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 seventeen years gives him the certainty that she is serious in her desire for him to return to her. Seeing Angela’s devotion, Bayardo decides to return to his lost love. “‘Well,’ he said, ‘here I am…’ with almost two thousand letters that she had written him (Marquez 111).” Although the ritual did, in the end, bring about the desired outcome Angela approached the idea of love letters in a corrupt way; only to achieve her ends. Before the ill-fated wedding night Angela despised Bayardo and did not want to marry him, however after being rejected, Angela found some sense of desire for Bayardo. Marquez writes that the letters started off as “fiancée’s notes, then they were little messages from a secret lover,…and lastly they were the indignant letters of an abandoned wife (Marquez 109).” Angela corrupts the idea of a love letter to the level of making it a tool in which she hopes to convince Bayardo to return to her rather then the intimate exchange between partners that it should have been
Marquez uses ritualistic practices in his written Latin American culture to develop the themes of Chronicle of a Death foretold, such as the power of money and possessions and the idea of love and devotion. However, by having the characters corrupt these rituals Marquez shows the fallibility of man and his habit of looking out for only himself. Likewise, Rulfo uses the rituals of the Church in his written Mexican culture to show the corruption of religion, and in turn the town of Comalo.
The first example of ritual in Pedro Paramo is the confession process. In the story several confessions made to the priest are documented. The priest uses the ritual of confession to make money. “The priest wants sixty pesos to overlook the matter…he says he needs to fix the alter, and that the dinning room table is on its last legs (Rulfo 40).”2 He is a corrupt man and has corrupted the ritual of confession in order to benefit himself. He has turned what was once a sanctified practice into a corrupt business. By doing so, he himself becomes corrupt and realizes that he no longer can hold the position of priest. “…he had made a general confession to a fellow priest who despite his pleas had refused him absolution (Rulfo 71). The pull of money and earthly possession, which is a downfall of man, corrupts the priest who in turn, corrupts the act of confession. This corruption is evident throughout the book and is what turns Comalo into the purgatory it is.
Another example of ritual turning corrupt is the act of praying for the dead. The townspeople of Comalo used to follow the Mexican ritual of praying for the dead. This act is said to free the spirits by having the living pray to God for forgiveness for the dead souls. However, in the story the narrator hears from one of the townspeople that the town has quit praying for the lost souls because it seems there are too many souls to free. The people become lazy and inconsiderate and stop praying because it does not suit them, which in turn corrupts the town through their lack of prayer and lost souls. “‘And your soul? Where do you think it’s gone?’ ‘It’s probably wandering like so many others, looking for living people to pray for it (Rulfo 66).’” And therefore the souls stay trapped and wandering in Comalo, the town turns corrupt and the lack of prayer slowly takes religion out of the town until it no longer exists.
The rituals expressed in the novels Chronicle of a Death Foretold and Pedro Paramo show the control that religion and love have over the people and their actions. These rituals shape the towns in each book and affect both in a profound way. In Chronicle the town is completely turned around by the rituals observed in love and the rituals shape the actions of the town. Like wise in Pedro Paramo the rituals of religion shape the town’s actions, and those actions corrupt the town. The process of corruption starts with the selfishness and laziness of the towns people showing humans fallibility.
The End
World Literature Assignment 1
Chronicle of a Death Foretold vs. Pedro Paramo:
The Corruption of Ritual
By Caleb Schnarr
Candidate D 0604 123
William J. Palmer High School (0604) May 2004
Colorado Springs, CO USA Word Count-1209