CoaDF​ Chapter 2 Questions

1. Characterize Bayardo San Román:

a. Bayardo San Román was around the age of thirty, yet his good looks worked to
conceal this. He had golden eyes and golden skin, with the “waist of a novice
bullfighter”(25). Shows that even his physical appearance contributes to his
control and power over women, as he is the ideal man. He looked like a fairy
according to Magdelena Oliver (26). He comes from a well known family, and he
is ready to take over the town with his wealth and power. “‘He reminded me of
the devil,” and “his golden eyes had caused a shudder of fear in her.” Both said by
the narrator’s mother in letter form.
b. Page 29: Román comments on Angela’s name[ “She’s well-named”] : which
means angel, meaning he’s expecting to marry and to be with a woman of purity,
which is how the beautiful, young Vicario appears. Also comments that when he
wakes up, he asks someone to remind him that he’ll marry her(29).
c. Román challenged the best swimmers in town to cross the river and back,
something he beat all the town swimmers at. (27). He heavily and unrelentingly
persuaded the owner of Angela’s dream house [actually, she just called the house
pretty, showing how controlling and domineering he is] to sell it to him, a house
associated to this man’s lost wife, and his persistence eventually caused the man
to cave for 10,000 pesos. (36) Also, Román bought (or rather won it in a raffle he
rigged) the music box and gave it to Angela in courtship. Román wants things,
while the widower is sentimental, helping Máarquez define love. Page 46: Angela
is so badly beaten that her mother asks if she is of this world. Márquez doesn’e
ven mention that Angela is beaten, just that her dress is tattered and she’s
wrapped in her towel, and his lack of direct statement means represents the
normalization of this machismo ideal in a society that allows this kind of abuse.
2. Characterize Angela Vicario:
a. “She confessed to me that he’d managed to impress her, but for reasons opposite
those of love. ‘I detested conceited men, and I’d never seen one so
stuck-up,’”(29), also mentions that “She couldn’t imagine that [Bayardo], just to
impress her, had bought all the tickets in the raffle.”(29). Page
b. 37: She prayed for the courage to kill herself. She says this because of the
immense pressure and
3. expectations she had to endure from her family and the town, yet since none of them
would give, she felt she had to be the one to give. Her sisters speak of “childhood
accidents,” in other words, an example of ambiguity representing women’s
[non-consensual] sexual experiences.
a. “The brothers were brought up to be men. The girls had been reared to get
married.” “Angela Vicario was born
b. Page 41: “On the other hand, the fact that Angela Vicario dared put on the veil
and the orange blossoms without being a virgin would be interpreted afterwards
as a profanation of the symbols of purity” The difference between real flowers
and fake flowers, and the Vicario family are experts at creating fake flowers, or
feigning purity and innocence. Displays that women were deceitful and deceptive.
 Last paragraph of page 47 : I don’t think we’re supposed to know who she lost her
virginity
4. to, or that the name in itself matters to her. She might’ve had multiple people who raped
her and she just expressed one, or maybe she targeted him because she’s half-arab and
already disliked by the town. She looked for the name in the shadows, meaning she had
to search and search, meaning he probably didn’t. Yet Nasar still represents something
bad :machismo. Is he a sacrificial lamb? Is he going down for the sins of the town?.