Once the family of Angela becomes aware of Bayardo’s background and wealth they see how they can use the marriage as an advantage, to bring respect from the townspeople and money to the family. As Bayardo’s reputation became known the wedding ‘ended up being a public event’, and the immense pressure on Angela’s brothers to kill Nasar increased. In general, people accepted their actions, being as it followed common tradition about what should be done in such a situation; the perpetrator was either to be killed or made to marry the girl he disgraced. ‘The horrible duty’ was, after all, something a ‘man should do.’ After the brother ‘proved their status as men’ they were arrested and taken to court, but the officials treated it with the same attitude as the rest of the community. ‘The lawyer stood by the thesis of homicide in legitimate defense of honor, which was upheld by the court…’
The brothers know that people accept this idea and therefore are very open about their plans. In various points throughout the book they make clear exactly what they mean to do, making it very obvious in perhaps suggesting their hesitancy and want to be stopped. Disregarding the fact, it seems, that no one bothers to warn Nasar until it is too late; most ‘thought it had all been a fib.’ Whether it is because it is because they didn’t believe that Nasar would be killed or because if their acceptance does not seem to matter when considering their influence was still a crucial factor.
The idea of a court reinforcing the rules of a society is brought across even further in the second novel. In The Outsider Mersualt is condemned to die as punishment for killing an Arab, but upon closer reading it can be inferred that his death was a result of an impartial judgement of character rather than the actual crime itself since no reference was made about the Arab in the duration of the whole trial. All deliberation was focused on the character of Mersault and how he was not a decent person.
The events prior to the shooting of the Arab are important to consider when looking at why Mersault was thought to be in indecent person. In this society when someone passed away it was customary to keep a vigil over the body and mourn for a period of time out of respect for the dead. Mersault did not conform to this standard, not because he purposely chose not to, but because ‘it really didn’t matter’ to him. Instead of following what was expected of a son to do at his mother’s funeral Mersault drinks some coffee and smokes a cigarette, much to the dismay of those around him. When faced in court with the accusation the prosecutor argued that he should have refused to drink ‘beside the body of the one who brought him into the world’ because it simply was not morally right to accept it.
Another piece of evidence that was used against Mersault was his experience with Marie, a girl he was seeing romantically. When it comes out that he went to a film and slept with her a day after the funeral the jury reacts with a ‘complete silence’ demonstrating their shock. It is not appropriate for members of their society to engage in such pleasures in times of mourning, even if they are things people normally do in their lives. Mersault’s action here causes them to question his sense of morals even further by questioning his faith.
One of the most critical points in deciding the jury’s position concerning Mersault’s punishment is his confessed non-belief in God; ‘it was impossible…all men believed in God’, those who did not must be immoral. It seems that for this society it was important that others followed the prescribed rules for the functioning of the community, anyone who did not was a threat, considering this idea, Mersault had ‘no place in a society…whose fundamental rules’ he had ignored.
So much emphasis was placed on the way that Mersault behaved the few days after his mother’s funeral that he was no longer accused of murder but of ‘burying his mother like a heartless criminal.’ The punishment the jury saw fit was his removal from their society, ‘any man who was morally responsible for his mother’s death thereby cut himself off from the society of men.’
In comparing these two stories: both of these characters were sentenced to death by society in one form or another. In Nasar’s death the society he lived in set the stage it. He was thought to have broken the laws of society and the Vicario brothers, bred by this society, had to live up to it’s standards for his punishment; in essence, Santiago Nasar’s death was a by-product of his society’s teachings. Mersault’s death, on the other hand, was the result of his society’s inability to cope with his unconventional character. They could not accept that he did not follow their rules so they felt they had to get rid of him. The influence of the surrounding society was more indirect in Nasar’s case by rearing the belief system that was his downfall; the society that which Mersault lived was directly responsible for his death by convicting him out of their own arrogant view on how people should act within their society.
Chronicle of A Death Foretold ,Gabriel Garcia Marquez, translation by Gregory Rabassa, Picador 1983 (pg. 37)
The Outsider , Albert Camus, translation by Jospeh Laredo, Penguin Books 1982, (pg.14)