Latin American culture and ritual in the works Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo and Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Marquez.

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        In the Latin American cultures represented in the works Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo and Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Marquez, ritual plays a major role in the lives of the people.   The authors use the rituals of religion and love to show the power it possesses over the people.  The rituals that the characters in the novels live by shape who they are and what they do. Manifestations of love in Chronicle of a Death Foretold are ritualistic, and the novel itself is a ritual which re-enacts 's death.  Pedro Paramo uses the ritual of religion to show how corrupt the town becomes. The message of corruption, through ritual, is being portrayed by both authors to show the downfall and fallibility of man.  The characters take rituals and corrupt them to fit their needs and wishes rather than respecting the rituals for what they represent.

        The first example of ritual found in Chronicle of a death Foretold is the courtship ritual carried out by Bayardo in his search for Angela’s love.  When  first comes to town, he decides to marry , whom he has never met. His courtship of Angela demonstrates the rituals of Latin American marriage in their culture. He brings her a gift of a music box inlaid with mother-of-pearl for her birthday, and obtains everything his future bride asks for. Marquez writes “He, just to impress her, had bought all the tickets in the raffle” (Marquez 32)1 so that he was sure to win the music box that she desired. The purpose of this courtship ritual is not to cause the lovers to fall deeper in love, but rather to demonstrate the man's affluence and power.  However, Bayardo, in his rush to marry Angela, takes the ritual of courtship to the extreme and corrupts it in order to achieve his goal of having Angela as his wife.   Not only does Bayardo buy her the music box but he also manipulates the widower Xius into selling him his house, which is the nicest house in town, in order to ensure his marriage to Angela. “‘Widower,’ he told him,‘ I’ll buy your house.’ ‘It’s not for sale,’ the widower said.  ‘I’ll buy it along with everything inside (Marquez 39).’”  Bayardo had no reverence for the widower or the ritual of courtship.  By flaunting his money, Bayardo tried to buy Angela’s love, therefore corrupting the previously sanctified ritual of courtship.

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        The second example of the presence of ritual in Chronicle of a death Foretold is Angela’s letter writing.  Angela does not care what she says in her letters; she is more concerned with the fact that Bayardo is receiving them.  She hopes that the ritual of writing letters will bring Bayardo back to her. “‘Sometimes I couldn’t think of what to say,’ she told me, dying with laughter, ‘but it was enough for me to know that he was getting them (Marquez 109).’”  Similarly, Bayardo San Roman does not read her letters, but receiving two thousand letters over the course of ...

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