Quote Analysis of Chronicle of a death foretold

        The imagery employed by Marquez in this passage carries great importance. The image of the butterfly nailed to wall with her dart symbolizes the fate of both Angela and Santiago Nasar as Angela knows that once she utters the name, both of them would be entangled and trapped in the cultural traditions and Santiago would be dead for the honor of her family. Both Angela and Santiago are in deep trouble as soon as the name, “Santiago Nasar” comes out of Angela’s mouth but it was necessary for Angela because she would have been tortured by her brothers if she hadn’t proclaimed a name. Thus, this reveals the tradition and culture and it illustrates that the society was dominated by men while women, as the inferior, were restricted to the house. Also, to lose virginity for the woman was taken as the loss of honor of the family.

        The imagery also carries great importance as it unveils Marquez’s writing style and technique. Despite being a journalist who had to deal with reality all the time, Marquez uses ‘Magic Realism’ in his novel, Chronicle of a Death Foretold. Gabriel Marquez had visited a small village where he had reported this story and being so interested in it, he had written this novel. Thus, it is strange that Marquez fantasizes a reality. Nevertheless, Marquez uses Angela’s thoughts as the tool to pour in Magic Realism which builds up the suspense in the novel. Angela’s thoughts are interesting as she claims that, “she looked for it in the shadows, she found it at first sight among the many, many easily confused names from this world…”(47). This is interesting because she gives the reader a hint that the names that were popping in her mind were not only of those who are alive, but also those who have passed away. The mixture of the image of the butterfly with the names of the living and the dead floating around in Angela’s mind is the employment of Magic realism by Marquez as it is somewhat fantastical. This creates a conflict between the journalistic style of the novel and makes the reader even more agitated as the reader never finds out whether Santiago Nasar was actually the one or not.

        This leads the readers to another interesting point and it gives rise to several questions in the readers’ minds. Was it really Santiago Nasar? Or was it Angela’s conspiracy? The mystery remains unsolved as nobody would ever find out what was in Angela’s mind. However, there is a possibility that Angela proclaims Santiago Nasar’s name because she thought that there was a possibility that the brothers would have let Santiago live because of the deep friendship they had amongst themselves. Or it is also possible that Angela had concealed the name of the person who she had lost her virginity to and had said Santiago Nasar’s name just to have Santiago killed. But why? Was it out of jealousy that she had spent her life in a poor family and Santiago Nasar had been a rich man? Was it out of some kind of revenge? This mystery remains unresolved as Marquez never gave a complete solution or answers to any of the question and left it up to the reader to answer the question as the reader wants it to be.