Chronicle of a Death Foretold': in Honour With a Fate

Set in Columbia, 1951, the novella 'Chronicle of a Death Foretold' by Gabriel Garcia Márquez, recounts the story of Santiago Nasar, a victim of a murder brought on by the societal pressures and consequences of honor. 'Chronicle of a Death Foretold' essay shows how from the perspective of the narrator, the novel investigates the death of Santiago Nasar and the events leading to it through interviews of the townspeople that were involved. Written with a non-linear perspective, Santiago’s death is already revealed in the beginning of the book, backtracking through different characters' perspectives in hopes of uncovering the truth of what occurred leading up to Santiago's final moments. In this story, Márquez reveals how the pivotal roles of Catholic culture, honor, and fate play an important part in contributing to the reason behind Santiago’s demise.

Written based on the ideologies of Latin American culture, the events highlight the expectation of chastity until marriage and the importance of honor within a community and household. Propelled by the different cultural norms assigned to each gender, their roles and the vitality of keeping notability within the community play a substantial part in the reasoning behind each person's decisions and deeds. Throughout the town, men are usually unregulated, able to do as they wish unprovoked and unquestioned, even going through lengths such as murder would be acceptable, given a honorably accepted reason in doing so. This depiction of machismo can be seen through Santiago Nasar when he talks to Divina Flor, the daughter of Santiago's housemaid, and says, “The time has come for you to be tamed”. This clearly reveals the prominent expectation of the dominant gender role set in their culture and shows that even good, open hearted men can be sexist and misogynistic. On the other hand, women are brought up with strict rules and morals as seen through Angela Vicario and her sisters. Growing up in a household of modesty, they are taught how to be the perfect housewives, taking up household crafts such as embroidery and flower making, not being allowed to go outside unescorted, and preparing for marriage from a young age. Theoretically, women do have their “own” honor in this culture, but in reality, their honor depicts the family image as whole. The pureness of a woman is highly important in the community, and must be preserved until marriage. Should this be compromised or even rumored to be, the duty falls on the male relatives to punish the supposed offender in order to restore the family's honor. When introducing the main characters of this story, Márquez highlights the role of a male in this society through descriptions of the Vicario family. During the introduction of Angela’s father, Poncio, the narrator carries onto say, “Her father, Poncio Vicario, was a poor man’s goldsmith, and he’d lost his sight to from doing so much fine work in gold in order to maintain the honor of the house”. This shows that the Vicario family takes up honor to the highest degree, giving an insight on the morals and ideas Angela and the Vicario brothers were raised on and contributes to the reasoning for the decisions they make later on in the novella.

Centering this overarching theme as the main reasoning of Santiago’s inevitable death, the ideology apparent in this novella illustrates how the role of honor is able to control a person's actions, and the lengths one would go through to uphold it. Finding out about what has happened with their sister, the brothers Pedro and Pablo Vicario are fated with the task of killing Santiago. While recalling the day of the murder, Pablo Vicario describes to the narrator what had happened the morning before the killing; “...So he put the knife in his hand and dragged him off almost by force in search of their sister’s lost honor. ‘There's no way out of this,’ he told him. ‘It's as if it had already happened’. Pressured with the expectations of reclaiming their lost honor, the brothers understand what has to be done in order to make things right again, causing them to ultimately force themselves to commit an act of violence they do not have the heart to carry out. The idea of honor was not only crippling for Santiago and the Vicario brothers, but for everyone in the society as well. The urgency of restoring their honor that had initially begun as an act of pride and justice for their family name, ironically also leads to its downfall. Near the end of the story, we find out the fates of the others in the family and community. In the case of Angela Vicario, her dishonorable loss of virginity leads to being beat by her parents, rejected by her husband, and unable to marry again. This dishonor also drives her former groom, Bayardo San Román, into a deep depression, nearly committing suicide and living a lonely life for the next seventeen years. The twin’s family leave the area on an initiative from Colonel Apotes until spirits cooled off, only to never return, and the father dies by his moral pain carrying him off. All of these occurrences fundamentally show how the result of one action can stem into affecting not only one, but multiple peoples lives in the long run.

With the title of the book being, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, it is seen that Santiago’s death was “foretold”, suggesting he is fated to be murdered from the beginning. The line of coincidences apparent in this story point toward the indication his death is inevitable, with the choices and decisions each of the characters make sealing his impending doom. Starting with the reason for his death, Angela makes a choice in naming Santiago when asked about who had taken her purity although it is implied he is innocent. This successfully places a target on his back and begins the spiral of chance occurrences that lead to his downfall. When preparing for the murder, the brothers publicly announce their intentions of killing Santiago to almost anyone who will listen. In the end, seemingly everyone in the town knows of the crime that is going to take place, everyone except for Santiago and his mother. Although the brothers were the one who committed the crime, it was not an act that was achieved alone. During the trial, it is known that almost all of the townspeople had been told of what was going to happen, but failed to do anything about it. When asked about it, they resort to making excuses, 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, just as Victoria Guzman and so many others did who saw them later”. Their lack of initiative in warning Santiago is only one of the chance occurrences that draw him inexorably closer to his death. A warning note, slipped under his mothers door, only to be ignored or read, but found too late. Placida Linero, Santiago’s mother, locks the door to their house thinking Santiago has returned inside, efficiently preventing Santiago’s escape from the Vicario brothers. The priest, had he not been in a rush to catch the bishop, could have had a chance to properly inform Santiago’s mother, successfully stopping his death from taking place. All of these factors are played against each other throughout the book, demonstrating how their contradictions and consequences have a role in how the novella plays out.

In the end, the story of Santiago Nasar was one destined to be doomed, with the themes of gender, honor, and fate playing an important role in how it concluded. Starting from the different standards of gender roles, to the pressures of upholding public honor within a community, the mere coincidences that follow one another suggest his death was rooted from the beginning and shows how the real culprit of the murder –– fate, always wins.