The novel Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, occupies a unique place among Marquez's works because the narrative is both journalistic and fabricated. The author frequently uses journalistic techniques in his fiction

Liang Chen

The novel Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, occupies a unique place among Marquez’s works because the narrative is both journalistic and fabricated. The author frequently uses journalistic techniques in his fiction. In most of his novels he creates a high level of interest in the very first line of the text, and employs many journalistic details based on close observation throughout the entire novel. This journalistic quality, the search for the facts, is in contrasted with the surrealism of this novel.

The narrative outlines the events surrounding the murder of Santiago Nasar, a young man who is thought to have taken the virginity of Angela Vicario. On her wedding night, after discovering that she was no longer a virgin, Angela’s husband, Bayardo San Roman, returns her to her mother’s house. Angela's twin brothers, Pedro Vicario and Pablo Vicario, finds out from her that Santiago Nasar was the one who dishonoured their family and they set out to kill him.

Throughout the entire book the reader is engaged in a mystified and confusing world of time and tales. The title of the book, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, suggests to the reader that this book may be like the pages of a history book where events and facts follow each other in chronological order. But it is in fact the exact opposite. The occurrence of the events that leads to and after the death of Santiago Nasar is in no particular order. The series of events that slowly unfolds is in the order of the people the narrator interviews telling their story or what they recounts. By doing this the author has left the readers the job of putting together the pieces and details to finish this puzzle and in doing so he has engaged the reader in the novel and at the same time brought about confusion.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez starts off the novel with the narrator telling us about Santiago Nasar’s household the morning he was murdered; about the dream Santiago had that morning. “On the day they were going to kill him, Santiago Nasar got up at five-thirty in the morning to wait for the boat the bishop was coming on. He'd dreamed he was going through a grove of timber trees where a gentle drizzle was falling, and for an instant he was happy in his dream, but when he awoke he felt completely spattered with bird shit.” The author starts the novel off ...

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Dreaming is the subjective experience of imageries, sounds, words, thoughts or sensations during sleep, it is a world created by our minds when we have no conscious thought, it is the perfect description of the surreal. “"He was always dreaming about trees," Placida Linero, his mother, told me twenty-seven years later, recalling the details of that distressing Monday. "The week before, he'd dreamed that he was alone in a tinfoil airplane and flying through the almond trees without bumping into anything,"” These unusually detailed descriptions of Santiago’s dreams contradicts the journalistic investigative style of the narrative, and sends the reader into several different abstract areas between reality and fiction that they would then have to disentangle from.

Throughout the book, a sense of the surreal and confusion is shown, not only in the details of the story but also in the forms of the text. “Furthermore: all the many people he ran into after leaving his house at five minutes past six and until he was carved up like a pig…” So far in the novel the language used and the flow of the text has been in an almost tranquil sensation, the sudden change in the language and tone of the text, “…carved up like a pig…” breaks this calm feels and drags the readers back to reality. This realism is contradicting with the surreal plot of the novel.

The coincidental incidents are also a good representation of magic realism. They heighten the overall surreal within the novel. “The front door, except for festive occasions, remained closed and barred. Nevertheless, it was there, and not at the rear door, that the men who were going to kill him waited for Santiago Nasar, and it was through there that he went out to receive the bishop, despite the fact that he would have to walk completely around the house in order to reach the docks.” The twins waited at the door Santiago Nasar was least likely to exit the house from to kill him, yet for some reason Santiago Nasar exits that door, “The Fatal Door”, just on the day they were going to kill him. But the strange thing is the twins did not kill him when he exited but instead waited when he returned. All these occurrences can be seen as coincidence, but they are better explained as a fantastic incident, the activities of the surreal world.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez repeatedly uses strange, surreal details to highlight otherwise ordinary events. One instance of this is his description of the local brothel, which sounds so nice that the reader at first has trouble establishing what exactly Maria Alejandrina Cervantes does. “I warned him: “‘A falcon who chases a warlike crane can only hope for a life of pain.’” But he didn't listen to me, dazzled by Maria Alejandrina Cervantes's illusory calls. She was his mad passion, his mistress of tears at the age of fifteen, until Ibrahim Nasar drove him out of the bed with a whip and shut him up for more than a year on The Divine Face. Ever since then they were still linked by a serious affection, but without the disorder of love, and she had so much respect for him that she never again went to bed with anyone if he was present.” Though she is a whore, the description of her is so beautiful that the readers are misled to believe that she is an elegant lady.

In the very last section of the book, Gabriel Garcia Marquez gives a very gruesome and detailed account of the very last minutes of Santiago Nasar’s life. “…walk in a state of hallucination, holding his hanging intestines in his hands.” “They were sitting down to breakfast when they saw Santiago Nasar enter, soaked in blood and carrying the roots of his entrails in his hands. Poncho Lanao told me: "What I'll never forget was the terrible smell of shit."” This very repulsive and very detailed account of Santiago’s last minutes is giving the readers a sense of reality, this sense of reality is contradicting with the surreal and magic realism seen and felt throughout the book.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez has used many accounts of magic realism in her novel, Chronicle of a Death Foretold. The factor that makes the book so puzzling to the readers would have to be the contradiction between the title and the actual format of the book. The constant jumping from past to present misplaces the readers in a labyrinth of time and confusion.