Chronicle of a Death Foretold

From KstructIB

Chronicle of a Death Foretold

Structure:

1. Santiago Nasar- description
   Morning of the death and after-wedding celebrations
2. Background to wedding of San Roman and Vicario
3. Brothers in jail
   Reconstruction of pre-killing events
4. Aftermath of killing
   People’s various stories of events (over time)
5. Build up to killing
   The killing itself

Each of the first four chapters in Chronicle of a Death Foretold reiterates from a different viewpoint the events leading up to the critical event of the novel. The final chapter then describes the death itself. This multi-faceted approach to the climax of the novel has the effect of;

1. building suspense
2. increasing detail
3. causing a confusion of chronology
4. creates the illusion of piecing together the differing views like a 'broken mirror' (First piece of figurative language, Pg. 6)

thus leading to an increased involvement of the reader in the novel.

Magic realism
Def; 'Magical realism is an artistic genre in which magical elements or illogical scenarios appear in otherwise realistic or even "normal" settings.' [1] A combination of the real and the fantastic, imaginary, using image to describe things. The quasi-realistic; fictional prose which is characterised by realistic and fantastic elements. Realistic details and knowledge intertwined with image, also tangled plots and time interrupted and shifted. Fairytales, myths and superstitions etc are often incorporated into the plot (e.g. the old man in chronicle didn’t want to sell his house because he thought his dead wife lived there; Pg 36/37 “tears bubbling in widower Xeus’s heart). The technique is common of Latin American writers, especially Marquez.

Magical Realism in Chronicle:

• Plot in no chronological order
• “Tears bubbling in his heart” Pg 36/37
• Superstition about combing hair Pg 31
• Symbolism about tress in dream (superstition) Pg 99
• Negative imagery “Lagoon of lost causes” Pg 100
• “Burning with fever of literature, margins written with blood” Pg 100
• “The town was an open wound” Pg 99
• Tangled plot and dramatic time changes; very visible

Culture of Depicted Society:

• Heavily Catholic
• Male dominant society; women inferior
• Set in the 1950s
• Family is very important; no divorce, marriage very important Pg 34 (Widower Xeus illustrates this)
• Women needed to be virgins at marriage Pg 30
• Tensions between S. Americans and Arabs
• Santiago was killed for pride as well as religion Pg 49
• Lots of contradictions within ideas; girl beaten for not being a virgin when her brother comes home from a brothel; double standard
• Superstitions (see overleaf)
• Women stick together; they tell Angela they’ll teach her ways to cover up her lost virginity

Similarities to the Detective Story Genre
Likeness to Detective Story:

• Getting close to the killing, the time differences get shorter and shorter to build up suspense
• Pg 61, brief overview of characters, like Colombo etc, characters are shallow, represented by their statements. Only 3 main characters
• Chronological order is messed up, many flashbacks- piecing together of a puzzle
• 1st person narration throughout, narrator himself is like a detective, exploring ideas, comments etc
• Vocabulary of vagueness and doubt- Pg 52 “Sometime later”

        Pg 49 “Seemed to be” 

Pg 49 “Wasn’t certain”

Unlike Detective Story:

• Pg 19 “How and why”- unanswered questions
• Book is more of a hypothesis rather than being an accurate, thorough investigation