Compare and contrast the method and effectiveness of the narrative technique used in 'To the Wedding' by Berger and 'Chronicle of a Death Foretold' by Marquez

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Compare and contrast the method and effectiveness of the narrative technique used in ‘To the Wedding’ by Berger and ‘Chronicle of a Death Foretold’ by Marquez

        The styles of narrative in ‘Chronicle of a Death Foretold,’ and ‘To the Wedding’ are entirely different and both have different effects on how the stories are perceived.  In ‘Chronicle’ the narrator is telling the story in first person, giving several different accounts of the same event, by people he had interviewed. Throughout ‘Chronicle’ the same narrative is used.  This is contrary to ‘To the Wedding.’ This story has a main narrator who is blind, but his blindness amplifies all his other senses, and the narrator becomes omniscient.  This story shifts from character to character telling of their different journeys to acceptance of AIDS, for some characters in the third person and others in the first.

The narration in ‘To the Wedding’ can cause the story to be somewhat confusing, because the narration shifts seamlessly making it sometimes hard to tell whose point of view you are now hearing.  This is especially apparent in the beginning of the novel.  Once you learn who each character is the reader soon realizes which story is whose.  The blind man, Tsobanakos, is and omniscient narrator who is able to see everyone’s point of view.  His blindness gives him a supernatural quality that gives him to ability to know everything that goes on around him.  Before the story he had no previous relations to any of the major characters, and the only factor that relates him to the story is the fact that he sold Jean a Tamata.  Tsobanakos is not mentioned apart from the opening of the story, and since he is able to recognize Ninon’s entire story gives the novel magic qualities.

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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 ...

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