In his Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Gabriel Garcia Marquez raises that very question, the question of whether the desires of society can overshadow the needs of an individual.

If a man cries out in a forest, and no one around him cares, does he make a sound?  In his Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Gabriel Garcia Marquez raises that very question, the question of whether the desires of society can overshadow the needs of an individual.  In his Chronicle, two brothers, Pablo and Pedro Vicario, arbitrarily murder a young man named Santiago Nasar.  Marquez' presented conflict, however, is the reason that the brothers give to justify their crime: honor.  Marquez' point is that societal values, such as honor, have become more important than the inherent good of human life.  Marquez, though, does not openly portray this message; instead, he uses satirical literary devices.  In this passage, for instance, he uses an apathetic tone and a satirical allusion to religion to invoke his point in his audience.

        The most ubiquitous aspect of Marquez' style is his journalistic tone, an objective, seemingly apathetic tone; ironically, it elicits a response of bias against the societal values.  The reason for this ironic discrepancy is that Marquez' apathetic tone is obviously satire.  For example, as he unemotionally states that the brothers "stood by the thesis of homicide in legitimate defense of honor" (Marquez 55), he purposefully neglects to include commentary.  When he adds that this defense was "upheld by the court in good faith" (Marquez 55), there is likewise no hint of personal opinion.  It is this very lack of emotion that produces an emotional response; his audience, compelled by their human nature, must necessarily find fault with this apathy.  The portrayed society, however, does not find fault with such apathy: they are, instead, the ones that are apathetic.  If a person is compelled by their human nature to judge this sentiment as wrong, then it would seem as though Pedro and Pablo Vicario would never have said that "they would have done it again a thousand times over for the same reason" (Marquez 55).  This is part of Marquez' point; with this, he demonstrates that the values of society have overshadowed the intrinsic values of life.  Moreover, with this he demonstrates the value of an objective viewpoint.  As in the example of the Vicario brothers, a subjective mind is a mind blind to truth.  Thus, by telling this tale apathetically, he erases any possibility of his opinions influencing his audience's; he relies on their intrinsic sense of morality, unclouded by subjectivity, to extract the meaning of the satire.