Statement of Intent
This assignment is based on Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold. It is a diary entry which will allow the reader to enter Angela Vicario’s head and get a completely different side of the story. This entry also intends to focus on the details of Angela’s and Santiago’s relationship, since in the book it isn’t even made clear whether they are engaged or not. This diary entry explores Angela’s feelings of guilt, the motive for her actions, and most of all, her love for Santiago. This is a creative piece of work which was written to fit into the context of the story and to explain things that Garcia Marquez decided not specify in the novella.
Dear Diary,
The stench entered my nostrils and flowed into my lungs, invading and marking its presence on every inch of my body. There was no escape. The fresh smell of death lingered in the air, reminding me of the best and at the same time worst memories of my life. The musky scent of his body was infinitely replaced with the aroma of guilt. I can recall numerous times where I’d wished he would die. That he would burn in hell and never return. I had fooled myself into believing that his absence might make the eternal pain leave. He’s gone, murdered by my own flesh and blood, but the pain still lives. It reigns my body, only now it is stronger. My thoughts feed it constantly and it grows inside me, it’s roots penetrating my heart. Yet, I still love him. Love can drive us to do such unreasonable things. My love for him is the purest form of love, the unconditional type. Through so much pain and hatred, the love I felt for him still lived. I had wished him dead, from jealousy and anger, but even as I revealed the truth about our relationship, I wept in sorrow. I knew exactly what they were going to do to him, yet that had not stopped me. I could have made up a lie. With so many men in the town, many other men could have been responsible for my shattered heart and dignity. But they weren’t. And I didn’t want them to be. He had done it, and I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Until the day I die, I know I belong to him. I am his, and he wasn’t mine. No matter how much I wanted him to be, he did not seem to want to lead an honorable and acceptable marriage. My family would have never accepted our sinful relationship, if you could even call it a relationship. We never saw each other, we weren’t together, but after that one day, our souls had been united forever. He had come to do some business with my brothers. They weren’t at home, as a matter of fact, I was the only one there. What happened next, I will never be able to explain. I opened the door, and in front of me stood a man I had know my entire life, yet who had never had any kind of special effect on me. But this time it had been different. No words were exchanged, nothing needed to be said. Once our eyes met, our souls fused, and the he shut the door behind him. That afternoon was never mentioned again. Sometimes I would see him at the market, or while I was out in town with my mother, but I didn’t dare to speak to him. He continued to live his life, with his fiancé, as if nothing had ever happened. Until one day, when he knew I was alone, he came to speak to me. At first I didn’t open the door. He had treated me like a dog. Used me and then discarded me as trash. For weeks I had cried myself to sleep. How could I have lost something so precious as my virginity to such a disrespectful creature? I had given him reason to disrespect me.
