When I read Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Colombian novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez for the first time, I was initially not impressed by the book. I found the story to be uninteresting and predictable, like something that came from a Spanish soap opera. After reading the first few pages of the book, I already deduced that the man who was murdered in the story was the result of a marriage gone horribly wrong because the bride was not a virgin. That a bride who loses her virginity before marriage is a taboo that still persists in some parts of Latin America.
By the time I finished reading the novel, I could not figure out the significance of this book. It was not until I learned more about the role of the characters and what they are supposed to represent, the event Marquez based on the story on, and how his cultural background is portrayed in the story that I began to appreciate this novel. His style of writing involves the mystical wonders of Latin America and presents its reality as though it was magical. Even though the story might not seem exciting to me at first glance, it is the events that led up to the conclusion that makes it extraordinary.
For example, even though the man is already dead from the beginning of the book, it is said that nearly everyone in town except Nasar knew about his inevitable murder and yet no one warned him about it until it was too late. Each character in the story is presented with a unique personality and trait. Nearly everyone who heard the Vicario brothers’ threat did not warn Nasar and had different reasons why they did not inform him. Marquez presents a novel that is based on a society he was raised and integrates events that actually happened in his life.
The story was based on a friend of Marquez who was murdered in Sucre, Colombia in 1951 with the identical reasons that are presented in the book. Marquez is very detailed about the scenery in the book as it was inspired by a town he grew up in Colombia. The story begins with the narrator who chronicles the death of a man named Santiago Nasar who was killed the day after the wedding. The narrator interviews several of the townsfolk about the day Nasar was murdered.
He learns that everybody in the town knew about the Vicario brothers plot to murder Nasar but none of them had warned him. On the day Nasar was killed, he told his mother Placida Linero about a dream he had the night before where he was flying through almond trees on a tinfoil airplane without bumping into anything until he woke up as though he was covered in bird poop. His mother, who could interpret other people’s dreams, did not see anything unusual about the dream he had and would go on to regret it years after his murder.
He goes to the kitchen where Divina Flor, the daughter of Victoria Guzman, serves him his coffee as she does every Monday. Just when she was about to leave, Nasar grabs her by the arms and tells she will be “tamed”. Victoria Guzman, the Nasar’s cook, threatens Nasar with a bloody knife that she will not allow him near his daughter while she is still alive. The knife was used to gut live rabbits and it foreshadowed how Nasar would be killed. It is revealed that Victoria had an affair with Nasar’s father when she was young and still carries the grudge against the Nasar family.
She also worries that her daughter would also end up being seduced up Nasar just as she was. Both women were uncertain whether or not the Vicario brothers were serious about killing Nasar. However, Divina Flora reveals that her mother wanted Nasar dead years after the murder while Divina remained silent because she was frightened by Nasar’s intention and felt helpless as a child as she incapable of making her own decisions. Divina Flor represents the town’s expectations how girls are to be raised by getting married and obeying their husbands’ demands.
Just the day before the murder, a wedding was held in town and we are introduced to Angela Vicario, who is the bride as well as the sister of the brothers who kill Nasar. Angela Vicario comes from a poor family and was brought up by a strict mother who expected her to be like her sisters. In the months leading up to the wedding, a rich man by the name of Bayardo San Roman had arrived in the town and upon seeing Angela Vicario decides to marry her. Angela Vicario’s family accept the marriage even though she does not have mutual feelings for San Roman.
She sees him as nothing more than a conceited man. This is despite most of the town seeing him as a strong handsome rich man and good-hearted, the town’s idea of a perfect man. Her mother Purisima del Carmen raised her children to be perfectionist. To Purisima del Carmen, the only thing that mattered was that the boys would be brought up as men while she expected the girls to get married and do tasks assigned for women such as sewing, washing, and ironing. One main reason I find Angela Vicario to be the most powerful woman in the book simply because she goes against her mother’s desire.
She had the courage to inform San Roman, the man she did not want to marry, that she was in fact not a virgin after the wedding. By going against the town’s ideal of how a woman should behave, she receives a severe beating by her mother for hours after San Roman returns Angela to her family. Angela was not wooed by San Roman’s attempt at getting her to fall in with him love even when he brought her gifts and a house to live together. When the Vicario brothers return home and find Angela on the floor, she tells them that it was Santiago Nasar who took her virginity away.
It is not known whether or not Nasar truly did take away, but it did not matter to the brothers as they wanted to preserve their sister’s honor. One of the twin’s wife insisted that she would have left him if they did not carry out the murder to fulfill the family’s honor. The twins reveal to several of the town’s citizens about their intention to kill Nasar which happened to be the same day that a bishop would arrive in town. One of residents who learns about their plot is Clotilde Armenta, the proprietress of a milk shop. An insightful woman, she could tell the twins only wanted to kill Nasar out of honor.
She warns the town priest, her husband, the mayor but none of them told Nasar about the threat. She is the only woman to not only recognize the severity of the brothers’ threat, but to try to save Nasars’s life. Nasar was a known womanizer in town to the point that even the narrator’s sister was smitten with him. When his fiance Flora Miguel hears about the plot to kill Nasar, she responds by giving him all the letters he wrote to her and locks herself in her room out of humiliation. After his murder, she left town with a border patrol lieutenant out of spite.
As Nasar was of Arab heritage, there was concern about the Arabs seeking revenge. None of them however, desired retribution. In fact, it was the centenarian matriarch, Susana Abdala, who took care of the twin’s health when they were in prison. Aside from Nasar’s mother, one woman who was very sadden by his death was Maria Alejandrina Cervantes who is a prostitute. Maria was far from the town’s vision of how an ideal woman should behave. She is very open her sexual activities, but at the same time is the dominant when men come to visit her.
This contrasts how men are supposed to be more superior to women where the women obeys their husbands. She did however, have feelings for Nasar as they were close friends. After his death, she would go on an eating habit in her sorrow. She even refuses to see the narrator because he smells like Santiago Nasar (the narrator was near Nasar’s body). The man who lost everything from the wedding was none other than Bayardo San Roman himself. By revealing she was not a virgin, San Roman went through a severe depression and remained in the house that used to belong to Xius.
He is nearly forgotten by everyone in town until the mayor is reminded of him by Xius. The once proud man who thought he could get anything he wanted with riches now realizes money cannot buy happiness. This shows how powerful Angela Vicario really is by having a man, who the town saw as the ideal man, not being able to buy love. Years after the murder, Angela’s mother tried to make her life as miserable as she could, still resenting the moment San Roman returned Angela to her, and yet Angela still managed to go on with her life.
Nevertheless, Angela realizes she has feelings for San Roman from the moment her mother started hitting her as she knew the beatings were actually for San Roman. Since then, she writes letters to San Roman, confessing her love to him for years. Eventually, San Roman does return to see her, but not as the handsome man he once was. Despite all that has happened, Angela was still able to have San Roman do her biddings. This is another reason why I find Angela Vicario to be the strongest women in the book, because she has the courage to reach out to him even after her mother makes her suffer.
As you can see, Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez is one of the most important Latin American novels to ever be written. The story depicts the life of what was once an ordinary town in Colombia forever changed by a murder which was inspired by a death of Marquez’s friend. He also displays the dominance men have over women and how the town expects both genders to behave. It is these reasons why I acknowledge why the book is not only of the most important books in Latin American literature, but one of the best ever written.
