Literary Commentary (Chronicle of a Death Foretold)

Literary Commentary
(Chronicle of a Death Foretold)

Chronicle of a Death Foretold tells the somewhat tragic death of Santiago Nasar at the hands of Angela Vicario—not the Vicario twins. Her forced marriage led to all sorts of feelings against the people around her that very well could have been the cause of Angela blaming Santiago for the loss of her virginity—but that does not mean that it is not true. Her negativity starts out with Bayardo San Roman, Angela’s groom. He enters the scene seeing Angela on multiple occasions in the town. On the first time they saw each other ‘first hand,’ Angela was in charge of singing out the raffle numbers when Bayardo came up and “just to impress her, had bought all the tickets in the raffle,” (Márquez, 32). This set an ongoing feeling of being bought for Angela, and it continues throughout their so-called courtship. Also her mother’s view on the idea and how she handled it with her daughter was interesting. After Bayardo introduced his family to Angela and the rest of her own family, her mother, Pura Vicario, was very high on the fact that they should get married. She was so fond of the idea that when Angela protested that she didn’t love him, her mother returned saying that her love can be learned. At this point Angela has to feel so pressured to marry this man that she can’t love him and she wants to do anything she can do to prevent this marriage from working out, thus causing her loss of virginity. This event was on purpose. The only person that felt the same about this Bayardo was herself, which made Angela an outcast amongst her surroundings. The fact that she had premarital sex was simply an act of rebellion against her parents who were forcing her upon this marriage, and seeing as though Santiago loved his women, it makes all the sense in the world that he took her virginity. This just goes to show you how society is, and was, for people in that area at that time. They just don’t care about feelings as a whole; they...