The narrator in ‘Chronicle’ is a member of the community in which the story takes place. He is also a close personal friend of Santiago Nasser. The account of the murder is all written in the first person, by the narrator, added with interviews and accounts of the different members of the community on the day of and days leading up to the murder. The narrator’s connection to the community gives him added credibility. This is because he has relationships with many of the characters whose accounts of the murder he added to the novel, as well as the fact that he was in town on day the day of murder and was with Santiago until the early hours of the morning the night before. If someone from out-of-town came to discover the story of the murder, and even if he was able to interview the same people it would not have nearly the same effect. This is because the readers would not have trusted this narrator as much since he was not there, and he did not know those involved prior to the murder.
‘Chronicle’ and ‘To the Wedding’ are both very different kinds of stories. ‘To the Wedding’ was narrated as a story from with a beginning, middle and end. It was written with lots of emotion. It was an account of the road to acceptance of AIDS for many different characters. It did not outline a single event, but told a story. ‘Chronicle’ was a chronicle of events that took place in small town while trying to discover why the murder of Santiago could not be prevented. Different parts of the event were explored not necessarily in the order that they happened. The narrator looked through many different view points to try and piece the murder together, sometimes even from different time periods.
The information given in ‘Chronicle,’ came from several different sources at several different times. Each person naturally had a slightly different account of what exactly happened, sometimes that person’s account changed over time. This was the case with Divina Flor, where her account at the time was affected by her mother’s view because she was so young. Whereas twenty-seven years later she is no longer under the control of her mother and is able to shape her own views pertaining to the murder and of Santiago. The fact that all the information was not entirely reliable, makes the story itself even more reliable. This is because it makes the story more human, as the memory of an event can change over time. It also adds the opinions of the people giving the accounts. An opinion on someone or something can change the way an event is perceived, varying from person to person.
In ‘To the Wedding’ it is not entirely clear why Tsobanakos chooses to tell the story. It is possible that he found Ninon’s story and important lesson and therefore wanted to be shared. Ninon also tells her own story of dealing with AIDS, and it might be because she needs a way to release her frustration and difficultly coming to terms with her sickness.
‘Chronicle’ is told by a member of the community with the aim of discovering why Santiago’s murder could not be prevented, even though the whole town knew it was going to happen. However it is not obvious why it was the narrator that chose to write the chronicle. He was a friend of Santiago, but he did not witness the murder, but instead slept through it not discovering that his friend had been murdered until the town bells rang after the crime had been committed.
‘Chronicle’ ends and starts with the murder of Santiago. This causes the reader to only be involved with the town as far as the murder can take them. Since the point of the novel is to discover why the murder could not be stopped this is okay. The reader only knows was s/he needs to know to understand the murder including what happened before and after the murder. Because of this ‘Chronicle’ is nothing more than a chronicle of the murder, rather than a story of Santiago or the town.
This is contrary to ‘To the Wedding.’ In this story it is more an emotionally attaching story where it is necessary to know the whole life story of the characters involved. It is possible that the reason we feel emotionally attached to the characters in ‘To the Wedding’ is because we know so much about them, and recognize the hardships they have endured.
The narration in ‘Chronicle of a Death Foretold,’ it what makes it compelling. Had it been written from beginning to end it would have been a very boring novel. The way the narrator dissects each different piece of the puzzle creates anticipation. He almost goes through the morning of the murder through several different points of view, noticing subtle differences in the stories between each of the characters. Had the narrator been omniscient, there would have been no story to be told. The reader would have known all and it would have been boring. This is the exact opposite in ‘To the Wedding,’ where the narrator is omniscient and had he not been the story would have made little sense, since it is based on the inner thoughts of the characters. If we did not know these thoughts, the story would be very hollow.
The two different styles of narration both worked in entirely different ways, and had entirely different effects on the stories. It is apparent that a lot thought was put into the narration technique by both authors, because they both fit the story they were trying to tell perfectly. Both techniques were effective in making their stories fully comprehendible. Both authors could have used different techniques, but it is the way these two stories are narrated that set them apart from other novels.