Chronicles of a Death

Foretold - Extract 4
By Abhiram, Zing, Preesa, Loki
Summary

- Bayardo thanks his mother for everything and calls her a “saint”. However,
Pura Vicario was the only who knew about her two-faced nature.
- The twins return home and are summoned by their mother.
- They find Angelo laying face down on the couch with her face bruised.
- Pedro Vicario grabs her, bottled with rage and asks her “ tell us who it was.”
- Angela looks around in the shadows for a name, and eventually reveals
Santiago Naser’s name.
 Angela Vicario Pura Vicario Bayardo San Román
The Bride and The Victim, who never Angela Vicario’s Mother, who beat Husband of Angela
revealed who really took her honor her up in rage for the lost honor
and blamed it on Santiago Nasar

Main Characters
Setting
Where did it happen?

The original setting of the story is a small village in colombia, South America.

In this extract, the setting is the time after Bayardo found out about the lost honor of his
wife and sent back to her own house with her mother beating her badly. They start at the
entrance of the Vicarios' house, for the beginning of this extract, and then shifts to their
dining hall
Purpose of extract-4

The main purpose of this particular extract is to help the audience understand how
Santiago Nasar got involved with the Vicario household and how he ended being the target
of the Vicario twins. The extract is truly able to highlight the misfortune of Santiago, and
creates a slight effect of pity for the man. The author essentially attempts to give more
information regarding the death of Santiago as well as show how fate and freewill can be
cruel to anyone.
Structure of Extract 4

While the structure in the whole novel is circular and keeps looping back to itself, this
whole extract alone is straightforward and it’s being build-up with tension of suspense
towards the end, where she finally revealed the name.

“Santiago Nasar” She said. The use of short sentence here is powerful because it stands out
from the rest of extract where there are around 6-8 lines each para and bring focus to the
sentence, and it also clears the mystery as to how Santiago Nasar got dragged into this
mess.

But while this mystery is cleared, we are still not informed the details of the brutality
happened to Angela and who really took away the honor of Angela.
 Tone & Mood Audience
Tone: constantly changes throughout the extract. ● A mature group of people
Situation is quite erratic ● Those who enjoy murder
● Suspicious mysteries
● Anger ● Someone who has experienced
At the beginning of the extract it's quite suspicious as Bayardo
lot
thanks Pura for everything and calls her a saint, but she
suddenly starts beating Angela and then the tone of the
extract slowly changes towards a sense of anger as the
Vicario brother questions Angela with rage .

Mood:
● Suspenseful
● Anticipation
● Strange
the extract ends with Angela saying that Santiago Nasar was
the one who took her honor away and therefore, this leaves
the readers wondering what will happen, and why she chose his
name which is quite strange
Literary
Devices
❖ Foreshadowing: Pedro and Pablo Vicario warns about killing Santiago Nasar.

❖ Symbolism: "like a butterfly with no will whose sentence has always been written." implies that
Angela, basically, has no control over her own fate and choices.

❖ Cliffhanger: "Santiago Nasar," she said,

Defines the purpose of the the extract and keeps the readers engaged in the story and wonder
what will happen next.

❖ Irony: "You're a saint"

Bayardo calls Pura a saint, however, it is made brutally ironic when Pura begins to beat Angela
with anger and without any hesitation.

❖ Juxtaposition and Irony: "She looked for it in the shadows, she found it at first sight among the
many, many easily confused names from this world…"
- she looked into the shadow where you can't really see anything (two opposite things)
- Also implies that Angela could have picked any other man's name, especially those men who
value her only for her honor. Therefore, she lies by picking Santiago's name only to protect
herself.
❖ Imagery: “They found Angela Vicario lying face down on the dining room couch, her face all bruised but she’d stopped crying.”

The use of imagery helps the reader understand the extent to which the mother beat Angela up and how true her previous
statement was about being beaten to death

❖ Machismo: “Pedro Vicario, the more forceful of the brothers, picked her up into the air by the waist and sat her on the dining
room table. “All right, girl,” he told her, trembling with rage..”

The use of Machismo here further connect to one of the themes of the novella which is Machismo. This is seen through how
Pedro reacts to Angela’s experience and trauma. This is a further depiction of Colombian culture at the time.

❖ Simile: “...like a butterfly with no will whose sentence has always been written.”

This simile connects to and shows how fate was already set in stone for Santiago Nasar. This connects to the theme of Fate
and Freewill.

❖ Satire: “You’re a saint”

There is usage of satire as the author critiques the Colombian culture through depicting the irony of calling the mother a
saint, as the author proceeds to show and irony in the statement as she proceeds to beat Angela.
Main themes in extract-4

1. Fate and Freewill

Throughout the events of the extract and the events prior to the extract, we find how fate eventually
finds its way to Santiago Nasar's death. By the freewill of Angela Vicario, the fate of Santiago Nasar
was nailed. Thus the theme “Fate and Freewill” almost perfectly summarizes the contents of the
extract.

“ She only took the time necessary to say the name. She looked for it in the shadows, she found it at first sight among the
many, many easily confused names from this world and the other, and she nailed it to the wall with her well-aimed dart, like a
butterfly with no will whose sentence has always been written. "Santiago Nasar," she said. “
Main themes

2. Honour and Culture

The reason for Santiago Nasar’s misfortune was mostly due to the culture he was surrounded by and
the honour of the Vicario household. If Santiago was to be born in a different culture, perhaps he would
not have faced such terrible fate by the hands of a another individual. The author also uses satirical
language to criticize how the Columbian culture in the 1900s was two-faced and judgemental.

"Thank you for everything, Mother," he told her. "You're a saint.” Only Pura Vicario knew what she did during the next two
hours, and she went to her grave with her secret. "The only thing I can remember is that she was holding me by the hair with
one hand and beating me with the other with such rage that I thought she was going to kill me," Angela Vicario told me”
Sub-theme

Machismo

The extract reveals certain interactions between characters which shows bits of
machismo embedded into the men of the Vicario family.
“ "Holy Mother of God," she said in terror. "Answer me if you're still of this world." Bayardo San Roman didn't enter, but softly
pushed his wife into the house without speaking a word.”

“ Pedro Vicario, the more forceful of the brothers, picked her up by the waist and sat her on the dining room table. "All right,
girl," he said to her, trembling with rage, "tell us who it was." “
Magical
Realism
In this excerpt there is a lack of elements of magical realism used. However, it can be seen
that there is use of: [Mostly due to the lack of any omens or superstitions in this extract]

Realistic Setting: It can be seen that the book itself was written to be set in Colombia. In
this extract, the settings used are realistic as the excerpt takes place in Bayardo’s wife’s
house after he finds out about her losing her honour.

Unique Plot Structure: The structure of this extract and the novel itself is quite unique.
The novel starts off with the conclusion, which is Santiago’s death. Moreover, through each
chapter the reader is given more information regarding the situation and the reasons that
lead to Santiago’s death.
Context of Production

The author of this novella, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, had written the book while he was
experiencing the Latin American culture and portrayed them in the novella through
combining parts of culture of both the natives and the foreign Europeans because the
essence of Latin American culture is found in the cultures mentioned above.

The author was inspired by literature and was working to be an elite journalist. He was a
reporter for ‘El Espectador’ which is a Colombian newspaper as well as a correspondent in
New York, Barcelona, Rome, Paris, as well as Caracas. This influences is seen as the novella
has a very fictitious and journalistic narrative and helped provide the plot structure of the
novella itself.
Context of Reception

The social setting nowadays is very different from the original setting of the story, where
it used to be a very conservative culture and women’s and honor are considered scarce,
whereas our society is more open & complicated towards such matters. Society nowadays
are more casual towards the way they see a women’s honor and it won’t be raised as
serious

When the book is read today, we often ridicule the idea behind omens and superstitions.
Moreover, we also scoff and criticize at the different customs found throughout the
novella common in Columbia from the 1900s.
Thank you/Gracias!
Bibliography

https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/chronicle-death-for
etold#HistoricalContext

https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/chrondeath/context/

https://www.masterclass.com/articles/what-is-magical-realism#what-are-the-ch
aracteristics-of-magical-realism

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/06/15/reviews/marq
uez-chronicle.html