Chronicle of a Death Foretold

The novel “Chronicle Of A Death Foretold” written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez was originally written in Spanish. The novel talks about a murder of the man Santiago Nasar, who was killed by the Vicario brothers, who tried to pay him back for damaging their family’s honor by taking their sitser’s, called Angela Vicario, virginity. In the next paragraphs question #3 will be discussed as a response to the criticism that the characters appearing in this novel are not clearly discribed and create a distraction than rather to help the progress of the story. Gabriel Garcia Marquez is an author known for the use of magic realism in his works. Also “Chronicle of a Death Foretold” includes many examples of Magic Realism. It is this tool, which Marquez uses to decorate normal scenarios, from a day-to-day life into unreal but fantastic worlds. The criticism of the novel explains that Marquez “is unable to populate it with characters who are realistic and lasting in the memory”. It says that the novel lacks of real characters and that Marquez focuses more on describing the “setting and the mood” instead of going into more detail with the character’s image. The next paragraphs are a response

In other words, Love is defined by ritual. Many characters appear and just as they came, they disappear again. Certainly, this novel wouldn"tmt be the same if this magic realism was missing. However this atmosphere created in the novel reflects the life of an original Caribbean town, showing the different aspects one can look at an event. Each character appearing throughout the novel contributes his own little part to the event, so that at the end this story is complete, by putting all this little pieces of information together. Obviously, one cannot remember all the different names appearing throughout the story. But the fact that the author focuses more on describing a mood, smell, or event (such as Santiago Nasar"tms death or murder) creates the main argument of the critic that the novel"tms characters "completely suffer". The antagonist in this story is Angela Vicario, who was forced to marry the rich and so well respected Bayardo San Roman, who rejected her as he found out that his wife wasn"tmt a virgin anymore. He creates an imaginary world that is so similar to our everyday life, and yet it is so different from it. to this criticism, which arguments certainly miss the main point of the novel "Chronicle of a Death Foretold", by focusing too much on the aspect of the characters in the novel but not keeping in mind the many other, more important, aspects which contribute to this great novel filled with foreshadowing, social criticism, satire, and allusions. The fact that Angela Vicario didn"tmt know what to write highlights the concept of the ritual of writing and receiving letters. In the novel "Chronicle of a Death Foretold" Gabriel Garcia Marquez uses a unique style of story-telling, which is known as "magic realism". But is this really what the author wants us to focus on Or does he rather try to share with the reader the social problems or the different rituals people have in the Caribbean town Although, he might not describe in detail each character"tms personality and appearance, he does show the reader the reactions and the rituals present in a society like that little town. Although there might be confusion in the reader"tms mind seeing all this Latin American names, this novel just as all other books has a structure. Gabriel Garcia Marquez certainly doesn"tmt want the reader to remember all this names appearing in his novel and be able to tell them apart, but trying to include all this different names, the author portraits this events of the marriage of Bayardo San Roman and Angela Vicario, and the murder of Santiago Nasar as a tragedy in which the whole town takes part.