Is the Killing in the Chronicles of a Death Foretold Necessary as Means of Restoring Female Honor?

Is the Killing in The Chronicles of A Death Foretold Necessary as Means

Of

Restoring Female Honor?

Candidate: Nikesha Deenoo

Harry Ainlay High School

Assignment #2

Words: 1,034

“Honor” is important to many families of ethic cultures and is often highly protected by any means necessary, as it gives a family its status and identity in society. In Spanish culture, female daughters hold the honor of a family, which is determined solely by their purity as a virgin. The Chronicles of a Death Foretold is a novel by Gabriel Garcia Mбrquez, which highlights this importance in Spanish culture. Moreover, it is the duty and obligation of the men in the family to protect a woman’s reputation through any means necessary. In exchange for their honor Pablo and Pedro kill Santiago Nasar; Angela’s perpetrator, so the family honor is restored. The killing in The Chronicles of A Death Foretold is necessary as a means of restoring the female honor, because it allows for the prevention of an innocent death and a marriage of a “disgraced” women.

The title of the novel itself reveals the general nature of the plot and has two references to storytelling; chronicle and foretold. The novel seems to be an investigation, from the narrator’s point of view. The narrator is not only the storyteller, but the investigator; therefore the novel only reveals facts that the narrator seems relevant. Moreover, the narrator has a close association with Santiago Nasar, as he is his friend and his mother is the godmother of Santiago Nasar. The narrator takes the audience into the life of Angela Vicario, who was rapped by Santiago Nascar when he had “caught [Angela] alone” (14). When Angela’s virginity is lost, supposedly to Santiago, she is the one tainted with disgrace that stained her entire family name. “[She] felt like the drowsiness of death…” (52) would lead to her downfall in the novel. She realizes that she was as close to death as “[she] thought [they were] going to kill [her]…” (52). The chance that her brothers would take revenge on Santiago Nasar, gave her hope for a better life and the feeling of death “had finally been lifted from [her]…” (52) and she “was no longer frightened” (52). Her brother’s actions prevented the innocent death of Angela. In a strict culture such as the one expressed in the novel, a women can commit suicide due to psychological and social pressure; as she states that she “pray[s] to God for” the “courage to kill [her]self”(41) and “[she’d] made up [her] mind to die” (106), regardless sexual intercourse was forced on her. A man such as Santiago Nasar took advantage of women in the brothel, even with the daughter of Victoria Guzmбn his cook, and walked away with his honor, while theirs was destroyed. As they are not as high class as Angela, nothing could have been done and no one would believe those women of lower class. However, when it came to Angela, society had had enough. Everyone knew that Santiago Nasar was going to be murdered that day. The whole town however did not make an effort to get the message across as the thought that it was “drunkard’s talk” (13), regardless they passed by him and talked to him. This comes to show that he was an unwanted man in society. If people had believed he was a man of dignity and respected women, they would have questioned and warned Santiago Nasar before the Vicario brothers would have killed him. Furthermore, the Vicario brothers did not hide their intentions, but made them public as they “killed him openly” (55). The lawyer defended the Vicario brothers in court “by the thesis of homicide in legitimate defense of honor, which was upheld by court in good faith…” (55). Therefore, the sentence was not that long and they had restored the female honor in their family, by killing Angela’s perpetrator. It is socially accepted to kill for