Although the basic outline of the plot is essentially an account of all the events leading up to the death of Santiago Nasar, the chief interest is undoubtedly the town as a collective. Marquez uses the story of Santiago Nasar’s tragic death to illustrate and analyse the community and the trappings of living in a small town. The claustrophobia of the town is almost tangible. Every event that takes place is quickly spread to all the citizens. Everyone knows everyone else’s business and there seems to be some sort of link between every person. As the story unfolds, you become so engrossed in the events, that you begin to get some sense that you are amongst the crowd, another silent onlooker to the unfolding tragedy, powerless to stop it, as are the town‘s people The whole town becomes gripped by what it knows is inevitably about to take place, and the reader cannot help but be pulled into the narrative. You become taken over by the anticipation. We are told the outcome right from the beginning of the novel, but Marquez nevertheless manages to keep the reader’s attention right until the end. This is due to the town’s people being portrayed as such a close-knit community, almost as one unit as such, and the reader cannot help but become “one of the people” also.
A very high value seems to be placed on women being virgins when they marry by the society. This is another of the primary themes dealt with by Marquez in “Cronica de una muerte anunciada”. However, throughout the story the author seems to almost mock the idea that unmarried woman should remain celibate, to emphasise the importance it has to the people of the town. The entire novel is founded on the idea that preserving an unmarried woman’s virginity is so vital that one should be willing to kill in order to do so, and the consequences of causing a woman to be “impure” is ultimately death. In order to underline this theme and its magnitude, the author makes use of several devices, irony being the most apparent:
“Nadie habría pensado, tampoco alguien dijo, que Angela Vicario no era una virgen. Ella no sabía que cualquier novio anterior y ella habían crecido junto con sus hermanas bajo el rigor de una madre de hierro. Incluso cuando era menos de dos meses antes de que ella estuviera casada, Pura Vicario no le dejaría ir hacia fuera solo con Bayardo San Roman para ver la casa donde ellos iban a vivir, pero ella y el padre ciego la acompañaron para cuidar de su honor.”
(““No one would have thought, nor did anyone say, that Angela Vicario wasn’t a virgin. She hadn’t known any previous fiancé and she’d grown up along with her sisters under the rigor of a mother of iron. Even when it was less than two months before she would be married, Pura Vicario wouldn’t let her go out alone with Bayardo San Roman to see the house where they were going to live, but she and the blind father accompanied her to watch over her honor.” )
Protecting Angela Vicario’s virginity is so important that a blind man is sent along with her as a chaperone. This is one example of Marquez’s use of ironing to underline the importance of pre-marital celibacy: having a blind man “watch” over Angela Vicario.
Angela‘s mother‘s name is “Pura“, which translates to English as “Pure”. And as her mother, Pura’s role in the novel is to protect Angela’s virginity until she is married to Bayardo San Roman Another example of the use of irony, illustrated by Marquez when detailing some of the methods used by the woman to somehow mask their “impureza”, (impurity) is that although these “laws” of their community seem to be widely accepted and carried out by the woman of the town, it seems, to a degree, to also be acceptable amongst the other women if it is discovered that any one is not in fact “pure“ when marrying.
Another way in which irony can be seen is in the manner that prostitution is portrayed throughout the book. It would appear that prostitution is generally acknowledged by the town in general as a normal practise and does not seem to be frowned upon in the slightest This gives the reader a view that the society has of the concept that young women can either stay entirely pure and stay virgins till marriage, or completely lose all sense of purity and practice prostitution.
Another thread which runs through the novel is that of religion. One of the fundamental messages of “Cronica”, is that virginity is key to keeping your honour This theme of “honour” is used to convey the degree of religion that runs through the town. Religious figures such as the Bishop and the nuns seem everyday occurrences:
“las muchachas de la escuela de las monjas cruzaron el cuadrado en aquel momento, que trota en el desorden con los uniformes de su huérfano….”
(“the girls from the nuns’ school crossed the square at that moment, trotting in disorder with their orphan’s uniforms….”)
When the gun is fired in the town and the bullet from the shot hit’s a statue of the Virgin Mary after ricocheting , the author seems to be, again, almost mocking the extent of the town’s religious beliefs. The Virgin Mary, thought of by Latin American cultures as the symbol of virginity and the ultimate in purity, is being ridiculed by this act.
The author seems to be trying to show the reader just exactly what life in this small town would be like for them. Using many literary techniques, such as strong cases of irony, he allows the culture and traditions of this people to come across through the story of Santiago Nasar‘s untimely death. We are shown the extent of the claustrophobic atmosphere experienced by the town’s folk, and how news can spread through the town. But even though practically the whole town was aware of the disaster that was about to happen involving the Vicario brothers and Santiago Nasar, no one was able to alert either Santiago Nasar or any member of his household to the tragic death that lay ahead of him and so his death was not prevented:
“Hubo nunca una muerte más anunciada”.
(“There had never been a death more foretold”)
Student Number: 1215467
Unit Code: 6022
Course: Introductory Spanish
Tutor: Beatriz Cabillero
Question: “Cronica de una muerte anunciada”, Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
“The town itself is the protagonist of the novel. The novel’s chief interest lies in its exploration of the town’s collective psyche or communal values”. Develop and Discuss.
Word Count: 1353
References:
- “Cronica de una muerte anunciada”, Gabriel Garcia Marquez. 1998