Chronicle of a Death Foretold

by Gabriel García Márquez

Start Free Trial

Historical Context and Inspiration

Download PDF PDF Page Citation Cite Share Link Share

Inspired in part by historical events, Chronicle of a Death Foretold has been aptly characterized as both a modern fable and a metaphysical murder mystery. Showcasing Garcia Marquez's journalistic talent for finding a captivating story, the novel (or novella) intricately reconstructs the events leading up to the death of its protagonist, Santiago Nasar. The real-life incident that influenced this fictional narrative occurred on January 22, 1951, in the Colombian town of Sucre, where a man was brutally murdered, supposedly in revenge for a woman's tarnished honor. Garcia Marquez, who reportedly knew the victim, was profoundly disturbed and angered by the event, especially by the community's passive acceptance of the crime as a part of their cultural identity.

Narrative Structure and Reader Engagement

Download PDF PDF Page Citation Cite Share Link Share

What makes this novel remarkable is that right from the start, the reader is told about the ending. The initial sentence discloses the victim's forthcoming demise: "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." Garcia Marquez himself tells the story, revisiting the scene of the crime twenty-seven years later to explore the murder and its effects on the townspeople and their collective identity. With the outcome and the culprits already known, the reader is prompted to consider the narrator's key question: How could such an event unfold without anyone stepping in to prevent it?

Themes of Revenge and Honor

Download PDF PDF Page Citation Cite Share Link Share

In Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Garcia Marquez brings back the "unthinkable" event to delve into the intricate themes of revenge. Fueled by anger, ignorance, and bitterness, the twin brothers of the wronged woman, along with the town's inhabitants, embody both collective complicity and guilt. Garcia Marquez critiques the townspeople's misguided belief that their sense of honor is restored through the murder, as well as the flawed machismo displayed by his characters. Through the novel, he examines how a single event can significantly affect the lives of many over time. The consequences of the past infiltrate the present, spreading the stain of shared complicity among the townspeople, the narrator, and ultimately the reader.

Honor

Download PDF PDF Page Citation Cite Share Link Share

The reason behind Santiago Nasar's murder remains undisclosed until halfway through Chronicle of a Death Foretold. Although everyone knows Nasar is going to be killed, the motive is initially unclear. After a night of celebration, the Vicario twins, Pedro and Pablo, are called home by their mother. Their family pressures their upset sister, Angela, to reveal why she came back humiliated from her wedding night. When Angela names "Santiago Nasar," the twins immediately realize they must protect their sister's honor. The twins' lawyer describes their actions as "homicide in legitimate defense of honor," a perspective that the court agrees with. The priest considers the twins' surrender as "an act of great dignity." When the twins claim their innocence, the priest suggests they might be innocent in the eyes of God, to which Pablo Vicario responds, "Before God and before men. It was a matter of honor."

Revenge

Download PDF PDF Page Citation Cite Share Link Share

The twins assert that the murder was necessary to safeguard their sister's reputation, a point the courts concur with. However, many perceive the act as a ruthless act of vengeance. The way they kill Santiago appears far more vicious than what would be required for a mere honor killing. Initially, the twins obtain their two best butchering knives, specifically one for quartering and another for trimming. After Colonel Aponte confiscates these knives, the twins return to their shop to fetch another quartering knife featuring a broad, curved blade, along with a twelve-inch knife with a rusty edge. Intent on ensuring Santiago's demise, the twins stab him repeatedly. Seven of the wounds...

(This entire section contains 221 words.)

Unlock this Study Guide Now

Start your 48-hour free trial and get ahead in class. Boost your grades with access to expert answers and top-tier study guides. Thousands of students are already mastering their assignments—don't miss out. Cancel anytime.

Get 48 Hours Free Access

are fatal, with the liver, stomach, pancreas, and colon nearly obliterated. They stab him with such intensity that they become soaked in blood, and the main door of Plácida Linero's house, where Santiago is killed, requires city repairs. Their lack of remorse further indicates that the twins acted out of revenge.

Following the murder, the twins fear retribution from the Arab community. Although they believe they rightfully killed Santiago to protect their sister's honor, the twins are concerned that the tight-knit Arab community will seek revenge for the death of one of their members. When Pablo becomes ill while in jail, Pedro suspects that the Arabs have poisoned him.

Sex Roles

Download PDF PDF Page Citation Cite Share Link Share

Purisima del Carmen has raised her daughters, including Angela Vicario, to be the epitome of ideal wives. These women marry later in life and rarely engage socially beyond their home. They occupy their time with activities like embroidery, sewing, weaving, laundry, flower arrangement, candy making, and writing engagement announcements. Additionally, they maintain traditional customs, such as sitting with the sick, comforting the dying, and preparing the deceased for burial. While Purisima sees her daughters as flawless, men often perceive them as excessively tied to conventional female roles.

On the other hand, Purisima del Carmen's sons are brought up to embody traditional masculinity. They engage in warfare, take charge of their father's business after he becomes blind, and partake in late-night drinking, partying, and visiting the local brothel. When the family pressures Angela into marrying Bayardo, a man she barely knows, the twins detach themselves, dismissing it as "woman problems." However, these "woman problems" quickly become "men's problems" when the family calls the twins back after Angela's return. Angela feels relieved to pass the responsibility to them, as the family expects.

Deception

Download PDF PDF Page Citation Cite Share Link Share

Angela Vicario is not a virgin on her wedding day to Bayardo, yet no one suspects this fact. Her mother has protected her throughout her life. Angela has neither been engaged before nor allowed to be alone with Bayardo during their courtship. She worries that her husband will uncover her secret on their wedding night and thinks about confiding in her mother. Instead, Angela shares her concerns with two friends who advise against telling her mother. They reassure Angela that men cannot discern the truth and suggest she trick Bayardo into believing she is a virgin. Angela heeds their advice. She not only wears the veil and orange blossoms that symbolize purity but also carries out her friends' plan of deception on her wedding night.

Supernatural

Download PDF PDF Page Citation Cite Share Link Share

In Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Márquez weaves supernatural elements throughout the narrative. From Santiago's prophetic dreams the night before his death to the ominous signs observed by others, an aura of mystical forces is constantly present. Santiago, for example, inherits his "sixth sense" from his mother, Plácida. Meanwhile, Margot feels "the angel pass by" as she listens to Santiago talk about his wedding plans. These supernatural influences touch every facet of the characters' lives. For instance, Purisima del Carmen cautions her daughters that brushing their hair at night will delay sailors at sea.

Guilt and Truth

Download PDF PDF Page Citation Cite Share Link Share

Where García Márquez’s highly regarded novel Cien años de soledad (1967; One Hundred Years of Solitude, 1970) has the large, episodic scope of a Greek epic, Chronicle of a Death Foretold has the concise brevity of Greek tragedy, and it shares with tragedy the theme of guilt and its purging through recognition of the truth:For years we couldn’t talk about anything else. Our daily conduct, dominated then by so many linear habits, had suddenly begun to spin around a common anxiety. The cocks of dawn would catch us trying to give order to the chain of many chance events that had made absurdity possible, and it was obvious that we weren’t doing it from an urge to clear up mysteries but because none of us could go on living without an exact knowledge of the place and the mission assigned to us by fate.

Tyranny and Obedience

Download PDF PDF Page Citation Cite Share Link Share

At the political level, the book is an allegory for tyranny made possible through uncritical obedience to established codes: No one is able to step out of the accustomed modes of behavior to stop the murderers. Indeed, the attempts to purge guilt through recognition meander through the inexactitudes of memory toward self-justification offered in terms of the original misjudgments that allowed the murder to take place. It takes place over and over, in the varying accounts of witnesses, in the narrator’s conclusion, in the villagers’ memories, and since no one has learned what is necessary to prevent its recurrence, it will continue to be obsessively replayed as ritual and as a mystery to which no solution can be found.

Honor and Inaction

Download PDF PDF Page Citation Cite Share Link Share

Most of the characters reason that affairs of honor exclude all but those involved, a circular logic that admits no intervention. The fictional narrative, however, points to a very active involvement by supposed bystanders. For example, Nasar’s maid, Victoria Guzmán, wakens him as ordered at 5:30 in the morning but fails to warn him because she pays no heed to what she considers drunken boasts. In fact, Nasar had asked her to send her daughter Divina Flor, a nubile girl whom Nasar has repeatedly manhandled, to wake him, but Guzmán herself had suffered the advances of Nasar’s father, and so goes in her daughter’s place. While Nasar eats breakfast, she disembowels rabbits before him and throws the entrails to the dogs; at the end of the novel, Nasar’s mother orders the dogs to be killed as they howl for his intestines. Though the narrator does not draw a conclusion, evidence is strewn through the book that Guzmán would sooner see Nasar dead than have him repeat his father’s conquest and that she maliciously withholds the warning that would easily save his life. Her righteous disregard of drunken boasts plays into her maternal instinct and her secret loathing of her helplessness. While she cannot act on feelings she scarcely acknowledges, her inaction in not warning Nasar is fatally effective.

Fate and Chance

Download PDF PDF Page Citation Cite Share Link Share

García Márquez challenges the reader to look more deeply than does the narrator at the pattern of chance that produces fate. The reader is prompted to reconsider the excuses, denials, and self-justifications that blind the narrator, who seeks through his chronicle of superfluous information to understand how a death so foretold could be allowed to take place.

Previous

Summary

Next

Characters

Loading...