mentioned as being familiar to Santiago Nasar. If something is important in literature, the author will often introduce it early on; this is exactly what Gabriel Marquez does with trees in CODF. On the very first page of the book, the narrator mentions that the night before his murder, Santiago had been dreaming of traveling through a grove of timber trees. The vague description of "Timber Trees" shows us that Marquez does not want his readers to confuse themselves over the different interpretations of Oaks, Evergreens, and other timber trees; simply saying Timber Trees is a clear sign of death as those trees are specifically grown to be cut down. Perhaps this idea of being made for a certain outcome ties in with Santiago's death being a product of fate, in which case would be another connection to the book's use of magical realism. Again on the first page, Placida Linero recounts Santiago's dream the past week as "'...he'd dreamed that he was alone in a tinfoil airplane and flying through the almond trees without bumping into anything.'" Because of the book's use of magical realism and divination, it's clear that dreams are very important and should not be taken lightly. Placida is even quoted as being an expert on the study of the meaning of dreams. I have no idea what the tinfoil airplane is meant to represent (perhaps the idea that, although he appears to be flying, his freedom is a lot more fragile than one might think it is because his airplane is made of such a bendable and fragile material?) but almond trees, ever since the writing of the bible, have been known to represent old age due to the color of it's blossoms and the fact that they blossom in the winter. The fact that Santiago is avoiding these trees in his airplane shows that he may be avoiding old age as well, he may be on the road to an early death. The last tree I saw mentioned was the mango grove in which the narrator's house lied. Mango tree's are often used in many Eastern religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism, to represent love and the connections between people. Perhaps they are used ironically in this setting to show the hopes of love the Narrator's sister had for Santiago. Trees are definitely cool!
Reply #1: Yeah, I agree that trees are really cool. An interesting connection to note is Armenta’s description of Nasar’s outfit as though, “he was dressed in aluminum” (Marquez 15). Tinfoil is a very thin and fragile metal that looks deceivingly sturdy, and relating Nasar to tinfoil twice suggests that maybe the townspeople were convincing themselves that he was safe and they had nothing to warn him about, when in fact he was completely vulnerable. Maybe the tinfoil also suggests the everyone around Nasar was trying to cover him so as to avoid seeing him and feeling guilty, pretending that he is not there - but again this shield is thin and easily broken through, and the townspeople were only using it as an excuse for blissful ignorance.
Blog #1: The first thing I noticed is Marquez’s heavy emphasis on imagery, and how different people perceive similar and different images when recounting the same story. The unnamed narrator recalls waking up to “the clamor of alarm bells,” and Flor remembers that, “the cocks began to crow...it was such a great uproar” (Marquez 5-14). Marquez’s repeated use of loud auditory imagery throughout the first chapter reflects the townspeople’s complacent and distracted moods due to the chaotic festivities the night before. Early in the chapter, the narrator uses gustatory imagery and recalls, “the baptistry smell that had startled me on the morning of the crime,” showing an acute sense of perception and attention to detail, leaving the reader wondering who this mysterious, extremely knowledgeable narrator is, and what part he played in the bystander crime (7). But the most interesting use of imagery is Marquez’s visual and kinesthetic imagery of the weather, showing controversy over what should have been an unquestionable subject. Some characters say that, “it was a radiant morning with a sea breeze coming in through the banana groves,” while others remember it as, “funereal, with a cloudy, low sky and the thick smell of still waters” (4). These juxtaposing images show the confusion and possible inaccuracies of what really happened as influenced by those who perceived them. Marquez’s use of imagery in chapter one reflects the magical realism of the story because it blurs the line between fiction and reality in the serious and stoic tone of a reporter, making it intentionally unclear for the reader to separate the two.
Hey, I loved your blog post! I definitely agree with the idea that this book is very heavy on the concept of several viewpoints, and this is honestly the only book so far that I have read like it. Throughout the chapter, it does mention several clashing statements from different characters, and I think that says a lot about the selfishness of their society, and it also makes me remember our own. In Santiago Nasar's world, no one remembers for sure the things that happened the day of his death, simply because it was not an important day for them. Even the whole conflict of the novel (Angela's virginity being supposedly stolen by Santiago and then the murder of Nasar being an honor killing) was because Angela was only thinking of herself, and did not consider what the repercussions of her words would be on Santiago or the other individuals in the town. This whole topic, for some reason, reminds me of our current society, simply due to the amount of time and attention we give to our electronics, as opposed to other people. Currently, most of us have phones or computers, and we are so busy paying attention to those devices, that we do not notice when people in our lives need that same attention. We are being selfish, which proves to be the downfall of all of the individuals in this novel, and we should take a lesson from that and apply it to our own lives.
To contradict you a little bit, the theme of interconnectedness of the people in that community actually really stood out to me in the first time that I read through ‘Chronicle’, the novel emphasizes that many characters are linked by blood or by friendship, the party that happens before the events in ‘Chronicle’ brings everyone in the town together. This all seems so superficial though, I agree and think it’s still really important to acknowledge that we should take it as an example of what not to do. Simply take the example of the varied reactions to Santiago’s accused crime, his death, and the judgement dealt out to the Vicario brothers that killed him out of supposed respect to honor, this is not a truly open society, it is in many ways ruled by sexism and rigid gender roles (machismo). Another stellar example of why I wouldn’t like to live there or live like they do is because of how everyone seemed to know already that Nasar would be murdered, and yet they did nothing. All of these things show that relationships between people, though perhaps close, are fundamentally detached.
Within the first lines of "Chronicle of a Death Foretold," the idea and importance of dreams is introduced, along with one of our literary maxims. For Placida Linero, I doubt that the first thing she thought of when Santiago Nasar told her about his dream was, “flight is freedom.” Even so, while the dreams are thought to be widely misinterpreted in the novel by the characters, the inclusion of birds and flight in these dreams allowed for a wider understanding of the sequence of events that was about to unfold. Within the first two paragraphs of the novel, Gabriel Garcia Marquez states that, “‘The week before, he’d [Santiago] dreamed that he was alone in a tinfoil airplane and flying through the almond trees without bumping into anything” (Gabriel Garcia Marquez, page 1). As we know from our literary maxims, “flight is freedom,” and the ultimate form of freedom is death. I don’t mean to sound pessimistic, but in our lives, we can attain certain levels of freedom by going on our own path or cutting ties with people who may not affect us in a good way, but we will never be able to fully detach ourselves from our lives and responsibilities. Only death can do that. In his dream, Santiago is described to be flying in a tinfoil airplane, and does not bump into anything, which, in the context of death, means that he is flying closer and closer to death, and there is nothing in his way to stop him, much like none of the people in his town were able to stop the Vicario brothers from murdering him. Therefore, by having Santiago dream about death, Gabriel Garcia Marquez shows several layers of foreshadowing, both through blatant statements, such as “On the day they were going to kill him…” (Marquez, page 1), and through the use of literary maxims, such as when he is describing the dream of Santiago flying in the airplane. These two instances show that not only is Santiago going to die, but that he is also not going to be aided by anyone in the town as the act is occurring.
Upon rereading the novel, a few things stood out to me, the first is how fervidly I hate Santiago Nasar, so I realize whatever I have to say beyond that is going to be colored by that hatred (though I do realize that he’s a person worthy of anything anyone else is, and I don’t approve of disembowelment as a means of punishment, blah blah blah, he just makes me angry, I’ll probably change my mind tomorrow). Speaking of disembowelment, one the parts of the first chapter that stood out most (after Santiago Nasar’s disgusting behavior) to me was the passage concerning the preparation of rabbits and Santiago Nasar’s reaction. The same passage makes clear that he was “accustomed to killing defenseless animals”, other passages, like the description of Nasar’s typical garb and gun collection reinforce this image of him (Garcia Marquez 9). It was then a surprise to Victoria Guzmán, and to myself, that Nasar would be so horrified at something so routine for him. My first thought was how the rabbits’ treatment mirrors that of Santiago Nasar during his murder by the Vicario brothers, that the rabbits’ disembowelment foreshadows Nasar’s disembowelment and by extension, the rabbits symbolize Nasar. Nasar’s horror, out of the ordinary, would mean that he already understood the symbolism and his nearing death; This also strikes me as an example of magical realism, as a sort of vague premonition. My second thought makes less sense as a cohesive explanation, but I think it has still has some place in this discussion; Much of the day ‘they were going to kill him’ is distinctly odd and out of the ordinary. Though others perceive it as ordinary, there are all sorts of signs pointing to Santiago Nasar feeling something strongly out of place, he woke up with the feeling that he was “splattered with bird shit”, and then had to forego the security of his regular khaki outfit and guns, his shock at the treatment of the rabbits gives some insight to his frame of mind. He is undoubtedly ruled by the expectations of machismo and his social role in his household and among his friends, meaning that he wouldn’t likely give away his feelings in a more transparent, communicative way, this rounds him out as a character and gives him some depth- even if it is also a show of infuriating hypocrisy. God, I still hate him. I don’t think I have all that much more to say, at least nothing left that’s constructive or at all school-appropriate.
Blog #2: In Chapter 2, Marquéz uses a lot of similes and comparisons for characterization. Magdalena Oliver said Bayardo San Román “looked like a fairy,” like a fictional fantasy too good for reality (Marquéz 26). Angela Vicario said that “he reminded [her] of the devil,” a supernatural figure feared by the religious town members (28). Though they are juxtaposing descriptions, both comparisons relate San Román to the spiritual/magical world and show the aura of wonder surrounding him, characterizing him as a mysterious yet respected outsider. These similes also show the transcendentalist idea of explaining anything weird or out of the ordinary through the spiritual and supernatural world rather than logic, as we see the moms in the story do through their divinations. Marquéz also uses several animal similes, reverse-personifying (dehumanizing?) characters. The narrator says that San Román’s sisters “were like two restless fillies,” using horses - the symbol of unrestrained freedom - to ironically describe girls bound by the strict cultural norms we see clearly enforced by San Roman himself by returning his wife (33). When accusing Santiago Nasar, Angela Vicario picks him, “like a butterfly with no will whose sentence has always been written,” (47). Angela, beaten, angry, and suddenly given a voice and power, targets Nasar, who is characterized as fragile and defenseless through this simile, perhaps suggesting that he is innocent and has been wrongly accused. Marquéz’s use of similes and comparisons enhances the magical realism of the story because it relates the out of the ordinary to the townspeople’s daily lives, making everything seem creepily normal.
Chapter two captures all of the double standards that this book has on women and men. Some of them we look at as ridiculous in today’s world but back then they were held up to high expectations. Women back then they were supposed to be virgins before marriage and were not supposed to have premarital sex. For example, Marquez writes, “No one would have thought, nor did anyone say, that Angela Vicario wasn’t a virgin. She hadn’t known any previous fiance and she’d grown up along with her sisters under the rigor of a mother of iron” (Marquez 37). This tells us that Angela should be a virgin because it was unacceptable to not be a virgin before marriage. While on the other hand we have men during this time period expected to have the experience in the bedroom. They were expected to go out before marriage and have premarital sex with women to gain the experience. This is a double standard. If men are allowed to have sex before marriage, shouldn’t women be allowed too? Another example of a double standard in this book is that women have to marry the man the family picks for her. For example Angela’s mother tells her after she tries to hint at the lack of love between her and Bayardo, her mother says, “ Love can be learned too” (Marquez 35). On the other side of the spectrum men have so many choices to which woman they get to marry. In this case, “Bayardo San Roman hadn’t even tried to court her but had bewitched her family with his charm” (34). Bayardo San Roman didn’t even try to impress Angela at all, rather he was trying to impress the family so that they would let him marry her. This again is a double standard. Between the two genders, they are held at several expectations and many of them are the complete opposite of each other.
Chapter 2 - One thing that stood out to me in this chapter was the double standard that women, specifically Angela Vicario. There is SO MUCH shame put on her for her lack of virginity, but the male characters went to the whorehouse without societal judgements. This is especially shocking because I was wondering what you all think the author's purpose is here: is Marquez highlighting unfair societal standards, giving background for the culture, or emphasizing a personal belief that women should be pure. In terms of literary elements, there was a lot of admiring diction used to describe Bayardo. Marquez uses words such as, "golden", "fairy", "enchanting", and "good heart" (Marquez 25-27). This contrasted with the angry diction used after her lack of virginity was discovered; Marquez uses words like "profanations of the symbols of purity", "grabbed", "rage", and "disaster" (Marquez 44-47).
I actually think Marquez wrote it for both reasons. He knows that these things happened in this time period and women were help at higher expectations than men but I believe he wrote this because he feels he has some personal belief about how women should be pure before marriage and should not be engaging in such acts in the bedroom. Like you said he shows this by putting men on a pedestal while he uses such demeaning diction when describing the women, particularly Angela. Marquez uses this emphasis on these social beliefs to make a point and really showcase the problems that were held at this time. Especially during this time period when men treated women like they were property or as if they were an inanimate object.
I think this is really interesting, I hadn’t noticed this at all, this really goes against some of the ideas I had built up about this book. It had first seemed to me that the primary purpose of the novel was to show that the complex set of rules and expectations for men and women are ludicrous and harmful. By extension, the macho characterization of male characters was for the purpose of discouraging such machismo, but this made me realize that my understanding of machismo is really based off of my own societal presuppositions (I really don’t believe in any kind of universally-applicable morality, like actually none). Your comment sort of reminded me of this, and got me to check how I was viewing the book and the author’s intent, I suppose we can’t really know, but I had been simply assuming up until this point.
I totally agree with you. I think there is a huge double standard for women in this book, as well as modern day societies. Nowadays, I think women are taking a stand against what they ought to do and what they want to do. Women are looked down upon when they are working incredibly hard to make a living for their families. People criticize them for not taking care of the children at home. However, women are also expected to provide for their families in a way that is deemed ok by society. On the other hand, men are praised for being stay-at-home dads and congratulated for being able to take care of the kids even though they should be working. In Angelina Vicario's situation, she was expected to be a virgin and sacrifice herself for the good of her marriage and her family. She was brought up to be a mother and a wife. Men were expected to be experienced in the bedroom. They were brought up to be men and work to make a living for their families.
Chapter 2- A good example of the magical realism in Chronicle of a Death Foretold happens closer to the end of chapter 2. After Bayardo San Roman brings Angela Vicario back to her mom's house, Pura, Angela's mother, exclaims she'd thought they'd "gone off the road in the car and were lying dead at the bottom of the ravine"(47). Seems like ghostly apparitions are an accepted everyday thing in Marquez's world! I thing I'm confused about is whether or not Roman knew that his wife wasn't a virgin, was that why he brought her back? And why did her mom start beating her without anybody even telling her she had done anything wrong? Did she already know? A few pages before the wedding occurs, Angela tells the narrator that "My mother was the only one who appreciated as an act of courage the fact that she had played out her marked cards to the final consequences"--lied about being a virgin--(41). I don't know if she told the narrator that after the death or before, or why Pura beat Angela if she respected her deception. One more thing: I found it interesting that Roman was described as having a "'green color of dreams'" by Pura after delivering Angela. Perhaps, just like dreams may seem real as one has them but eventually disappear, Roman was just to good to be true.
Hey, I really like your post, and I think I can answer a few of your questions!Roman did not know that his wife was not a virgin, and because she was not in possession of her honor when he married her, he returned her to her home in disgrace. At that time, marrying a woman who was a virgin was culturally and socially important, because it meant that she was pure, which is why there is the mention of how everyone was upset that she dared wear white and orange blossoms to a wedding without being a virgin, even though those are signs of virginity. Her mother beat her because it can be inferred that it is very important to their family to be seen as the perfect family, such as when it is mentioned that Pura Vicario raiser her daughters to be the perfect wives, or simply looking at the fact that they upheld mourning for 2 years after a death, whereas the usual mourning period is up to 6 months (I believe?). When Roman returns Angela to her home in shame, Pura Vicario beats her because Angela ruined their reputation. We already know that honor plays a big part in this novel, especially since Pablo and Pedro Vicario kill Santiago to avenge Angela's honor.
To answer some of your questions, Roman brought her back to her parents’ house because he discovered she wasn’t a virgin, this is gone over in more detail in some of the later chapters I think, she is told to fake the effects of her hymen breaking by her mother. She decides not to, against the advice of her female peers/mentors, and this is why she is dumped back at her parents’ house and beaten by her mother, additionally, she has just broken a major rule in the tacit code of marianismo. That last thought, that Bayardo San Roman was just too good be true, really struck a chord with me, I think that has a lot to do with the overall message of the novel: the social constructs that they have built in to their society, of machismo and marianismo are only ever fully and comfortably achieved in dreams. I think this plays into a greater social commentary that Gabriel Garcia Marquez seems to be making in this novel, that gender roles are impossible to achieve, and the pursuit of their fulfillment is destructive and stupid.
In the second chapter of “Chronicle of a Death Foretold,” the point of view of another world played a large part in the description of the situation, which was aided by the presence of the narrator, the use of fairy tale word choice, and the mention of characters from Marquez’s other works.
Throughout the duration of the novel, the unnamed narrator often mentions his own ties to the story and several of his family members, but never actually mentions his name. In the second chapter, the narrator mentions that he saw Angela Vicario when he returned “year after year during my Christmas vacations,” (Chapter 2, page 35) and mentions his sister, the nun. His presence in this book and in the telling of the story gives the plot and otherworldly feel, which fits in well with the use of magical realism throughout the story, such as when Dr. Dionisio says about the widower Xius, that when you “listened with a stethoscope, you could hear the tears bubbling in his heart (Chapter 2, page 41).
In addition to that, by using words such as “fairy,” and “enchanting,” when describing Bayardo San Roman, Marquez introduces the feeling as if the story is a fairy tale, as if everything told in the plot is set in a different world with a completely different set of values, even though the events take place in a normal town, with normal people. In addition to that, it automatically sets Bayardo among the other characters, as the townspeople all seem to think that he is greater than them, especially when the unnamed narrator’s mother states that he beat the other men in town by pulling ahead by at least 20 strokes during a swimming competition.
One of the most confusing things in the second chapter, for me, was definitely the mention of characters from Marquez’s other works and people in real life. Oftentimes, Marquez drops minor characters into the story without introducing them, such as when he mentioned Dr. Dionisio and Maria Alejandrina, but he uses the same tactic when introducing characters from his other works. This means that looking them up causes confusion and frustration. I had looked up Maria expecting her to be either a woman in real life or from another work of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, because her last name is Cervantes, and I thought that Marquez was referencing Miguel de Cervantes, a Spanish writer who lived in the 1500s-1600s. Instead, it turned out that she was a character in CoDF. Then, I had looked up Mercedes Barcha, and was surprised to find her to be Marquez’s wife. This woven tale of real and fictitious characters causes the reader to find himself in a world almost outside of his own, because while the setting is realistic, the author uses both real and made up characters in his works.
Through the use of fairy tale word choice, the unnamed narrator, and a mix of real and fictitious characters, Marquez creates a story that mixing the things that we understand in our world, and the factors that aid the creation of his.
The part that I liked most about this chapter, and probably about the entire book is the section of chapter two describing the widower, Xius, and his old, beautiful house (can you tell that I’m using too many descriptive words to get my word count up? Because I feel like it’s kind of obvious already...). Just those few, beautiful, spacious words Gabriel Garcia Marquez employs are everything that I want: farmhouse, windswept, limitless paradise, purple anemones, summer, horizon, and even dominoes. Some words really just do it for me, you know (but not ‘do it’ euphemistically, I hope you know what I mean), just the name Xius, everything about it, like Tuesday or Gethsemane. On a slightly more coherent (I hope) note, I think Xius is my favorite character in the entire book, he and his way of life before it was disrupted by Bayardo San Roman seems to be lived by and for beauty and peace, genuine love for his late wife. The very act of parting from the material manifestation of the beauty and peace he had- even if it was something he’d lost with his wife, at least it was something he’d once had and valued- was enough to kill him, this connection to his values, to love and genuine connection to others seems something sorely lacking in the rest of the town and an explanation for his (reasonably assumed) isolation. His life with his late wife was described as being built of a lifetime spent together, full of mutual sacrifice, and seems a loving one. He seems to live his life, as he says, driven by “the motives of the heart”, and this is contrasted with the cold and methodically image-focused Bayardo San Roman’s continual offers of money (for a house for a wife that had no interest in him). So yeah, everyone in this book is trash except for Xius. Fight me. (^that was a joke… kind of) (see, that was a joke too, so funny)
Chapter 3 is quite interesting to me. I can't help but notice that Pablo and Pedro Vicario attest to a higher standard than most. People think very highly of them and praise them for being honorable and manly. Sometimes, people are too privy to societal standards that they disregard right from wrong.In this story, magical realism plays a tremendous role in how a society thinks and acts. They see things, such as guns and murder, a part of everyday life. We should be able to decipher right from wrong and make decisions based on what will be beneficial for ourselves and society in a way. One man, Faustino Santos, became concerned when he first saw the men enter the meat market at such and early hour, not to mention it wasn't a Friday, when they usually arrived at a later time to sharpen their butchers knives. The police officer later reported back to the Colonel Lazaro Aponte of all that he had heard. The Colonel Lazaro Aponte strode into Clotilde Armenta's store, where the two brothers were seen somewhat drunk, wielding poorly hidden knives. And although he removed the dangerous weapons from the hands of the Vicario twins, Clotilde Armenta still seemed quite skeptical. She later stated that she "was certain that the Vicario brothers were not as eager to carry out the sentence as to find someone who would do them the favor of stopping them" (Marquez). I somewhat agree with Clotilde Armenta's statement because I believe that the Vicario twins made their intentions known to every individual in town for their own sake of being relieved of their duty to reestablish Angela Vicario's lost honor. On page 52, we see hints of magical realism. On one hand, we note that the Vicario twins are very open with their plans to kill Santiago Nasar. Although they are still somewhat drunk from the night before, they are well aware of the people intently listening around them. I think that because Pablo and Pedro Vacario were so open with their plans, that they wanted someone to step in and interfere with the horrific tradgedy they were about to commit. On the other hand, we can see that the few people in the meet market at the time payed little attention to what the Vicario brothers were saying. "Their reputation as good people was so well-founded that no one paid any attention to them. 'We thought it was drunkards baloney,' several butchers declared..." (Marquez 52). People were too caught up in the fact that the two brothers were almost angelic in their society that they failed to realize "whether or not the trade of slaughter didn't reveal a soul predisposed to killing a human being" (Marquez 52). Later on in the chapter the Vicario twins begin to rethink their plan to slaughter Santiago Nasar. Oh... my... gosh. Pablo Vicario's fiancee claimed that she would never have married Pablo Vicario if he hadn't killed Santiago Nasar. Prudencia Cortes's mother, new of the plan to kill Santiago Nasar and told the Vicario brothers that "Honor doesn't wait" (Marquez 62) because she too believed Santago Nasar was gulity and deserved death. I have begun to question the truth behind the whether or not Santiago Nasar truly was guilty. Did Angela Vicario say a name at random to get away from a life of misery, or was she truly seduced by Santiago Nasar? Although we read in chapter 1 that Santiago Nasar was inappropriate and sexually agressive toward Victoria Guzman and Divina Flor, I do not believe that Santiago Nasar stole Angela Vicario's honor Why didn't anyone think to ask Santiago Nasar the truth of the matter before they resolved to killing him?
I feel a similar kind of way, in my first read-through of the book, I thought that the book was heading in a different thematic direction than it actually goes, I assumed that the author intended that Angela had been lying. Then I thought it was most likely that Nasar had raped her, especially given his sexually aggressive behavior towards Divina Flor, the only reasonable doubt that I have about him having done something to Angela Vicario is in how he was deterred from assaulting Victoria Guzman, just some oversight by an authority figure pushed him from it, but, then again, the reader isn’t given much insight to how Angela would have been supervised. I still do think that it's most likely that Santiago Nasar had raped her, if not, then he did the same someone else. On an unrelated note, I don’t like Pura Vicario very much, she’s just full of meaningless sayings and readily enforces sexism. Still, I don’t dislike her in anywhere near to the same extent or capacity that I dislike Santiago Nasar in, I think that she’s been beaten down by sexism and knows nothing else but how to raise her children the same way, I pity her.
I would like to talk about the section of chapter 3 from pages 74 to 75, describing the nature of Santiago Nasar’s relationship to Maria Alejandrina Cervantes. This is very interesting to me because it is so out of the ordinary for Nasar, in all of his relationships to women his age, he is a dominator, completely controlling and assured in his false sense of superiority, this dynamic (of course, bugs me to no end, but also…) is flipped completely on its head with Maria. She is a Madame, and in this, she exerts power over other women her age and openly defies the values set forth in the tacit code of marianismo that rules other women, it seems as though she has in some way transcended her subordinacy as a woman and granted herself more power. In this way, she is the ‘warlike crane’ who, when chased by a falcon will cause him a life of pain as described in the metaphoric advice the narrator once offered Santiago Nasar in regards to his relationship to her. In this understanding, she is the warlike crane, strong, powerful, and aggressive- in a single word, macho- and Santiago Nasar is the falcon, whose life centers around power and control. There is then understandable attraction between the two, which reveals a lot about each character. Because Santiago is the falcon in this metaphor, and not the falconer, even though he is chasing another, bird, it suggests that he isn’t really as in control as he’d like others to believe, and by extension, machismo is something that isn’t just an expression of some innate internal traits, but a controlling social construct. The recurring motifs related to falcons and falconry really interests me, not only because it draws a mental link between this novel and Taming of the Shrew but also because of the odd way falcon references are emphasized in the novel, the novel opens with a quote from some old Spanish writer- “the pursuit of love is like falconry”- and the next reference is hidden among descriptions of Santiago Nasar’s everyday clothing, normalizing it, but the next reference, in chapter three, is literally italicized in my copy. Hmmm…. Interestingngnngngngg.
Reply #2: Last class we talked about the double standards between men and women, but could there be such a thing as a double standard between women and other women? We see Angela beaten and shamed for not being a virgin, we see her brothers feeling the need to restore her honor by killing their friend… and yet here’s Maria, who runs a brothel and is respected and regarded highly by the characters in the story, INCLUDING Pedro and Pablo themselves, who, had they gone to her, “ ‘never would have left…’ ” (Marquéz 50). Maybe the narrator is biased, since he seems to enjoy Maria’s company, but everyone is okay with Maria as a courtesan but not Angela - maybe because they’re afraid of being exposed themselves, so they pretend to act moral when they’re actually not? Like the Puritans and the Victorian era people? More eggs….
Blog #3: Throughout chapter 3, that narrator lists various rituals, habits, and traditions the town has, juxtaposing them with the unusual behavior of the twins and Nasar on the day of the murder. The narrator writes that, “everybody knew that the main door of Placida Linero’s house was always barred on the inside, and that Santiago Nasar always carried the keys to the back door with him,” highlighting the oddness of him leaving out of the other door on the day of his murder (Marquéz 50). The twins’ butcher friend says that he is “accustomed to seeing them on Fridays,” and reminded them that it was Monday - just like Nasar’s mother did - and yet they sharpened the knives, “the way they always did,” again contrasting the ordinary and extraordinary (51). Marquez uses juxtaposition to explore the theme of people’s tendency to dismiss anything weird or against one’s strongly held beliefs as unrealistic or improbable, summarized by the quote, “ ‘ I wouldn’t have believed it…Who the bad word would ever think that the twins would kill anyone…?’”(69). Marquez also ironically creates a bored and creepily normal tone in the twins’ speech using blunt and straightforward diction, as well as short syntax, when talking about a very extraordinary event. The twins are so clear about their motives and intentions, purposely announcing them to everyone - perhaps in hopes of someone stopping them? - to the point that it’s ridiculous to everyone around them, and no one believes them. Marquez uses juxtaposition to enhance the magical realism of the story, showing that some things can be so ridiculously unrealistic and obvious that they just become normal and easily missed. (like in a spot the differences game thing, where you find all the differences in the details but get stuck on the major differences that are so obvious that they’re even harder to see than the small ones? weird)
I agree, and I also hadn’t noticed until reading this the various literary devices Gabriel Garcia Marquez employs to emphasize this juxtaposition. This also helps to enforce the idea that everything was normal to everyone in the town, that nothing would come of very abnormal events, this, I think, has to do with the basic disconnection between people in the town and the reality of things, of the other people around them. Additionally, I think the twins are being so open about their plans in hopes of being stopped, their actions and the narrator’s commentary indicate that the twins each had bottled up a lot of their fears and hesitation, yet another function of machismo as a social force.
The magical realism in Chapter 3 amazes me. The whole plot of the chapter is basically the Vicario twins, Pedro and Pablo, and how they got ready with their tools and how they planned about the day to kill Santiago Nasar. This is shortly after hearing that Nasar had done things with their sister Angela when she was supposed to be a virgin for Bayardo. The magical realism stood out to me on the very first couple pages. Marquez writes what Pablo says, “We're going to kill Santiago Nasar” and then he writes, “Their reputation as good people was so well-founded that no one paid any attention to them. “We thought it was drunkards’ baloney,” several butchers declared (Marquez 52). The fact that these people in this Butcher shop were perfectly okay with the twins sharpening their knives so that they could go Santiago Nasar astounds me! This is magical realism because the twins are just about to do something unreal and yet everyone in town goes along with it and think it is perfectly normal. I would also like to point out that the Vicario twins are looked at as “well-founded reputation”. That shows how in this town that they live in, a reputation can get you out of things so easily and will help you prevent the consequences that you face because of your actions. In the Vicario twins case, they didn’t have the backlash from the people in the town telling them not to kill Santiago Nasar. This also shows how the people in this town really didn’t care for Nasar all that much. As Pedro and Pablo confess that they are going to kill Nasar, nobody is like, “No! Don’t kill such a kind and gentle human being! He is a wonderful, enchanting guy”. No they are like, “Oh they are just drunk”. I feel as if everyone in the town didn’t like Nasar and life and the town's’ well being would just be so much better off without the guy apart of their lives. Why does everyone hate Santiago Nasar?
Hi, Danielle! Great blog post! I think you really hit the nail on the head with the use of magical realism and how it definitely turns the audience off to Santiago Nasar, and I would actually like to try to answer your last question! I don't actually believe that people hate Santiago, simply that they are impartial to him. I do not think that anyone ever explicitly states that they hate Santiago, simply that they thought someone else would inform him of his impending death, so I think it was more that they hated the idea of telling him more than they hated him. For that, there are many reasons: Not wanting to be the bearer of bad news, the whole situation being difficult to deal with, the belief that someone else would help him, and countless others, but I do think it was more of a situational issue than it was an issue with Santiago as an individual.
In the third chapter of “Chronicle of a Death Foretold,” Gabriel Garcia Marquez uses juxtaposition in relation to religious ideals to portray the otherworldly feeling of the novel.
A large theme in the novel is of religion being used to prove a point, which is often interpreted in a nontraditional way. For instance, when I think of church, I often think of faithful relationships, abstinence, no consumption of alcohol, and some hardcore religious values. But “Chronicle of a Death Foretold,” like many of the other IB books that we have read this year, tends to take those pre-existing values, and throw them out the window and through the door. Perhaps one of the most blatant uses of this concept in the third chapter was when Pablo Vicario stated that he and Pedro were not at fault, “‘Before God and before men’” (Marquez, page 56). While in traditional belief, most religions heavily advise against killing of any sort (even if for honor), it seems as if Pablo, Pedro, the townspeople, and even Father Amador, a man of the church, see this as something truly forgivable and allowed by the Lord. This nontraditional idea between the religions that we know and the one presented in the novel make the plot out to seem unrealistic and otherworldly, in a way, even though the actual events, characters, and the plot seem to be in a world very similar to our own.
Another example of religion being used to prove a point is during the introduction of the bishop to the story, when Colonel Aponte mocks, “What will the bishop think!” (Marquez, page 64). While the bishop is regarded to be in a high position in the church, it seems as if the townspeople are able to mock and insult him without worrying about the repercussions of these words. This would never be allowed in a realistic religious setting, as those who believe in that religion will rarely be disrespectful to those spreading the word of the Lord. That being said, we can tell that religion still plays a large part in the lives of the characters, even though their interpretation of religion is different than ours. According to the narrator, his brother said, “‘Santiago Nasar is dead.’ Then, he delivered an episcopal blessing...and staggered out” (Marquez, page 80). Through the swift, albeit drunken deliver of the blessing, it can be inferred that religion still plays a large part in the lives of the characters, even though they partake in less than holy activities such as drinking, adultery, murder, and many others.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez uses juxtaposition of traditional religious values to portray the characters of the novel living almost in a dream world, where they believe in a religious being in theory, but do not act accordingly. This also allows the audience to see the that these flipped religious values are only one small part of the topsy turvy plot of the novel.
I loved your post! I think that because most people were put off by Santiago Nasar they viewed his death almost as a celebration. The ideas of religion are very prominent in chapter 3; people believe that killing for honor is acceptable and forgivable, while in our modern day society some killings are punishable by death. Because the townspeople were quite fond of the Vicario brothers, they supported them, and event rooted for them. I agree that the people of this small, quaint town are living with their heads in the clouds, unable to realize the divergence between right and wrong. Marquez has taken our way of life and put his own spin on it, making the readers question what really happened.
Chapter 3 - I want to talk about the juxtaposition between religion and knives found in Chapter 3. Knives symbolize violence, dehumanization (used for pigs), and visual proof of the brothers’ seriousness (should have been recognized by the town). Quotes that supports this are, “‘We just came to sharpen our knives’” (51) and “... the Vicario brothers returned with two other knives… It was with these knives that the crime was committed...” (59). These quotes show how the brothers were carrying the knives around town, showing them to people, and eventually telling them how they intended to use them. Religion used in juxtaposition creates a hypocritical tone because religion is not supposed to be accepting of murder, for whatever reason, even for the sake of honor. The priest even shows his understanding of the murder in the first part of the chapter when the Marquez writes, “‘We killed him openly,’ Pedro Vicario said… ‘Before God and before men.’” (49). The coming of the bishop, which is mentioned on 9 pages, represents how the town wants to present itself well for an authority figure but there are internal problems that people don’t want to deal with because they want to put on a good front, similar to “A Doll’s House”. The author’s purpose is to show readers how pride can get in the way of your beliefs, especially when that pride can be strengthened by doing something violent.
"Not just I. Everything continued smelling of Santiago Nasar that day. The Vicario brothers could smell him in the jail cell where the mayor had locked them up..." (Marquez 78). The narrator is emphasizing the idea that after Santiago Nasar's autopsy, no one was able to escape the horrid smell of him. Even Pedro Vicario even stated that, "No matter how much I scrubbed with soap and rags, I couldn't get rid of the smell" (Marquez 78). The rank smell of Santiago Nasar lingered in the air for a long while. I can almost see a ghost-like figure (Santiago Nasar) wafting trough the air above the skylight of the jailhouse cell. To me, it seemed as though the Vicario brothers were so haunted by their actions that they began to regret murdering Santiago Nasar, their good friend. Pablo and Pedro Vicario were so unnerved by the events of the days before that they were unable to sleep, reliving the murder if Santiago Nasar each time they dared to get some sleep. Pedro Vicario began to suffer seargent's blennorrhea and had much difficulty going to the bathroom. Later, Pablo Vicario began to suffer from pestilential diarrhea, making it almost impossible to stop going to the bathroom. It was interesting that their immediate thought went straight to the Arabs. Growing up in this small town in the Caribbean, Santiago Nasar was still an Arab. The Vicario twins believed they had been poisoned by them as an act of revenge, but that was later dismissed after noting the fact they they had only ever ate the food their sister, Angela Vicario, had brought for them. It was quite interesting to me that the Vicario twins believed "they would wait for nightfall in order to poor gasoline through the skylight and burn the prisonersin their cell" (Marquez 81). (Why did they assume they were being mentally tortured by the Arabs for killing Santiago Nasar? Was it because the Arabs were still considered foreigners in the town?) After Susana Abdala, the Arab matriarch, supposedly cured Pablo Vicario with some flowers, I began to question whether or not she intended to give his brother, Pablo Vicario, a steady flow of "water". Honor also played a major role in the Vicario family. In CODF, the narrator reveals that "Purisima Vicario found them at three o'clock in the morning on Tuesday when the mayor had brought her to say good-bye to them" (Marquez 82). If the family hadn't been so caught up in the idea of maintaining their good name, I don't think they would have left the small, quint town they grew up in. On the other hand, on the morning the Vicario brothers were set to departure to Riohacha, they were offered a chance to repent for their sins, but they refused, walking out in broad daylight, convinced that they had done nothing wrong by killing a man to restore their sister's honor (sorry for the run on sentence). I was shocked to find out that Angela Vicario actually did care for Bayardo San Roman, sending him letter after letter for about 20 years, before he showed up on her doorstep, with the bundles of unopened letter. It wasn't as shocking, however, to see how different he looked. I assumed that he had drank every day of his life since the night of the wedding, when he discovered the horrific truth that his new wife had been deflowered. I am almost done reading the last chapter and am excited to see how it ends: Will we discover that Santiago Nasar was innocent, even though Angela Vicario claims it was Santiago Nasar? What happens to the Vicario brothers? I hope Angela Vicario and Bayardo San Roman get back together(: )
Blog #4: This chapter is by far the most confusing to me, and I think this confusion comes from the new insight we get on Angela’s life, which is surprising and unlike what we were led to believe. In the first three chapters, we were told about how Angela was viewed by others, but we didn’t actually get to know her until this chapter. Santiago Nasar calls her a “ninny,” and the narrator describes her as having “a helpless air and a poverty of spirit,” (Marquéz 32). In chapter four, Angela shows strength and resilience, commitment, and passion, taking her mother’s beating and Nasar’s murder for Bayardo’s sake, and sending him monthly letters “without quarter for seventeen years,” showing that she is the opposite of the unfeeling woman everyone thought her to be (95). Letters symbolize love and affection, and the fact that they remained unopened shows that Bayardo did not want to accept her feelings, perhaps to avoid guilt or to avoid remembering the feelings he had for her. The fact that Bayardo ignored the letters and returned to Angela when “‘he was fat and was beginning to lose his hair,’” shows that perhaps Bayardo loved Angela despite her nonvirginess and never wanted to return her, but did because of the macho standards and expectations placed on him - and were now gone because he is no longer young and godlike (95). Marquéz delays this insight on Angela and Bayardo until chapter four to show that the townspeople judged and characterized them superficially, pretending to know everything about their lives without actually knowing anything about them. Because Angela’s viewpoint is surprising and unexpected to the reader, Marquéz shows that we, the readers, also made assumptions about Angela and Bayardo, exactly like the townspeople.
Hey, I definitely agree with your post, but I did want to talk about your characterization of Angela. You describe her as strong, resilient, committed, and passionate, but I must say, those are not the first words that come to mind when I think of Angela Vicario. In all honestly, I think of the complete opposite. Angela Vicario does not show that strength when her mother beats her, and instead shows a weak side of herself by wrongly accusing Santiago just because the situation is easier. She is often described, as you mentioned, to have "a helpless air and a poverty of spirit,” (Marquéz 32), which directly disputes the idea of her being passionate. While I love your analysis, I disagree with your characterization of Angela, but I must say that my personal bias may be playing a large part in this response.
In response to both of you, think that the point is that Angela grew into a better person, on her own and under less direct control of the constricting values of marianismo. I think that’s the whole point of the book and even literature as a whole (as discussed in last year’s unit on ‘Of Mice and Men’), to show that there is room for growth into something better. Pura’s descriptions of her daughter are fundamentally flawed because they are so fatalistic- suggesting she was just born helpless and she can’t ever be any other way- but the point that the book is making is that human nature is fluid and messy and our actions and beliefs are influenced heavily by those around us and our general society. What the book is mainly saying, though, with the extended story of Bayardo San Roman and Angela Vicario is that when we let go of the toxic, impossible ideals of the society we come from, we can grow and learn how to truly love someone, something I think the two had learned by the time they reunite.
In the midst of all of the comparisons of Santiago to Christ, or Angela to the Virgin Mary, there is one comparison that, to me, seemed to be a very interesting one. In my opinion, Maria Alejandrina Cervantes is a modern representation of Rahab, a prostitute who played a part in the Israeli capture of Jericho in the Old Testament. In the story of the Old Testament, Rahab, a respected prostitute in the city of Jericho, harbored two Israeli spies in her inn/ brothel. When people came looking for them, she had denied that the spies were there, and thus saved the lives of those who she believed to be correct. This, to me, seemed to relate to how it was stated in the previous chapters that Maria Alejandrina Cervantes could have been able to keep Pablo and Pedro from killing Santiago, much like Rahab was able to keep the spies alive until they could return and capture the city. In addition to that, I thought that there was an interesting comparison such that both Maria Alejandrina and Rahab were respected as prostitutes, despite the fact that their practice was considered impure. Instead of treating Maria as an object to use, many of the men in the book seemed to respect her, such as when the narrator does not fight when Maria refuses his sexual advances during a night spent together“ ...I felt myself sinking into the delights of the quicksand of her tenderness. But suddenly, she stopped… ‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘You smell of him’” (90). I thought it was interesting that while both of their positions should have led to their low position in society, both Rahab and Maria Alejandrina are respected and accepted in society.
That's a really interesting comparison! Do you think Marquez did this intentionally? I think that goes to show the huge impact religion has on this book.
I agree, this is really interesting, especially because I had never even heard of the story of Rahab, I wrote quite a bit on the subject of Maria Alejandrina Cervantes as well in my earlier blogpost. In response to Olivia’s question, I do think that it’s pretty likely that Gabriel Garcia Marquez would have intentionally based Maria Alejandrina Cervantes off of some biblical figure as a way to draw from such a pervasive and influential force on all aspects of the Catholic dominate culture of much of South America, like the town in ‘Chronicle’ was set in. I can’t really speak to the actual truthfulness of this, but I would assume that the story of Rahab might be less prevalent in general culture accessible to the author and audience alike, and therefore, the popular conception of Mary Magdalene as a repentant prostitute would be a more likely source of Cervantes’ character.
Looking at the calendar I think we were supposed to blog on the last two chapters, so hopefully that's right... Chapters 4 & 5: In Chapter 4 and 5 there are graphic scenes, and I want to draw parallels between them as well as identify literary elements within them. In Chapter 4, the priest is doing Nasar’s autopsy. Olfactory imagery is used to describe the way Nasar’s dead body smells; Marquez uses disgusted diction in the quotes, “smell of death” (73) and “Everything continued smelling of Nasar,” (78). This can be related to the end of Chapter 5 when Marquez describes the scene of Nasar’s death, writing, “terrible smell of shit” (120). Marquez also chose to be very detailed in describing these scenes, using graphic diction such as, “the liver was almost sliced,” (75), “filled with large clots of blood,” (75), “liquid began to flow from the wounds,” (74), “spurt of blood” (118), and “holding his hanging intestines” (119). I think these details were used by Marquez to show the reader the gory consequences of being a bystander to encourage them not to be silent in the face of injustice.
What stood out to me most about chapters four and five were the last couple of pages describing the moments in which Santiago Nasar learns for the first time that the Vicario brothers are planning to kill him, and then all the gorey details of Nasar being repeatedly stabbed and dying. In this, Gabriel Garcia Marquez finalizes his thoughts on major themes and their application to real life expressed through the actions and observations of the characters. The most personally compelling of these themes is shown in how disparately Santiago Nasar is characterized by different characters in the novel; First, Angela Vicario (probably) lies and names him as her ‘perpetrator’, then the Vicario brothers’ use of ‘pig-killing knives’ on him and mistake the location of his heart (searching for a fatal, final blow to inflict) to where a pig’s would be located blatantly dehumanizes him (though the Vicario brother’s repeated use of humanizing pronouns and calling him a man contradict this, the Vicarios’ statements were given in retrospect, and therefore cannot be entirely useful or relevant in the context I’m writing in), and the imagery elevating Santiago Nasar to Christ-like status is ramped up a lot with the references to the killing blade coming out clean of blood each stabbing and to the stigma-like wound on his hand. Throughout the novel, Santiago is characterized in such a way that I find it very hard to express any opinions on without swearing or yelling a little, that pussy-grabbing little bastard (see, told you. And I refuse to edit this out) is given a lot of depth, which I do think is important, but his name is very interestingly evocative of Christian figures, Santiago being Spanish for “Saint James” (if I recall correctly from the discussion in class today) and Nasar being very similar to ‘Nazareth’, the place where Jesus was raised, it is even possible that the Nasar family was from someplace near where Jesus would’ve lived (given that significant Arab populations from Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine immigrated to South America in the early nineteenth century following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire). Literary devices like diction, imagery, and language used in concurrence to these themes create a fluid tone and effect on the reader corresponding to the perception of the character focused on as a lens through which to view and understand Santiago Nasar’s death; This indicates that not only are none of the townspeople, including the narrator fully reliable, but that Gabriel Garcia Marquez intends to actually manipulate the reader’s understanding of Santiago Nasar by bending reality to fit the perceptions of the people of the town. Anyways, the point I’m trying to make is that in all this, Santiago Nasar’s identity is co-opted by his community and manipulated in his final day, and I think this is social commentary on the sheer power of influence that a society or community can have on identity or individual beliefs and actions. On another note completely, Santiago Nasar’s last words: “They’ve killed me, Wene child”. I don’t know if it’s just me but I , I assumed that it was referring to the word ‘wene’, on which I did some research (given the significance of others’ names in this novel would indicate that this research was still useful) and I found out that it was an archaic word from Germanic roots, meaning to weep or feel pain or woe- either that or it’s an alternate spelling of ‘ween’, but that seems much less likely. I feel like this could also be interpreted as Christ-like: ‘they’ referring to the sinners or rather, those in the town whose ignorance and complacency allowed them to standby or commit murder on a nonexistent moral basis; and calling an older woman (she calls him ‘son’) by a symbolically loaded and shortened name and ‘child’, gives him a paternalistic sort of vibe, in a way that wouldn’t feel out of place as a characterization of Jesus Christ. Also, sorry that this is late, I decided to prioritize a couple hours of sleep over English last night.
Hey, I thought your post about the chapters was awesome! Great comparison of the names to religious diction, as well as looking into the last words of Nasar. To be honest, I was confused with his last words when I first read them, because the words, "They killed me, Wene child" are not necessarily the easiest ones to understand. I did notice that he was addressing a woman named Wenefrida, so do you think that the use of "Wene" related more to her name than it did to the word with Germanic roots? If so, why do you think his last words were addressed to one individual, since it can clearly be seen that his death impacted so many?
I’m not sure if we were supposed to blog about chapters 4 and 5 together, but since I only blogged about chapter 4 last time, I will finish chapter 5 now.
In all honesty, if I was not already convinced that Marquez intended to show the similarities between Santiago Nasar and Jesus Christ, I believe that this chapter would definitely do the trick. Chapter 5 is an important point which focuses on many of the people of the town and how Santiago’s death impacted them. For instance, Flora Miguel, Santiago’s fiancee, ran away and ended up living the life of a prostitute, and Don Rogelio dela Flor, a man who was mentioned earlier talking to Pablo and Pedro in the bar, died from the shock of seeing Santiago’s body. In this way, chapter 5 became less about chronicling the death of Santiago Nasar, and began to focus solely on his impact, much like the story of Jesus Christ culminated with his death and eventual return after 3 days, and has a whole religion that sprang from his influence.
In addition to that, the chapter reinforces the idea that Santiago was almost otherworldly in his existence through the descriptions of his death. While Jesus Christ died with the understanding that his death would be for the good of others, Santiago Nasar “Died without understanding his own death” (Marquez, page 118). Jesus died with that understanding, but either way, dying will never be something anyone come truly come to terms with. I believe Marquez wrote Nasar’s character to seem like a more relatable Christ, because while many look to the Bible for aid, it cannot be said that the people described there are just like us today. It is for these reasons that Marquez wanted to introduce a new version of Jesus Christ, one that is more human than the one that Christianity has presented to us.
Santiago’s near divinity is also upheld in the quote, “‘The strange thing is that the knife kept coming out clean’” (Marquez, 139). This line, said by one of the Vicario brothers, describes that throughout the first three stabs to Santiago Nasar’s body (two to his hand), the knife was not tainted with his blood. While Santiago does eventually bleed (and does so to death), in this moment, he becomes almost like a surreal figure to us, until the blood kills him, which returns us to reality. This idea once again upholds the claim that Nasar was written to be a more realistic and human version of Jesus Christ that the readers can relate to.
Reply #3: I definitely agree that Nasar is painted as an ethereal figure and a martyr, but why do you think Marquéz does this? Is it to justify Nasar’s death as a necessary evil and for a greater good, thereby taking the blame and guilt away from the townspeople? Maybe, in that sense, he is making a bigger point, ridiculing religion and those who use it to justify wrong actions? It’s also interesting to note that the people who killed this “Jesus,” Pedro and Pablo, are not his or anyone’s enemy, and are loved by everyone in town. How would this symbol be different if Nasar was killed by someone that hated him, like Victoria Guzman?
Blog #5: The ending of this book is very interesting. Marquéz starts the novel with, “On the day they were going to kill him, Santiago Nasar got up at five-thirty in the morning,” and ends it with, “He went into his house through the back door that had been open since six and fell on his face in the kitchen,” (Marquéz 1, 120). Marquéz uses this clear framing device of beginning with Nasar getting up and ending it with him falling, as well as including specific times, to create a falsely definite conclusion to a story that remains unexplained. With this framing device, Marquéz shows that, ironically, the more that is revealed about Nasar’s murder, the less is understood. At the beginning of the story, the reader can easily come up with reasons to justify the townspeople’s inaction: Maybe no one knew? Maybe no one liked him? Maybe everyone agreed with the Vicario brothers? Maybe he was proven guilty? Maybe he knew? And yet, as the story goes on, as we learn more about the murder and can answer these questions, we, and the townspeople, run out of excuses, and are even more confused as to why no one really did stop the murder. This ironic ending shows the futility of the narrator’s job, who went to great lengths to collect as many details as possible about the murder, wrote a novel about it, and yet could not answer the main question: Why did nobody stop a death foretold? Marquéz uses situational irony and a clear framing device to explore the theme of how more knowledge creates more questions rather than give answers, and that some things will always remain unexplained. This makes the reader sympathize with the townspeople’s strong superstitions and beliefs in the supernatural and fate, as there is simply no other way to explain what happened.
I thought it quite fascinating that Marquez uses the specific times, such as "Santiago Nasar got up at five-thirty" and "through the back door that had been opened since six" (Marquez 1, 120) to draw the reader's attention away from the fact that the conclusion of the story remains a mystery. It only took a little chunk out of the morning for the murder of Santiago Nasar. It makes me think back to why the narrator uses such specific details when describing the morning of Santiago Nasar's death, as if he is trying to figure out what happened out of curiosity or to finish what was started. It is interesting to me, that after all the clues and facts shared with us, we are still unable to determine all that remains a mystery to us. What happened to the Vicario brothers? Why didn't any of the townspeople try and help Santiago Nasar as he was being attacked outside his front door? If there was no evidence except that based of of Angela Vicario's confession, how do we know that he was truly guilty? Was Santiago Nasar singled out because he arrived from another country/would the Vicario twins have killed one of there own?
I agree with your aspect of how as we learn more about one story we just keep coming up with questions that never seem to be answered. Like you said I was wondering the same things as everybody else in the beginning of the book as to why no one helped Santiago Nasar? Was it because nobody liked him or was it because nobody knew that it was going to happen? Excuses seem to disappear as more of a story is uncovered but then more unanswered questions pop up. Like I wrote in my blog time seems to cover up some small details to make it seem like everything is fine and that is how it was supposed to end up, when really we are blindsided to the bigger picture. We are looking so hard for the small details of this story and what it is supposed to mean but we forget to take a look at the bigger picture.
Santiago Nasar becomes flustered over the reactions of the townspeople, and is even turned away by his fiancee, Flora Miguel. Nahir Miguel, Flora Miguel's father, became alarmed when he was awakened by a harsh knocking, only to realize that it was Santiago Nasar. He warns Santiago Nasar that the Vicario brothers are going to kill him, but he didn't understand. "He turned pale and lost control in such a way that it was impossible to think that he was pretending" (Marquez 114). I though it interesting that people tried to help him while in a sort of dazed state. He was so confused that he forgot where he lived. The only human being who desperately tried to help Santiago Nasar from his death was Clotilde Armenta, who attempted to give him the lead when she "grabbed Pedro Vicario by the shirt and shouted to Santiago Nasar to run because they were going to kill him. It was such an urgent shout that it drowned out all the others" (Marquez 115, 116). I think what was most interesting to me was the fact that Santiago Nasar stood up for himself to protect his honor. "It'll be two against one" (Marquez 115) Santiago Nasar stated after being informed of his soon to be death. He is somewhat courageous going into battle, just as Christ was willing to be nailed to a cross to save us from a life of misery. Santiago Nasar is referred to as a Christ-like figure throughout the novel, but it is most apparent in chapter 5, when when Pedro Vicario mentions that "The strange thing is that the knife kept coming out clean" (Marquez 117, 118). I know it's not an exact reference, but they used a spear to drain out the blood from Christ body after he hung lifeless on the cross to confirm that he was dead, just as the Vicario twins killed Santiago Nasar with meat carving knives, resulting in his bleeding out to death. I thought it most interesting that in each chapter we become more intrigued until we believe the truth will be revealed in chapter 5. We are left with one simple question: why was no one man enough to stop it? However, the narrator is unable to shed light on the truth even 20 years later, leaving us scrambling in the dust trying to find answers where there are none.
One thing from this book has stood out to me throughout the story and it’s the topic of time. Time in this book is insanely accurate and on top of it. When ever things are being told again by the narrator, they always mention the time they were happened. For example on the last page of Chapter 5, Marquez writes, “Then he went into his house through the back door that had been open since six and fell on his face in the kitchen” (Marquez 120) and “Twelve days after the crime, the investigating magistrate came upon a town that was an open wound” (Marquez 98). This book is so specific about what happened and what time it happened and I think the reason this is because this is a murder that this book is based on and investigators in this time period are expected to know the times at which certain things happened in the time of the murder for if they did not know, story lines and people’s statements would not be correctly documented. I think that is what Marquez is trying to get across with the specific times. He is trying to imply that Santiago Nasar’s case was a murder mystery indeed, not because we didn’t know who killed him or who committed the murder but in fact we did not know who actually took Angela Vicario’s virginity and if it was actually Santiago Nasar himself. But having these distinct times in the plot, give the reader an explanation of when things happened so we, as readers, kind of gloss over it thinking that it is ok and that everything is explained. When really nothing is really finalized but really just left open and given no seal of approval that everything is really okay. Time is given in this book as a bookmark to when things happened to Santiago Nasar but it really doesn’t give any explanation to what really happened and why it happened to Nasar. So why does Marquez include it? Does he want to try and throw us off and give false conclusions?
Santiago Nasar wakes up in the early hours of the morning to go see the bishop who is potentially coming into town today. It's the day after the wedding and Santiago dresses in his most pristine attire in the hopes of kisses the bishop's ring. There has been much talk around the town about Santiago's murder. Many people talk in hushed tones about who is going to be killed and who is going to kill him. However, people aren't willing to inform Santiago Nasar of just how eventful his morning will be. The town spoke openly and freely of the murder and specifics of the event.
ReplyDeleteMany of the townspeople claim that they believed that the said rumors of his murder where only a fib. Another young girl, Divina Flor, later states that "in the depths of her heart she wanted them to kill him... and she'd been all the more frightened when he grabbed her by the wrist with a hand that felt frozen and stony, like the hand of a dead man." (Garcia Marquez 13) The mistress of Santiago's father wishes to murder him herself, but allows the Vicario twins to do so in her place. The motive of the Vicario brothers is clear: they will murder Santiago Nasar because he was accused of "deflowering" their supposed virgin sister.
Bystanders, and nearly everyone living in town, was aware of the situation, and yet they had no intention of halting it. The bystander effect was quite obvious whereas the townspeople had little to no compassion for Santiago Nasar. Seeing as I have never read CODF, I am curious to watch this book unfold.
I agree with what you said about the bystanders - I think it shows a clear connection between CODF and the Genovese syndrome we're learning about.
DeleteI think there is also something to be said for how quick the Vicario brothers were to blame Nasar for the deflowering of their sister. Angela says, "No one can explain to me how... Nasar ended up being involved," implying that she did not accuse him, and it makes me wonder about how people are quick to assume because they always want the easy answer and truth can be hard to take (Marquez 21). What do you predict were the motives behind accusation and their creepy thirst for Nasar's blood?
Reading this book a second time has really made things more clearer than they were the first time I read it through. The first time I read Chronicles of a Death Foretold, I really didn’t notice how all the towns people reacted so calmly about answering any questions about the death and murder. For example if you found out that someone was planning to kill someone that everyone knew in town, how would you react? A little shocked? Worried maybe? But definitely not calm and open to talk about a plan to kill a human being. It is almost as if everyone in town were more than ready to get rid of Santiago Nasar and they were willing to help in any way possible. It is quite evil when you take a step back and look at the complete perspective but I mean if that was the punishment to sleeping with a virgin who was about to get married in that time period then we can’t change anything.
DeleteGreat job posting first! :) (Feel free to pose questions to people as well!)
ReplyDeleteChapter 1 -
ReplyDeleteIn the spirit of magical realism, I want to dedicate this blog post to pointing out a couple of examples of MR and finding literary elements Marquez uses to execute the writing of this genre.
The first example occurs in the first few pages, where Marquez writes, “She had a well-earned reputation as an accurate interpreter of other people’s dreams, provided they were told her before eating, but she hadn’t noticed any ominous augury in those two dreams of her son’s…” (Marquez 4). It is clear that the narrator and people of the town believe in Nasar’s mother’s ability to interpret dreams and predict the future based on those interpretations, even though we know today that dreams are just a reflection of thoughts in the subconscious. Here, Marquez uses very convincing diction to convey the acceptance of this belief in this realistic town, using words such as “well-earned reputation” meaning she has interpreted many dreams and “accurate”, showing how even though we know these interpretations to be lucky, the superstitions of the people in this town are very ingrained in their culture.
Another example of magical realism in Chapter 1 is when the narrator is talking about his mother and says, “she knew about everything before anyone else… sometimes she would surprise us with news so ahead of the time that she could only have known it through powers of divination,” (Marquez 20). I’m having a hard time extracting literary elements from this, I would argue that this shows magical realism because the language is so certain. It is clear that the narrator jumps to a magical sixth sense without searching for a logical conclusion first because to that narrator, magic IS a logical conclusion.
Did anyone notice any other implications of magical realism in Chapter 1?
I noticed a whole bunch, much more than I did on my first read-through of the book, I wrote a little about it in my blog, but I’ve noticed a lot different characters who have the power of foresight in some way. Santiago Nasar seems to be one of those characters when he expresses his disgust at the disembowelment and then disrespect being shown to rabbits being prepared at his house, this significant once one remembers that Nasar was killed by disembowelment later that day, this seems to indicate that Nasar already knew what would happen to him. This power of foresight, or at least in signs manifesting around him is shown in the effect his dream had- the feeling of being ‘splattered with bird shit’- as well as his headache in the morning and the general extraordinariness of the day he was killed like the patterns he broke in how he was dressed and armed that day.
DeleteReading the very first sentence of Chronicle of a Death Foretold has already given so much of the book away for us. I mean it has given away that the main character, Santiago Nasar is possibly killed by someone, “On the day they were going to kill him, Santiago Nasar got up at five-thirty in the morning to wait for the boat the bishop was coming on” (Marquez 1). This one sentence introduces the main character like a snap of the fingers. It also tells us that this main character is possibly killed by someone and multiple people. Marquez does this I feel to let everyone know who is reading the story that this is how the story ends. There are no secrets her and no major plot reveal. It really doesn’t give all that much room to imagine how things will play out. It then goes on to say, ““He was always dreaming about trees,” Placida Linero, his mother, told me twenty-seven years later, recalling the details of that distressing Monday” (Marquez 1). This reveals to us, the readers, that this book is told from a reporter's point of view about thirty years after the incident happened long ago. We don’t get a name of man or woman talking to us so we really can’t call them anything but a Narrator. Do you guys think the Narrator is someone other than a reporter? And do you think it could be a man or woman? Marquez uses worrying diction like “distressing” and “recalling” which can signify how the killing or murder was not expected or not planned. The family of Santiago Nasar at least did not expect it to happen to their son. All of this information has only been uncovered on the first page of the first chapter of the book. To think about all the information we can gather from one chapter and maybe ever two amazes me.
ReplyDeleteComment 1-
DeleteIt's definitely very weird how much is given away in the first chapter! It kind of hooks you into the book because so few other works of literature reveal everything so soon. It supports the idea that life is more about the journey than the destination; sure we know how the book is going to end, but we don't know who knows what and how everything got to be the way it is. That's where the story takes place! It doesn't really focus on the start or the end, just the stuff in between!
Chapter 1-
ReplyDeleteSimilarly to Siddhartha, it's clear that Chronicle of a Death Foretold uses different kinds of trees as a means of expressing certain ideas. In chapter 1 alone, timber trees, almond trees and mango trees, are all mentioned as being familiar to Santiago Nasar. If something is important in literature, the author will often introduce it early on; this is exactly what Gabriel Marquez does with trees in CODF. On the very first page of the book, the narrator mentions that the night before his murder, Santiago had been dreaming of traveling through a grove of timber trees. The vague description of "Timber Trees" shows us that Marquez does not want his readers to confuse themselves over the different interpretations of Oaks, Evergreens, and other timber trees; simply saying Timber Trees is a clear sign of death as those trees are specifically grown to be cut down. Perhaps this idea of being made for a certain outcome ties in with Santiago's death being a product of fate, in which case would be another connection to the book's use of magical realism.
Again on the first page, Placida Linero recounts Santiago's dream the past week as "'...he'd dreamed that he was alone in a tinfoil airplane and flying through the almond trees without bumping into anything.'" Because of the book's use of magical realism and divination, it's clear that dreams are very important and should not be taken lightly. Placida is even quoted as being an expert on the study of the meaning of dreams. I have no idea what the tinfoil airplane is meant to represent (perhaps the idea that, although he appears to be flying, his freedom is a lot more fragile than one might think it is because his airplane is made of such a bendable and fragile material?) but almond trees, ever since the writing of the bible, have been known to represent old age due to the color of it's blossoms and the fact that they blossom in the winter. The fact that Santiago is avoiding these trees in his airplane shows that he may be avoiding old age as well, he may be on the road to an early death.
The last tree I saw mentioned was the mango grove in which the narrator's house lied. Mango tree's are often used in many Eastern religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism, to represent love and the connections between people. Perhaps they are used ironically in this setting to show the hopes of love the Narrator's sister had for Santiago. Trees are definitely cool!
Reply #1:
DeleteYeah, I agree that trees are really cool. An interesting connection to note is Armenta’s description of Nasar’s outfit as though, “he was dressed in aluminum” (Marquez 15). Tinfoil is a very thin and fragile metal that looks deceivingly sturdy, and relating Nasar to tinfoil twice suggests that maybe the townspeople were convincing themselves that he was safe and they had nothing to warn him about, when in fact he was completely vulnerable. Maybe the tinfoil also suggests the everyone around Nasar was trying to cover him so as to avoid seeing him and feeling guilty, pretending that he is not there - but again this shield is thin and easily broken through, and the townspeople were only using it as an excuse for blissful ignorance.
Blog #1:
ReplyDeleteThe first thing I noticed is Marquez’s heavy emphasis on imagery, and how different people perceive similar and different images when recounting the same story. The unnamed narrator recalls waking up to “the clamor of alarm bells,” and Flor remembers that, “the cocks began to crow...it was such a great uproar” (Marquez 5-14). Marquez’s repeated use of loud auditory imagery throughout the first chapter reflects the townspeople’s complacent and distracted moods due to the chaotic festivities the night before. Early in the chapter, the narrator uses gustatory imagery and recalls, “the baptistry smell that had startled me on the morning of the crime,” showing an acute sense of perception and attention to detail, leaving the reader wondering who this mysterious, extremely knowledgeable narrator is, and what part he played in the bystander crime (7). But the most interesting use of imagery is Marquez’s visual and kinesthetic imagery of the weather, showing controversy over what should have been an unquestionable subject. Some characters say that, “it was a radiant morning with a sea breeze coming in through the banana groves,” while others remember it as, “funereal, with a cloudy, low sky and the thick smell of still waters” (4). These juxtaposing images show the confusion and possible inaccuracies of what really happened as influenced by those who perceived them. Marquez’s use of imagery in chapter one reflects the magical realism of the story because it blurs the line between fiction and reality in the serious and stoic tone of a reporter, making it intentionally unclear for the reader to separate the two.
Hey, I loved your blog post! I definitely agree with the idea that this book is very heavy on the concept of several viewpoints, and this is honestly the only book so far that I have read like it. Throughout the chapter, it does mention several clashing statements from different characters, and I think that says a lot about the selfishness of their society, and it also makes me remember our own. In Santiago Nasar's world, no one remembers for sure the things that happened the day of his death, simply because it was not an important day for them. Even the whole conflict of the novel (Angela's virginity being supposedly stolen by Santiago and then the murder of Nasar being an honor killing) was because Angela was only thinking of herself, and did not consider what the repercussions of her words would be on Santiago or the other individuals in the town. This whole topic, for some reason, reminds me of our current society, simply due to the amount of time and attention we give to our electronics, as opposed to other people. Currently, most of us have phones or computers, and we are so busy paying attention to those devices, that we do not notice when people in our lives need that same attention. We are being selfish, which proves to be the downfall of all of the individuals in this novel, and we should take a lesson from that and apply it to our own lives.
DeleteTo contradict you a little bit, the theme of interconnectedness of the people in that community actually really stood out to me in the first time that I read through ‘Chronicle’, the novel emphasizes that many characters are linked by blood or by friendship, the party that happens before the events in ‘Chronicle’ brings everyone in the town together. This all seems so superficial though, I agree and think it’s still really important to acknowledge that we should take it as an example of what not to do. Simply take the example of the varied reactions to Santiago’s accused crime, his death, and the judgement dealt out to the Vicario brothers that killed him out of supposed respect to honor, this is not a truly open society, it is in many ways ruled by sexism and rigid gender roles (machismo). Another stellar example of why I wouldn’t like to live there or live like they do is because of how everyone seemed to know already that Nasar would be murdered, and yet they did nothing. All of these things show that relationships between people, though perhaps close, are fundamentally detached.
DeleteWithin the first lines of "Chronicle of a Death Foretold," the idea and importance of dreams is introduced, along with one of our literary maxims. For Placida Linero, I doubt that the first thing she thought of when Santiago Nasar told her about his dream was, “flight is freedom.” Even so, while the dreams are thought to be widely misinterpreted in the novel by the characters, the inclusion of birds and flight in these dreams allowed for a wider understanding of the sequence of events that was about to unfold. Within the first two paragraphs of the novel, Gabriel Garcia Marquez states that, “‘The week before, he’d [Santiago] dreamed that he was alone in a tinfoil airplane and flying through the almond trees without bumping into anything” (Gabriel Garcia Marquez, page 1). As we know from our literary maxims, “flight is freedom,” and the ultimate form of freedom is death. I don’t mean to sound pessimistic, but in our lives, we can attain certain levels of freedom by going on our own path or cutting ties with people who may not affect us in a good way, but we will never be able to fully detach ourselves from our lives and responsibilities. Only death can do that. In his dream, Santiago is described to be flying in a tinfoil airplane, and does not bump into anything, which, in the context of death, means that he is flying closer and closer to death, and there is nothing in his way to stop him, much like none of the people in his town were able to stop the Vicario brothers from murdering him. Therefore, by having Santiago dream about death, Gabriel Garcia Marquez shows several layers of foreshadowing, both through blatant statements, such as “On the day they were going to kill him…” (Marquez, page 1), and through the use of literary maxims, such as when he is describing the dream of Santiago flying in the airplane. These two instances show that not only is Santiago going to die, but that he is also not going to be aided by anyone in the town as the act is occurring.
ReplyDeleteUpon rereading the novel, a few things stood out to me, the first is how fervidly I hate Santiago Nasar, so I realize whatever I have to say beyond that is going to be colored by that hatred (though I do realize that he’s a person worthy of anything anyone else is, and I don’t approve of disembowelment as a means of punishment, blah blah blah, he just makes me angry, I’ll probably change my mind tomorrow). Speaking of disembowelment, one the parts of the first chapter that stood out most (after Santiago Nasar’s disgusting behavior) to me was the passage concerning the preparation of rabbits and Santiago Nasar’s reaction. The same passage makes clear that he was “accustomed to killing defenseless animals”, other passages, like the description of Nasar’s typical garb and gun collection reinforce this image of him (Garcia Marquez 9). It was then a surprise to Victoria Guzmán, and to myself, that Nasar would be so horrified at something so routine for him. My first thought was how the rabbits’ treatment mirrors that of Santiago Nasar during his murder by the Vicario brothers, that the rabbits’ disembowelment foreshadows Nasar’s disembowelment and by extension, the rabbits symbolize Nasar. Nasar’s horror, out of the ordinary, would mean that he already understood the symbolism and his nearing death; This also strikes me as an example of magical realism, as a sort of vague premonition.
ReplyDeleteMy second thought makes less sense as a cohesive explanation, but I think it has still has some place in this discussion; Much of the day ‘they were going to kill him’ is distinctly odd and out of the ordinary. Though others perceive it as ordinary, there are all sorts of signs pointing to Santiago Nasar feeling something strongly out of place, he woke up with the feeling that he was “splattered with bird shit”, and then had to forego the security of his regular khaki outfit and guns, his shock at the treatment of the rabbits gives some insight to his frame of mind. He is undoubtedly ruled by the expectations of machismo and his social role in his household and among his friends, meaning that he wouldn’t likely give away his feelings in a more transparent, communicative way, this rounds him out as a character and gives him some depth- even if it is also a show of infuriating hypocrisy. God, I still hate him. I don’t think I have all that much more to say, at least nothing left that’s constructive or at all school-appropriate.
Did you change your mind? :)
ReplyDeleteBlog #2:
ReplyDeleteIn Chapter 2, Marquéz uses a lot of similes and comparisons for characterization. Magdalena Oliver said Bayardo San Román “looked like a fairy,” like a fictional fantasy too good for reality (Marquéz 26). Angela Vicario said that “he reminded [her] of the devil,” a supernatural figure feared by the religious town members (28). Though they are juxtaposing descriptions, both comparisons relate San Román to the spiritual/magical world and show the aura of wonder surrounding him, characterizing him as a mysterious yet respected outsider. These similes also show the transcendentalist idea of explaining anything weird or out of the ordinary through the spiritual and supernatural world rather than logic, as we see the moms in the story do through their divinations. Marquéz also uses several animal similes, reverse-personifying (dehumanizing?) characters. The narrator says that San Román’s sisters “were like two restless fillies,” using horses - the symbol of unrestrained freedom - to ironically describe girls bound by the strict cultural norms we see clearly enforced by San Roman himself by returning his wife (33). When accusing Santiago Nasar, Angela Vicario picks him, “like a butterfly with no will whose sentence has always been written,” (47). Angela, beaten, angry, and suddenly given a voice and power, targets Nasar, who is characterized as fragile and defenseless through this simile, perhaps suggesting that he is innocent and has been wrongly accused. Marquéz’s use of similes and comparisons enhances the magical realism of the story because it relates the out of the ordinary to the townspeople’s daily lives, making everything seem creepily normal.
Chapter two captures all of the double standards that this book has on women and men. Some of them we look at as ridiculous in today’s world but back then they were held up to high expectations. Women back then they were supposed to be virgins before marriage and were not supposed to have premarital sex. For example, Marquez writes, “No one would have thought, nor did anyone say, that Angela Vicario wasn’t a virgin. She hadn’t known any previous fiance and she’d grown up along with her sisters under the rigor of a mother of iron” (Marquez 37). This tells us that Angela should be a virgin because it was unacceptable to not be a virgin before marriage. While on the other hand we have men during this time period expected to have the experience in the bedroom. They were expected to go out before marriage and have premarital sex with women to gain the experience. This is a double standard. If men are allowed to have sex before marriage, shouldn’t women be allowed too? Another example of a double standard in this book is that women have to marry the man the family picks for her. For example Angela’s mother tells her after she tries to hint at the lack of love between her and Bayardo, her mother says, “ Love can be learned too” (Marquez 35). On the other side of the spectrum men have so many choices to which woman they get to marry. In this case, “Bayardo San Roman hadn’t even tried to court her but had bewitched her family with his charm” (34). Bayardo San Roman didn’t even try to impress Angela at all, rather he was trying to impress the family so that they would let him marry her. This again is a double standard. Between the two genders, they are held at several expectations and many of them are the complete opposite of each other.
ReplyDeleteI noticed that too! It makes me mad. I can't decide why Marquez chose to do that - what do you think?
DeleteDid you read the article about marianismo? :)
DeleteChapter 2 -
ReplyDeleteOne thing that stood out to me in this chapter was the double standard that women, specifically Angela Vicario. There is SO MUCH shame put on her for her lack of virginity, but the male characters went to the whorehouse without societal judgements. This is especially shocking because I was wondering what you all think the author's purpose is here: is Marquez highlighting unfair societal standards, giving background for the culture, or emphasizing a personal belief that women should be pure.
In terms of literary elements, there was a lot of admiring diction used to describe Bayardo. Marquez uses words such as, "golden", "fairy", "enchanting", and "good heart" (Marquez 25-27). This contrasted with the angry diction used after her lack of virginity was discovered; Marquez uses words like "profanations of the symbols of purity", "grabbed", "rage", and "disaster" (Marquez 44-47).
I actually think Marquez wrote it for both reasons. He knows that these things happened in this time period and women were help at higher expectations than men but I believe he wrote this because he feels he has some personal belief about how women should be pure before marriage and should not be engaging in such acts in the bedroom. Like you said he shows this by putting men on a pedestal while he uses such demeaning diction when describing the women, particularly Angela. Marquez uses this emphasis on these social beliefs to make a point and really showcase the problems that were held at this time. Especially during this time period when men treated women like they were property or as if they were an inanimate object.
DeleteI think this is really interesting, I hadn’t noticed this at all, this really goes against some of the ideas I had built up about this book. It had first seemed to me that the primary purpose of the novel was to show that the complex set of rules and expectations for men and women are ludicrous and harmful. By extension, the macho characterization of male characters was for the purpose of discouraging such machismo, but this made me realize that my understanding of machismo is really based off of my own societal presuppositions (I really don’t believe in any kind of universally-applicable morality, like actually none). Your comment sort of reminded me of this, and got me to check how I was viewing the book and the author’s intent, I suppose we can’t really know, but I had been simply assuming up until this point.
DeleteI totally agree with you. I think there is a huge double standard for women in this book, as well as modern day societies. Nowadays, I think women are taking a stand against what they ought to do and what they want to do. Women are looked down upon when they are working incredibly hard to make a living for their families. People criticize them for not taking care of the children at home. However, women are also expected to provide for their families in a way that is deemed ok by society. On the other hand, men are praised for being stay-at-home dads and congratulated for being able to take care of the kids even though they should be working. In Angelina Vicario's situation, she was expected to be a virgin and sacrifice herself for the good of her marriage and her family. She was brought up to be a mother and a wife. Men were expected to be experienced in the bedroom. They were brought up to be men and work to make a living for their families.
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ReplyDeleteA good example of the magical realism in Chronicle of a Death Foretold happens closer to the end of chapter 2. After Bayardo San Roman brings Angela Vicario back to her mom's house, Pura, Angela's mother, exclaims she'd thought they'd "gone off the road in the car and were lying dead at the bottom of the ravine"(47). Seems like ghostly apparitions are an accepted everyday thing in Marquez's world! I thing I'm confused about is whether or not Roman knew that his wife wasn't a virgin, was that why he brought her back? And why did her mom start beating her without anybody even telling her she had done anything wrong? Did she already know? A few pages before the wedding occurs, Angela tells the narrator that "My mother was the only one who appreciated as an act of courage the fact that she had played out her marked cards to the final consequences"--lied about being a virgin--(41). I don't know if she told the narrator that after the death or before, or why Pura beat Angela if she respected her deception. One more thing: I found it interesting that Roman was described as having a "'green color of dreams'" by Pura after delivering Angela. Perhaps, just like dreams may seem real as one has them but eventually disappear, Roman was just to good to be true.
Hey, I really like your post, and I think I can answer a few of your questions!Roman did not know that his wife was not a virgin, and because she was not in possession of her honor when he married her, he returned her to her home in disgrace. At that time, marrying a woman who was a virgin was culturally and socially important, because it meant that she was pure, which is why there is the mention of how everyone was upset that she dared wear white and orange blossoms to a wedding without being a virgin, even though those are signs of virginity. Her mother beat her because it can be inferred that it is very important to their family to be seen as the perfect family, such as when it is mentioned that Pura Vicario raiser her daughters to be the perfect wives, or simply looking at the fact that they upheld mourning for 2 years after a death, whereas the usual mourning period is up to 6 months (I believe?). When Roman returns Angela to her home in shame, Pura Vicario beats her because Angela ruined their reputation. We already know that honor plays a big part in this novel, especially since Pablo and Pedro Vicario kill Santiago to avenge Angela's honor.
DeleteTo answer some of your questions, Roman brought her back to her parents’ house because he discovered she wasn’t a virgin, this is gone over in more detail in some of the later chapters I think, she is told to fake the effects of her hymen breaking by her mother. She decides not to, against the advice of her female peers/mentors, and this is why she is dumped back at her parents’ house and beaten by her mother, additionally, she has just broken a major rule in the tacit code of marianismo. That last thought, that Bayardo San Roman was just too good be true, really struck a chord with me, I think that has a lot to do with the overall message of the novel: the social constructs that they have built in to their society, of machismo and marianismo are only ever fully and comfortably achieved in dreams. I think this plays into a greater social commentary that Gabriel Garcia Marquez seems to be making in this novel, that gender roles are impossible to achieve, and the pursuit of their fulfillment is destructive and stupid.
DeleteIn the second chapter of “Chronicle of a Death Foretold,” the point of view of another world played a large part in the description of the situation, which was aided by the presence of the narrator, the use of fairy tale word choice, and the mention of characters from Marquez’s other works.
ReplyDeleteThroughout the duration of the novel, the unnamed narrator often mentions his own ties to the story and several of his family members, but never actually mentions his name. In the second chapter, the narrator mentions that he saw Angela Vicario when he returned “year after year during my Christmas vacations,” (Chapter 2, page 35) and mentions his sister, the nun. His presence in this book and in the telling of the story gives the plot and otherworldly feel, which fits in well with the use of magical realism throughout the story, such as when Dr. Dionisio says about the widower Xius, that when you “listened with a stethoscope, you could hear the tears bubbling in his heart (Chapter 2, page 41).
In addition to that, by using words such as “fairy,” and “enchanting,” when describing Bayardo San Roman, Marquez introduces the feeling as if the story is a fairy tale, as if everything told in the plot is set in a different world with a completely different set of values, even though the events take place in a normal town, with normal people. In addition to that, it automatically sets Bayardo among the other characters, as the townspeople all seem to think that he is greater than them, especially when the unnamed narrator’s mother states that he beat the other men in town by pulling ahead by at least 20 strokes during a swimming competition.
One of the most confusing things in the second chapter, for me, was definitely the mention of characters from Marquez’s other works and people in real life. Oftentimes, Marquez drops minor characters into the story without introducing them, such as when he mentioned Dr. Dionisio and Maria Alejandrina, but he uses the same tactic when introducing characters from his other works. This means that looking them up causes confusion and frustration. I had looked up Maria expecting her to be either a woman in real life or from another work of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, because her last name is Cervantes, and I thought that Marquez was referencing Miguel de Cervantes, a Spanish writer who lived in the 1500s-1600s. Instead, it turned out that she was a character in CoDF. Then, I had looked up Mercedes Barcha, and was surprised to find her to be Marquez’s wife. This woven tale of real and fictitious characters causes the reader to find himself in a world almost outside of his own, because while the setting is realistic, the author uses both real and made up characters in his works.
Through the use of fairy tale word choice, the unnamed narrator, and a mix of real and fictitious characters, Marquez creates a story that mixing the things that we understand in our world, and the factors that aid the creation of his.
Good job on looking up the allusions to reality! :)
ReplyDeleteThe part that I liked most about this chapter, and probably about the entire book is the section of chapter two describing the widower, Xius, and his old, beautiful house (can you tell that I’m using too many descriptive words to get my word count up? Because I feel like it’s kind of obvious already...). Just those few, beautiful, spacious words Gabriel Garcia Marquez employs are everything that I want: farmhouse, windswept, limitless paradise, purple anemones, summer, horizon, and even dominoes. Some words really just do it for me, you know (but not ‘do it’ euphemistically, I hope you know what I mean), just the name Xius, everything about it, like Tuesday or Gethsemane.
ReplyDeleteOn a slightly more coherent (I hope) note, I think Xius is my favorite character in the entire book, he and his way of life before it was disrupted by Bayardo San Roman seems to be lived by and for beauty and peace, genuine love for his late wife. The very act of parting from the material manifestation of the beauty and peace he had- even if it was something he’d lost with his wife, at least it was something he’d once had and valued- was enough to kill him, this connection to his values, to love and genuine connection to others seems something sorely lacking in the rest of the town and an explanation for his (reasonably assumed) isolation. His life with his late wife was described as being built of a lifetime spent together, full of mutual sacrifice, and seems a loving one. He seems to live his life, as he says, driven by “the motives of the heart”, and this is contrasted with the cold and methodically image-focused Bayardo San Roman’s continual offers of money (for a house for a wife that had no interest in him).
So yeah, everyone in this book is trash except for Xius. Fight me.
(^that was a joke… kind of)
(see, that was a joke too, so funny)
Chapter 3 is quite interesting to me. I can't help but notice that Pablo and Pedro Vicario attest to a higher standard than most. People think very highly of them and praise them for being honorable and manly. Sometimes, people are too privy to societal standards that they disregard right from wrong.In this story, magical realism plays a tremendous role in how a society thinks and acts. They see things, such as guns and murder, a part of everyday life. We should be able to decipher right from wrong and make decisions based on what will be beneficial for ourselves and society in a way.
ReplyDeleteOne man, Faustino Santos, became concerned when he first saw the men enter the meat market at such and early hour, not to mention it wasn't a Friday, when they usually arrived at a later time to sharpen their butchers knives. The police officer later reported back to the Colonel Lazaro Aponte of all that he had heard. The Colonel Lazaro Aponte strode into Clotilde Armenta's store, where the two brothers were seen somewhat drunk, wielding poorly hidden knives. And although he removed the dangerous weapons from the hands of the Vicario twins, Clotilde Armenta still seemed quite skeptical. She later stated that she "was certain that the Vicario brothers were not as eager to carry out the sentence as to find someone who would do them the favor of stopping them" (Marquez). I somewhat agree with Clotilde Armenta's statement because I believe that the Vicario twins made their intentions known to every individual in town for their own sake of being relieved of their duty to reestablish Angela Vicario's lost honor.
On page 52, we see hints of magical realism. On one hand, we note that the Vicario twins are very open with their plans to kill Santiago Nasar. Although they are still somewhat drunk from the night before, they are well aware of the people intently listening around them. I think that because Pablo and Pedro Vacario were so open with their plans, that they wanted someone to step in and interfere with the horrific tradgedy they were about to commit. On the other hand, we can see that the few people in the meet market at the time payed little attention to what the Vicario brothers were saying. "Their reputation as good people was so well-founded that no one paid any attention to them. 'We thought it was drunkards baloney,' several butchers declared..." (Marquez 52). People were too caught up in the fact that the two brothers were almost angelic in their society that they failed to realize "whether or not the trade of slaughter didn't reveal a soul predisposed to killing a human being" (Marquez 52). Later on in the chapter the Vicario twins begin to rethink their plan to slaughter Santiago Nasar.
Oh... my... gosh. Pablo Vicario's fiancee claimed that she would never have married Pablo Vicario if he hadn't killed Santiago Nasar. Prudencia Cortes's mother, new of the plan to kill Santiago Nasar and told the Vicario brothers that "Honor doesn't wait" (Marquez 62) because she too believed Santago Nasar was gulity and deserved death.
I have begun to question the truth behind the whether or not Santiago Nasar truly was guilty. Did Angela Vicario say a name at random to get away from a life of misery, or was she truly seduced by Santiago Nasar? Although we read in chapter 1 that Santiago Nasar was inappropriate and sexually agressive toward Victoria Guzman and Divina Flor, I do not believe that Santiago Nasar stole Angela Vicario's honor Why didn't anyone think to ask Santiago Nasar the truth of the matter before they resolved to killing him?
I feel a similar kind of way, in my first read-through of the book, I thought that the book was heading in a different thematic direction than it actually goes, I assumed that the author intended that Angela had been lying. Then I thought it was most likely that Nasar had raped her, especially given his sexually aggressive behavior towards Divina Flor, the only reasonable doubt that I have about him having done something to Angela Vicario is in how he was deterred from assaulting Victoria Guzman, just some oversight by an authority figure pushed him from it, but, then again, the reader isn’t given much insight to how Angela would have been supervised. I still do think that it's most likely that Santiago Nasar had raped her, if not, then he did the same someone else. On an unrelated note, I don’t like Pura Vicario very much, she’s just full of meaningless sayings and readily enforces sexism. Still, I don’t dislike her in anywhere near to the same extent or capacity that I dislike Santiago Nasar in, I think that she’s been beaten down by sexism and knows nothing else but how to raise her children the same way, I pity her.
DeleteI would like to talk about the section of chapter 3 from pages 74 to 75, describing the nature of Santiago Nasar’s relationship to Maria Alejandrina Cervantes. This is very interesting to me because it is so out of the ordinary for Nasar, in all of his relationships to women his age, he is a dominator, completely controlling and assured in his false sense of superiority, this dynamic (of course, bugs me to no end, but also…) is flipped completely on its head with Maria. She is a Madame, and in this, she exerts power over other women her age and openly defies the values set forth in the tacit code of marianismo that rules other women, it seems as though she has in some way transcended her subordinacy as a woman and granted herself more power. In this way, she is the ‘warlike crane’ who, when chased by a falcon will cause him a life of pain as described in the metaphoric advice the narrator once offered Santiago Nasar in regards to his relationship to her. In this understanding, she is the warlike crane, strong, powerful, and aggressive- in a single word, macho- and Santiago Nasar is the falcon, whose life centers around power and control. There is then understandable attraction between the two, which reveals a lot about each character. Because Santiago is the falcon in this metaphor, and not the falconer, even though he is chasing another, bird, it suggests that he isn’t really as in control as he’d like others to believe, and by extension, machismo is something that isn’t just an expression of some innate internal traits, but a controlling social construct.
ReplyDeleteThe recurring motifs related to falcons and falconry really interests me, not only because it draws a mental link between this novel and Taming of the Shrew but also because of the odd way falcon references are emphasized in the novel, the novel opens with a quote from some old Spanish writer- “the pursuit of love is like falconry”- and the next reference is hidden among descriptions of Santiago Nasar’s everyday clothing, normalizing it, but the next reference, in chapter three, is literally italicized in my copy. Hmmm…. Interestingngnngngngg.
Reply #2:
DeleteLast class we talked about the double standards between men and women, but could there be such a thing as a double standard between women and other women? We see Angela beaten and shamed for not being a virgin, we see her brothers feeling the need to restore her honor by killing their friend… and yet here’s Maria, who runs a brothel and is respected and regarded highly by the characters in the story, INCLUDING Pedro and Pablo themselves, who, had they gone to her, “ ‘never would have left…’ ” (Marquéz 50). Maybe the narrator is biased, since he seems to enjoy Maria’s company, but everyone is okay with Maria as a courtesan but not Angela - maybe because they’re afraid of being exposed themselves, so they pretend to act moral when they’re actually not? Like the Puritans and the Victorian era people? More eggs….
Blog #3:
ReplyDeleteThroughout chapter 3, that narrator lists various rituals, habits, and traditions the town has, juxtaposing them with the unusual behavior of the twins and Nasar on the day of the murder. The narrator writes that, “everybody knew that the main door of Placida Linero’s house was always barred on the inside, and that Santiago Nasar always carried the keys to the back door with him,” highlighting the oddness of him leaving out of the other door on the day of his murder (Marquéz 50). The twins’ butcher friend says that he is “accustomed to seeing them on Fridays,” and reminded them that it was Monday - just like Nasar’s mother did - and yet they sharpened the knives, “the way they always did,” again contrasting the ordinary and extraordinary (51). Marquez uses juxtaposition to explore the theme of people’s tendency to dismiss anything weird or against one’s strongly held beliefs as unrealistic or improbable, summarized by the quote, “ ‘ I wouldn’t have believed it…Who the bad word would ever think that the twins would kill anyone…?’”(69). Marquez also ironically creates a bored and creepily normal tone in the twins’ speech using blunt and straightforward diction, as well as short syntax, when talking about a very extraordinary event. The twins are so clear about their motives and intentions, purposely announcing them to everyone - perhaps in hopes of someone stopping them? - to the point that it’s ridiculous to everyone around them, and no one believes them. Marquez uses juxtaposition to enhance the magical realism of the story, showing that some things can be so ridiculously unrealistic and obvious that they just become normal and easily missed. (like in a spot the differences game thing, where you find all the differences in the details but get stuck on the major differences that are so obvious that they’re even harder to see than the small ones? weird)
I agree, and I also hadn’t noticed until reading this the various literary devices Gabriel Garcia Marquez employs to emphasize this juxtaposition. This also helps to enforce the idea that everything was normal to everyone in the town, that nothing would come of very abnormal events, this, I think, has to do with the basic disconnection between people in the town and the reality of things, of the other people around them. Additionally, I think the twins are being so open about their plans in hopes of being stopped, their actions and the narrator’s commentary indicate that the twins each had bottled up a lot of their fears and hesitation, yet another function of machismo as a social force.
DeleteThe magical realism in Chapter 3 amazes me. The whole plot of the chapter is basically the Vicario twins, Pedro and Pablo, and how they got ready with their tools and how they planned about the day to kill Santiago Nasar. This is shortly after hearing that Nasar had done things with their sister Angela when she was supposed to be a virgin for Bayardo. The magical realism stood out to me on the very first couple pages. Marquez writes what Pablo says, “We're going to kill Santiago Nasar” and then he writes, “Their reputation as good people was so well-founded that no one paid any attention to them. “We thought it was drunkards’ baloney,” several butchers declared (Marquez 52). The fact that these people in this Butcher shop were perfectly okay with the twins sharpening their knives so that they could go Santiago Nasar astounds me! This is magical realism because the twins are just about to do something unreal and yet everyone in town goes along with it and think it is perfectly normal. I would also like to point out that the Vicario twins are looked at as “well-founded reputation”. That shows how in this town that they live in, a reputation can get you out of things so easily and will help you prevent the consequences that you face because of your actions. In the Vicario twins case, they didn’t have the backlash from the people in the town telling them not to kill Santiago Nasar. This also shows how the people in this town really didn’t care for Nasar all that much. As Pedro and Pablo confess that they are going to kill Nasar, nobody is like, “No! Don’t kill such a kind and gentle human being! He is a wonderful, enchanting guy”. No they are like, “Oh they are just drunk”. I feel as if everyone in the town didn’t like Nasar and life and the town's’ well being would just be so much better off without the guy apart of their lives. Why does everyone hate Santiago Nasar?
ReplyDeleteHi, Danielle! Great blog post! I think you really hit the nail on the head with the use of magical realism and how it definitely turns the audience off to Santiago Nasar, and I would actually like to try to answer your last question! I don't actually believe that people hate Santiago, simply that they are impartial to him. I do not think that anyone ever explicitly states that they hate Santiago, simply that they thought someone else would inform him of his impending death, so I think it was more that they hated the idea of telling him more than they hated him. For that, there are many reasons: Not wanting to be the bearer of bad news, the whole situation being difficult to deal with, the belief that someone else would help him, and countless others, but I do think it was more of a situational issue than it was an issue with Santiago as an individual.
DeleteIn the third chapter of “Chronicle of a Death Foretold,” Gabriel Garcia Marquez uses juxtaposition in relation to religious ideals to portray the otherworldly feeling of the novel.
ReplyDeleteA large theme in the novel is of religion being used to prove a point, which is often interpreted in a nontraditional way. For instance, when I think of church, I often think of faithful relationships, abstinence, no consumption of alcohol, and some hardcore religious values. But “Chronicle of a Death Foretold,” like many of the other IB books that we have read this year, tends to take those pre-existing values, and throw them out the window and through the door. Perhaps one of the most blatant uses of this concept in the third chapter was when Pablo Vicario stated that he and Pedro were not at fault, “‘Before God and before men’” (Marquez, page 56). While in traditional belief, most religions heavily advise against killing of any sort (even if for honor), it seems as if Pablo, Pedro, the townspeople, and even Father Amador, a man of the church, see this as something truly forgivable and allowed by the Lord. This nontraditional idea between the religions that we know and the one presented in the novel make the plot out to seem unrealistic and otherworldly, in a way, even though the actual events, characters, and the plot seem to be in a world very similar to our own.
Another example of religion being used to prove a point is during the introduction of the bishop to the story, when Colonel Aponte mocks, “What will the bishop think!” (Marquez, page 64). While the bishop is regarded to be in a high position in the church, it seems as if the townspeople are able to mock and insult him without worrying about the repercussions of these words. This would never be allowed in a realistic religious setting, as those who believe in that religion will rarely be disrespectful to those spreading the word of the Lord. That being said, we can tell that religion still plays a large part in the lives of the characters, even though their interpretation of religion is different than ours. According to the narrator, his brother said, “‘Santiago Nasar is dead.’ Then, he delivered an episcopal blessing...and staggered out” (Marquez, page 80). Through the swift, albeit drunken deliver of the blessing, it can be inferred that religion still plays a large part in the lives of the characters, even though they partake in less than holy activities such as drinking, adultery, murder, and many others.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez uses juxtaposition of traditional religious values to portray the characters of the novel living almost in a dream world, where they believe in a religious being in theory, but do not act accordingly. This also allows the audience to see the that these flipped religious values are only one small part of the topsy turvy plot of the novel.
I loved your post! I think that because most people were put off by Santiago Nasar they viewed his death almost as a celebration. The ideas of religion are very prominent in chapter 3; people believe that killing for honor is acceptable and forgivable, while in our modern day society some killings are punishable by death. Because the townspeople were quite fond of the Vicario brothers, they supported them, and event rooted for them. I agree that the people of this small, quaint town are living with their heads in the clouds, unable to realize the divergence between right and wrong. Marquez has taken our way of life and put his own spin on it, making the readers question what really happened.
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ReplyDeleteI want to talk about the juxtaposition between religion and knives found in Chapter 3. Knives symbolize violence, dehumanization (used for pigs), and visual proof of the brothers’ seriousness (should have been recognized by the town). Quotes that supports this are, “‘We just came to sharpen our knives’” (51) and “... the Vicario brothers returned with two other knives… It was with these knives that the crime was committed...” (59). These quotes show how the brothers were carrying the knives around town, showing them to people, and eventually telling them how they intended to use them. Religion used in juxtaposition creates a hypocritical tone because religion is not supposed to be accepting of murder, for whatever reason, even for the sake of honor. The priest even shows his understanding of the murder in the first part of the chapter when the Marquez writes, “‘We killed him openly,’ Pedro Vicario said… ‘Before God and before men.’” (49). The coming of the bishop, which is mentioned on 9 pages, represents how the town wants to present itself well for an authority figure but there are internal problems that people don’t want to deal with because they want to put on a good front, similar to “A Doll’s House”. The author’s purpose is to show readers how pride can get in the way of your beliefs, especially when that pride can be strengthened by doing something violent.
"Not just I. Everything continued smelling of Santiago Nasar that day. The Vicario brothers could smell him in the jail cell where the mayor had locked them up..." (Marquez 78). The narrator is emphasizing the idea that after Santiago Nasar's autopsy, no one was able to escape the horrid smell of him. Even Pedro Vicario even stated that, "No matter how much I scrubbed with soap and rags, I couldn't get rid of the smell" (Marquez 78). The rank smell of Santiago Nasar lingered in the air for a long while. I can almost see a ghost-like figure (Santiago Nasar) wafting trough the air above the skylight of the jailhouse cell.
ReplyDeleteTo me, it seemed as though the Vicario brothers were so haunted by their actions that they began to regret murdering Santiago Nasar, their good friend. Pablo and Pedro Vicario were so unnerved by the events of the days before that they were unable to sleep, reliving the murder if Santiago Nasar each time they dared to get some sleep. Pedro Vicario began to suffer seargent's blennorrhea and had much difficulty going to the bathroom. Later, Pablo Vicario began to suffer from pestilential diarrhea, making it almost impossible to stop going to the bathroom. It was interesting that their immediate thought went straight to the Arabs. Growing up in this small town in the Caribbean, Santiago Nasar was still an Arab. The Vicario twins believed they had been poisoned by them as an act of revenge, but that was later dismissed after noting the fact they they had only ever ate the food their sister, Angela Vicario, had brought for them. It was quite interesting to me that the Vicario twins believed "they would wait for nightfall in order to poor gasoline through the skylight and burn the prisonersin their cell" (Marquez 81). (Why did they assume they were being mentally tortured by the Arabs for killing Santiago Nasar? Was it because the Arabs were still considered foreigners in the town?) After Susana Abdala, the Arab matriarch, supposedly cured Pablo Vicario with some flowers, I began to question whether or not she intended to give his brother, Pablo Vicario, a steady flow of "water".
Honor also played a major role in the Vicario family. In CODF, the narrator reveals that "Purisima Vicario found them at three o'clock in the morning on Tuesday when the mayor had brought her to say good-bye to them" (Marquez 82). If the family hadn't been so caught up in the idea of maintaining their good name, I don't think they would have left the small, quint town they grew up in. On the other hand, on the morning the Vicario brothers were set to departure to Riohacha, they were offered a chance to repent for their sins, but they refused, walking out in broad daylight, convinced that they had done nothing wrong by killing a man to restore their sister's honor (sorry for the run on sentence).
I was shocked to find out that Angela Vicario actually did care for Bayardo San Roman, sending him letter after letter for about 20 years, before he showed up on her doorstep, with the bundles of unopened letter. It wasn't as shocking, however, to see how different he looked. I assumed that he had drank every day of his life since the night of the wedding, when he discovered the horrific truth that his new wife had been deflowered. I am almost done reading the last chapter and am excited to see how it ends: Will we discover that Santiago Nasar was innocent, even though Angela Vicario claims it was Santiago Nasar? What happens to the Vicario brothers? I hope Angela Vicario and Bayardo San Roman get back together(: )
Blog #4:
ReplyDeleteThis chapter is by far the most confusing to me, and I think this confusion comes from the new insight we get on Angela’s life, which is surprising and unlike what we were led to believe. In the first three chapters, we were told about how Angela was viewed by others, but we didn’t actually get to know her until this chapter. Santiago Nasar calls her a “ninny,” and the narrator describes her as having “a helpless air and a poverty of spirit,” (Marquéz 32). In chapter four, Angela shows strength and resilience, commitment, and passion, taking her mother’s beating and Nasar’s murder for Bayardo’s sake, and sending him monthly letters “without quarter for seventeen years,” showing that she is the opposite of the unfeeling woman everyone thought her to be (95). Letters symbolize love and affection, and the fact that they remained unopened shows that Bayardo did not want to accept her feelings, perhaps to avoid guilt or to avoid remembering the feelings he had for her. The fact that Bayardo ignored the letters and returned to Angela when “‘he was fat and was beginning to lose his hair,’” shows that perhaps Bayardo loved Angela despite her nonvirginess and never wanted to return her, but did because of the macho standards and expectations placed on him - and were now gone because he is no longer young and godlike (95). Marquéz delays this insight on Angela and Bayardo until chapter four to show that the townspeople judged and characterized them superficially, pretending to know everything about their lives without actually knowing anything about them. Because Angela’s viewpoint is surprising and unexpected to the reader, Marquéz shows that we, the readers, also made assumptions about Angela and Bayardo, exactly like the townspeople.
Hey, I definitely agree with your post, but I did want to talk about your characterization of Angela. You describe her as strong, resilient, committed, and passionate, but I must say, those are not the first words that come to mind when I think of Angela Vicario. In all honestly, I think of the complete opposite. Angela Vicario does not show that strength when her mother beats her, and instead shows a weak side of herself by wrongly accusing Santiago just because the situation is easier. She is often described, as you mentioned, to have "a helpless air and a poverty of spirit,” (Marquéz 32), which directly disputes the idea of her being passionate. While I love your analysis, I disagree with your characterization of Angela, but I must say that my personal bias may be playing a large part in this response.
DeleteIn response to both of you, think that the point is that Angela grew into a better person, on her own and under less direct control of the constricting values of marianismo. I think that’s the whole point of the book and even literature as a whole (as discussed in last year’s unit on ‘Of Mice and Men’), to show that there is room for growth into something better. Pura’s descriptions of her daughter are fundamentally flawed because they are so fatalistic- suggesting she was just born helpless and she can’t ever be any other way- but the point that the book is making is that human nature is fluid and messy and our actions and beliefs are influenced heavily by those around us and our general society. What the book is mainly saying, though, with the extended story of Bayardo San Roman and Angela Vicario is that when we let go of the toxic, impossible ideals of the society we come from, we can grow and learn how to truly love someone, something I think the two had learned by the time they reunite.
DeleteIn the midst of all of the comparisons of Santiago to Christ, or Angela to the Virgin Mary, there is one comparison that, to me, seemed to be a very interesting one. In my opinion, Maria Alejandrina Cervantes is a modern representation of Rahab, a prostitute who played a part in the Israeli capture of Jericho in the Old Testament. In the story of the Old Testament, Rahab, a respected prostitute in the city of Jericho, harbored two Israeli spies in her inn/ brothel. When people came looking for them, she had denied that the spies were there, and thus saved the lives of those who she believed to be correct. This, to me, seemed to relate to how it was stated in the previous chapters that Maria Alejandrina Cervantes could have been able to keep Pablo and Pedro from killing Santiago, much like Rahab was able to keep the spies alive until they could return and capture the city.
ReplyDeleteIn addition to that, I thought that there was an interesting comparison such that both Maria Alejandrina and Rahab were respected as prostitutes, despite the fact that their practice was considered impure. Instead of treating Maria as an object to use, many of the men in the book seemed to respect her, such as when the narrator does not fight when Maria refuses his sexual advances during a night spent together“ ...I felt myself sinking into the delights of the quicksand of her tenderness. But suddenly, she stopped… ‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘You smell of him’” (90). I thought it was interesting that while both of their positions should have led to their low position in society, both Rahab and Maria Alejandrina are respected and accepted in society.
That's a really interesting comparison! Do you think Marquez did this intentionally? I think that goes to show the huge impact religion has on this book.
DeleteI agree, this is really interesting, especially because I had never even heard of the story of Rahab, I wrote quite a bit on the subject of Maria Alejandrina Cervantes as well in my earlier blogpost. In response to Olivia’s question, I do think that it’s pretty likely that Gabriel Garcia Marquez would have intentionally based Maria Alejandrina Cervantes off of some biblical figure as a way to draw from such a pervasive and influential force on all aspects of the Catholic dominate culture of much of South America, like the town in ‘Chronicle’ was set in. I can’t really speak to the actual truthfulness of this, but I would assume that the story of Rahab might be less prevalent in general culture accessible to the author and audience alike, and therefore, the popular conception of Mary Magdalene as a repentant prostitute would be a more likely source of Cervantes’ character.
DeleteLooking at the calendar I think we were supposed to blog on the last two chapters, so hopefully that's right...
ReplyDeleteChapters 4 & 5:
In Chapter 4 and 5 there are graphic scenes, and I want to draw parallels between them as well as identify literary elements within them. In Chapter 4, the priest is doing Nasar’s autopsy. Olfactory imagery is used to describe the way Nasar’s dead body smells; Marquez uses disgusted diction in the quotes, “smell of death” (73) and “Everything continued smelling of Nasar,” (78). This can be related to the end of Chapter 5 when Marquez describes the scene of Nasar’s death, writing, “terrible smell of shit” (120). Marquez also chose to be very detailed in describing these scenes, using graphic diction such as, “the liver was almost sliced,” (75), “filled with large clots of blood,” (75), “liquid began to flow from the wounds,” (74), “spurt of blood” (118), and “holding his hanging intestines” (119). I think these details were used by Marquez to show the reader the gory consequences of being a bystander to encourage them not to be silent in the face of injustice.
The beginning of Chapter 4 is very… detailed as it is about Santiago Nasar’s autopsy. I am not
ReplyDeletegoing to lie when I say I felt like a criminal investigator on the scene when I hear fancy words
like, “third lumbar vertebra, had perforated the right kidney” (Marquez 75). To be completely
honest, in this paragraph where they were describing Nasar’s body, I felt sad because this man
probably didn’t deserve this brutal murder, especially when we don't actually know if he
committed the act to Angela Vicario or not. While I feel sad, there are characters in this book
that did not seem so saddened by his death. For example, the mayor couldn't even find a
freezer for the body to be stowed until Dr. Dionisio Iguaran showed up, so they left him on the
table in the middle of the living room for the whole public to see. It seems they didn't care for
the body all that much especially since it was Santiago Nasar. Then shortly after this, they
perform the autopsy. The Narrator writes, “Furthermore, the priest had pulled out the
sliced-up intestines by the roots, but in the end he didn't know what to do with them, and he
gave them an angry blessing and threw them into the garbage pail” (Marquez 76). The diction
that Marquez uses is very strong, like “angry” and “threw”. This again shows that people in this
town did not care for Nasar and didn’t really mind that he was dead. Another example of of this
careless fiction is shortly after this when the Narrator writes, “The empty shell, stuffed with
rags and quick lime and sewed up crudely with coarse twine…” (Marquez 76-77). Crudely
suggest that the stitching up process was careless and done with little to no effort, which again
shows that the world was better off without Santiago Nasar and everyone seems like that have
already given up on him and what he did/didn’t do to Angela Vicario. How can people be so
cruel to a human being that seemed harmless by just hearing a confession from one person
that they have done something terrible?
I had no wifi to upload this blog and I finally was able to connect. Sorry that it is late but I tried everything I could :(
DeleteWhat stood out to me most about chapters four and five were the last couple of pages describing the moments in which Santiago Nasar learns for the first time that the Vicario brothers are planning to kill him, and then all the gorey details of Nasar being repeatedly stabbed and dying. In this, Gabriel Garcia Marquez finalizes his thoughts on major themes and their application to real life expressed through the actions and observations of the characters. The most personally compelling of these themes is shown in how disparately Santiago Nasar is characterized by different characters in the novel; First, Angela Vicario (probably) lies and names him as her ‘perpetrator’, then the Vicario brothers’ use of ‘pig-killing knives’ on him and mistake the location of his heart (searching for a fatal, final blow to inflict) to where a pig’s would be located blatantly dehumanizes him (though the Vicario brother’s repeated use of humanizing pronouns and calling him a man contradict this, the Vicarios’ statements were given in retrospect, and therefore cannot be entirely useful or relevant in the context I’m writing in), and the imagery elevating Santiago Nasar to Christ-like status is ramped up a lot with the references to the killing blade coming out clean of blood each stabbing and to the stigma-like wound on his hand. Throughout the novel, Santiago is characterized in such a way that I find it very hard to express any opinions on without swearing or yelling a little, that pussy-grabbing little bastard (see, told you. And I refuse to edit this out) is given a lot of depth, which I do think is important, but his name is very interestingly evocative of Christian figures, Santiago being Spanish for “Saint James” (if I recall correctly from the discussion in class today) and Nasar being very similar to ‘Nazareth’, the place where Jesus was raised, it is even possible that the Nasar family was from someplace near where Jesus would’ve lived (given that significant Arab populations from Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine immigrated to South America in the early nineteenth century following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire). Literary devices like diction, imagery, and language used in concurrence to these themes create a fluid tone and effect on the reader corresponding to the perception of the character focused on as a lens through which to view and understand Santiago Nasar’s death; This indicates that not only are none of the townspeople, including the narrator fully reliable, but that Gabriel Garcia Marquez intends to actually manipulate the reader’s understanding of Santiago Nasar by bending reality to fit the perceptions of the people of the town. Anyways, the point I’m trying to make is that in all this, Santiago Nasar’s identity is co-opted by his community and manipulated in his final day, and I think this is social commentary on the sheer power of influence that a society or community can have on identity or individual beliefs and actions.
ReplyDeleteOn another note completely, Santiago Nasar’s last words: “They’ve killed me, Wene child”. I don’t know if it’s just me but I , I assumed that it was referring to the word ‘wene’, on which I did some research (given the significance of others’ names in this novel would indicate that this research was still useful) and I found out that it was an archaic word from Germanic roots, meaning to weep or feel pain or woe- either that or it’s an alternate spelling of ‘ween’, but that seems much less likely. I feel like this could also be interpreted as Christ-like: ‘they’ referring to the sinners or rather, those in the town whose ignorance and complacency allowed them to standby or commit murder on a nonexistent moral basis; and calling an older woman (she calls him ‘son’) by a symbolically loaded and shortened name and ‘child’, gives him a paternalistic sort of vibe, in a way that wouldn’t feel out of place as a characterization of Jesus Christ.
Also, sorry that this is late, I decided to prioritize a couple hours of sleep over English last night.
Hey, I thought your post about the chapters was awesome! Great comparison of the names to religious diction, as well as looking into the last words of Nasar. To be honest, I was confused with his last words when I first read them, because the words, "They killed me, Wene child" are not necessarily the easiest ones to understand. I did notice that he was addressing a woman named Wenefrida, so do you think that the use of "Wene" related more to her name than it did to the word with Germanic roots? If so, why do you think his last words were addressed to one individual, since it can clearly be seen that his death impacted so many?
DeleteI’m not sure if we were supposed to blog about chapters 4 and 5 together, but since I only blogged about chapter 4 last time, I will finish chapter 5 now.
ReplyDeleteIn all honesty, if I was not already convinced that Marquez intended to show the similarities between Santiago Nasar and Jesus Christ, I believe that this chapter would definitely do the trick. Chapter 5 is an important point which focuses on many of the people of the town and how Santiago’s death impacted them. For instance, Flora Miguel, Santiago’s fiancee, ran away and ended up living the life of a prostitute, and Don Rogelio dela Flor, a man who was mentioned earlier talking to Pablo and Pedro in the bar, died from the shock of seeing Santiago’s body. In this way, chapter 5 became less about chronicling the death of Santiago Nasar, and began to focus solely on his impact, much like the story of Jesus Christ culminated with his death and eventual return after 3 days, and has a whole religion that sprang from his influence.
In addition to that, the chapter reinforces the idea that Santiago was almost otherworldly in his existence through the descriptions of his death. While Jesus Christ died with the understanding that his death would be for the good of others, Santiago Nasar “Died without understanding his own death” (Marquez, page 118). Jesus died with that understanding, but either way, dying will never be something anyone come truly come to terms with. I believe Marquez wrote Nasar’s character to seem like a more relatable Christ, because while many look to the Bible for aid, it cannot be said that the people described there are just like us today. It is for these reasons that Marquez wanted to introduce a new version of Jesus Christ, one that is more human than the one that Christianity has presented to us.
Santiago’s near divinity is also upheld in the quote, “‘The strange thing is that the knife kept coming out clean’” (Marquez, 139). This line, said by one of the Vicario brothers, describes that throughout the first three stabs to Santiago Nasar’s body (two to his hand), the knife was not tainted with his blood. While Santiago does eventually bleed (and does so to death), in this moment, he becomes almost like a surreal figure to us, until the blood kills him, which returns us to reality. This idea once again upholds the claim that Nasar was written to be a more realistic and human version of Jesus Christ that the readers can relate to.
Reply #3:
DeleteI definitely agree that Nasar is painted as an ethereal figure and a martyr, but why do you think Marquéz does this? Is it to justify Nasar’s death as a necessary evil and for a greater good, thereby taking the blame and guilt away from the townspeople? Maybe, in that sense, he is making a bigger point, ridiculing religion and those who use it to justify wrong actions? It’s also interesting to note that the people who killed this “Jesus,” Pedro and Pablo, are not his or anyone’s enemy, and are loved by everyone in town. How would this symbol be different if Nasar was killed by someone that hated him, like Victoria Guzman?
Blog #5:
ReplyDeleteThe ending of this book is very interesting. Marquéz starts the novel with, “On the day they were going to kill him, Santiago Nasar got up at five-thirty in the morning,” and ends it with, “He went into his house through the back door that had been open since six and fell on his face in the kitchen,” (Marquéz 1, 120). Marquéz uses this clear framing device of beginning with Nasar getting up and ending it with him falling, as well as including specific times, to create a falsely definite conclusion to a story that remains unexplained. With this framing device, Marquéz shows that, ironically, the more that is revealed about Nasar’s murder, the less is understood. At the beginning of the story, the reader can easily come up with reasons to justify the townspeople’s inaction: Maybe no one knew? Maybe no one liked him? Maybe everyone agreed with the Vicario brothers? Maybe he was proven guilty? Maybe he knew? And yet, as the story goes on, as we learn more about the murder and can answer these questions, we, and the townspeople, run out of excuses, and are even more confused as to why no one really did stop the murder. This ironic ending shows the futility of the narrator’s job, who went to great lengths to collect as many details as possible about the murder, wrote a novel about it, and yet could not answer the main question: Why did nobody stop a death foretold? Marquéz uses situational irony and a clear framing device to explore the theme of how more knowledge creates more questions rather than give answers, and that some things will always remain unexplained. This makes the reader sympathize with the townspeople’s strong superstitions and beliefs in the supernatural and fate, as there is simply no other way to explain what happened.
I thought it quite fascinating that Marquez uses the specific times, such as "Santiago Nasar got up at five-thirty" and "through the back door that had been opened since six" (Marquez 1, 120) to draw the reader's attention away from the fact that the conclusion of the story remains a mystery. It only took a little chunk out of the morning for the murder of Santiago Nasar. It makes me think back to why the narrator uses such specific details when describing the morning of Santiago Nasar's death, as if he is trying to figure out what happened out of curiosity or to finish what was started. It is interesting to me, that after all the clues and facts shared with us, we are still unable to determine all that remains a mystery to us. What happened to the Vicario brothers? Why didn't any of the townspeople try and help Santiago Nasar as he was being attacked outside his front door? If there was no evidence except that based of of Angela Vicario's confession, how do we know that he was truly guilty? Was Santiago Nasar singled out because he arrived from another country/would the Vicario twins have killed one of there own?
DeleteI agree with your aspect of how as we learn more about one story we just keep coming up with questions that never seem to be answered. Like you said I was wondering the same things as everybody else in the beginning of the book as to why no one helped Santiago Nasar? Was it because nobody liked him or was it because nobody knew that it was going to happen? Excuses seem to disappear as more of a story is uncovered but then more unanswered questions pop up. Like I wrote in my blog time seems to cover up some small details to make it seem like everything is fine and that is how it was supposed to end up, when really we are blindsided to the bigger picture. We are looking so hard for the small details of this story and what it is supposed to mean but we forget to take a look at the bigger picture.
DeleteSantiago Nasar becomes flustered over the reactions of the townspeople, and is even turned away by his fiancee, Flora Miguel. Nahir Miguel, Flora Miguel's father, became alarmed when he was awakened by a harsh knocking, only to realize that it was Santiago Nasar. He warns Santiago Nasar that the Vicario brothers are going to kill him, but he didn't understand. "He turned pale and lost control in such a way that it was impossible to think that he was pretending" (Marquez 114). I though it interesting that people tried to help him while in a sort of dazed state. He was so confused that he forgot where he lived. The only human being who desperately tried to help Santiago Nasar from his death was Clotilde Armenta, who attempted to give him the lead when she "grabbed Pedro Vicario by the shirt and shouted to Santiago Nasar to run because they were going to kill him. It was such an urgent shout that it drowned out all the others" (Marquez 115, 116).
ReplyDeleteI think what was most interesting to me was the fact that Santiago Nasar stood up for himself to protect his honor. "It'll be two against one" (Marquez 115) Santiago Nasar stated after being informed of his soon to be death. He is somewhat courageous going into battle, just as Christ was willing to be nailed to a cross to save us from a life of misery. Santiago Nasar is referred to as a Christ-like figure throughout the novel, but it is most apparent in chapter 5, when when Pedro Vicario mentions that "The strange thing is that the knife kept coming out clean" (Marquez 117, 118). I know it's not an exact reference, but they used a spear to drain out the blood from Christ body after he hung lifeless on the cross to confirm that he was dead, just as the Vicario twins killed Santiago Nasar with meat carving knives, resulting in his bleeding out to death.
I thought it most interesting that in each chapter we become more intrigued until we believe the truth will be revealed in chapter 5. We are left with one simple question: why was no one man enough to stop it? However, the narrator is unable to shed light on the truth even 20 years later, leaving us scrambling in the dust trying to find answers where there are none.
One thing from this book has stood out to me throughout the story and it’s the topic of time. Time in this book is insanely accurate and on top of it. When ever things are being told again by the narrator, they always mention the time they were happened. For example on the last page of Chapter 5, Marquez writes, “Then he went into his house through the back door that had been open since six and fell on his face in the kitchen” (Marquez 120) and “Twelve days after the crime, the investigating magistrate came upon a town that was an open wound” (Marquez 98). This book is so specific about what happened and what time it happened and I think the reason this is because this is a murder that this book is based on and investigators in this time period are expected to know the times at which certain things happened in the time of the murder for if they did not know, story lines and people’s statements would not be correctly documented. I think that is what Marquez is trying to get across with the specific times. He is trying to imply that Santiago Nasar’s case was a murder mystery indeed, not because we didn’t know who killed him or who committed the murder but in fact we did not know who actually took Angela Vicario’s virginity and if it was actually Santiago Nasar himself. But having these distinct times in the plot, give the reader an explanation of when things happened so we, as readers, kind of gloss over it thinking that it is ok and that everything is explained. When really nothing is really finalized but really just left open and given no seal of approval that everything is really okay. Time is given in this book as a bookmark to when things happened to Santiago Nasar but it really doesn’t give any explanation to what really happened and why it happened to Nasar. So why does Marquez include it? Does he want to try and throw us off and give false conclusions?
ReplyDelete