Angela Death Foretold

Marriages are still considered business contracts in the Latin American culture. A contract where both bride and groom’s family either earn profits or gain respect in society. In the eyes of society and family, a woman is valuable as long as she is a virgin. Latin American daughters are raised to good housewives whose main duties include taking care of the family and the children, and women who go against these traditions or rules pay a heavy price. In Gabriel García Márquez’s novella, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, the character development of Angela Vicario demonstrates that she is guilty for Santiago Nasar’s death; however, the different aspects of the hispanic culture also share the

Angela takes “only the time necessary to say the name” (47) and arguably Santiago has been chosen simply by random fate; any male’s name would suffice, suggesting in a patriarchal society valuing a women strictly for virginity, all males share the blame. Angela’s appearance versus her reality is complex because while she has undeniably corrupt qualities, an admirable goodness shines through; the narrator acknowledges

Values are a vital part of any community. They shape the identity of a culture and help to form the identity of each individual in that society. Sometimes these embedded values have more power over a person than anyone would like to admit. Gabriel García Márquez shows the power of the value of honor in his book, Chronicle of a Death Foretold. In García Márquez’s writing, the theme of honor shows to have control over most of the characters. Through the many characters in García Márquez’s book, we can see that the heavy burden of one’s honor is portrayed as the reason for Santiago Nasar’s unfortunate homicide.

Although prostitution may be one of the world’s oldest professions to this day it is seen as a degrading and disrespectful career especially when regarding female prostitutes. In Chronicle of a Death Foretold, the town is very critical and strict about chastity and premarital sex. Maria Alejandrina Cervantes is the town madam which by society’s standards makes her to most marginalized, but ironically she is not brought down by her society’s rules. Gabriel Garcia Marquez uses characterization and irony to demonstrate Maria Alejandrina Cervantes’s contradictory role and to develop the theme of going against society in Chronicle of a Death Foretold.

THESIS: In Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the entire community is implicated in the killing of Santiago Nasar due to society pressuring the twins to kill Santiago Nasar in order to protect their family honour, and the people living in the community not taking any action to prevent the murder from happening when the twins made their intentions clear. QUOTES: SOCIETY PRESSURING THE TWINS TO KILL HIM, MUST DEFEND HONOR: “The brothers were brought up to be men” (Marquez 31). Pedro and Pablo Vicario were raised to be what their family and society considered as grown men, and that means for them to defend the honour of their family. Angela is insufficient of being able to defend herself; she was “raised to suffer and be married.”

The Vicario brothers are portrayed as the products of gender stereotypes and concepts of ‘alpha male’, and it is evident that they have been forced by society to kill a man, but this by itself does not represent a strong critique against machismo as the only consequences seen are a restricted individuality and freedom, and an act that was probably not seen as immoral by the readers at that time. In order to make a strong, effective critique against machismo, Garcia Marquez describes the murder as a traumatizing experience and explains its numerous negative impacts. The murder itself is described using harrowing imagery such as a ‘spurt of blood under high pressure [soaking] his shirt’ (p. 120), Santiago’s ‘intestines [exploding] out’ (p. 121) and the ‘viscera in the sunlight, clean and blue’ (p. 121). This use of disturbing images involves the readers in the grisly, traumatizing experience. The diction describing the brothers, with words such as ‘pale’ (p. 109, p. 110) ‘haggard’ (p. 109), ‘scared’ (p. 119), ‘desperate’ (p. 119) and ‘twisted with horror’ (p. 119), shows that the brothers are negatively affected by the assassination. The reader empathises with the trauma-like feelings of the brothers and pities them, and receives the message that machismo does not have benefits as everyone becomes its victim.

In Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, honor is a very prominent theme in the town and its culture. The need for honor influences many actions taken by individuals and traditions that characters strictly follow. As the narrator’s mother states, honor is love. The reader sees this statement supported throughout the story through beliefs and actions of the Vicario twins, Angela’s mother, and the townspeople as a whole. Honor is such a guiding force in the small community that it almost replaces what love should be. Pura Vicario, Angela’s mother, for example, values honor more than she values true family cherishing and love. Angela’s twin brothers have high respect for their own family honor, and they strive to uphold it by showing their love for their sister in hunting Santiago to retrieve her honor. The townspeople display their devotion to honor as they do not attempt to stop Santiago Nasar’s death. The qualified statement honor is love applies to the novel in actions by the twins, Angela’s mother, and the townspeople, and how their desperation to defend honor controls them.

Home is where the heart is, unless it is a small village in rural Colombia. In the case of the villagers who populate Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “Chronicle of a Death Foretold”, the concept of community triggers feelings of hostility, vengeance, and anger. As far as this town’s culture goes, family and religion trump all: they drive the Vicario brothers to murder, and force the women of the village to reach unrealistic standards under obscure guidelines. It seems no one is immune to the strength of these shared beliefs and values. Even normal citizens fall victim to the opinion, their negligence leaving them as much at fault for Santiago’s murder as the very perpetrators themselves. Such stringent social constructs evident in the village’s society

People in the small town are eager to know if the couple has properly complete their marriage, by doing this it is not only displaying blood on a bed sheet it is displaying honor, which the Vicario family do not have due to Angela. In order to restore the family honor the twins must kill Santiago. The narrators states “The lawyer stood by the thesis of homicide in legitimate defense of honor, which was upheld by the court in good faith, and the twins declared at the end of the trial that they would have done it again a thousand times over for the same reason” (Marquez 48). The narrator shows in Chronicle of a Death Foretold the type of violence is murder for honor. Even through the twins slaughtered Santiago like a pig, the murder was not completely their fault. The boys purposely announced the murder to the town people to have someone try to stop them from committing the murder. Pedro and Pablo did not feel it is right killing their friend, but they did not have any other options besides killing him to restore honor. The brothers feel pressure by society expectations to become violent. As well their own mother calls them with Angela’s situation and expects them to resolve the problem. In this society a man or women without honor are treated as an outcast in the community and to the

The traditions in Chronicle of a Death Foretold are revealed to be very important in this Latin American society. From arranged marriages, to greeting the bishop, we see tradition affecting the lives of many of the people in the river village. However we can also see this through the roles of women in this society. Purisima del Carmen, Angela Vicario’s mother, has raised her four fine daughters to be good wives. The girls do not marry until later in their lives, and only seldom socialize beyond the confinements of their home. The women spend their

In the novella Chronicle of a Death Foretold, the author Gabriel Garcia Marquez, uses the element point of view supported by certain motifs to portray society and how its gender roles affect the narration. The author’s choice in doing so is important simply because the novella is based on a real life story which occurred in Sucre, Colombia, in 1951, where he had lived. The incident happened while Gabriel Garcia Marquez was in college studying journalism, just like the narrator of the novel. Marquez happened to know some of the people involved, which gave the novella more significance. In the mid twentieth century, Colombian culture had various aspects due to its diversity and how society had evolved while still containing traditional

Religion is a dominant force in culture, social standings, and human interaction. Though narrated in a religious society that is centered around Catholicism, the Chronicle of a Death Foretold is about an affluent young man named Santiago Nasar, who is murdered by twin brothers, Pablo and Pedro Vicario. As evident as the community prepares for the bishop’s arrival, religion is intertwined in their culture. So, with the potency of a religious head figure, civilians alter their daily lives to follow a religious protocol in the beginning of the book. Because religion is foundational in the book’s societal structure, it shapes aspects of gender, sexual engagements, and character interaction, it provides assistance to understanding the complexity of a character’s development and actions.

Gabriel Garcia Marques provides a unique platform in his novella, Chronicle of a Death Foretold (COADF) to analyze facets of traditional Colombian values. The characters provide context regarding particular sectors of religion, cultural values and social norms throughout the novel. Marquez highlights a multitude of cultural juxtapositions throughout all of his novels, however, COADF in particular comments on the social hypocrisy of religion and the double standards due to gender norms throughout the novel. In the novella, Angela Vicario’s character highlights misguided principles and helps to understand how women and other groups of people in the country are maltreated. Common themes throughout the novel often victimize Angela Vicario, such as sexual identity, alcohol abuse and religious scrutiny. Marquez conveys these themes through imagery, symbolism, allegory and most especially periphrasis. This paper will effectively highlight how these factors demonstrate the cultural discrepancy in allowance of freedoms and the roles of women in the novel, and broader country.

In Gabriel García Márquez’s novella Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Santiago Nasar is ruthlessly murdered by the Vicario brothers-Pedro and Pablo Vicario-in a remote Colombian town. Although the Vicario brothers are responsible for the murder, i.e. the actual killing of Santiago, the behind-the-scene culture, in particular the town’s beliefs, ideals and expectations, should be blamed for Santiago’s death. Aspects of the town’s culture, including the sanctity of pre-marital virginity and honor, drive the characters to perform the murder of Santiago.

In Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, honor is a very prominent theme in the town and its culture. Actions taken by individuals and traditions that characters strictly follow are influenced by the need for honor. As the narrator’s mother states, “honor is love.” The reader sees this statement supported throughout the story through beliefs and actions of the Vicario twins, Angela’s mother, and the townspeople as a whole. Honor is extremely important and is a guiding force in the small community, so that it almost replaces what love should be. Angela’s mother, for example, values honor more than she values true family cherishing and love. The twins have high respect for their own family honor, and they strive to uphold it by showing their love for their sister in hunting Santiago to retrieve her honor. The townspeople display their devotion to honor as they do not attempt to stop Santiago Nasar’s death. “Honor is love” is a qualified statement and applies to the novel in actions by the twins, Angela’s mother, and the townspeople, and how desperate they are to defend honor.