A Town of Accomplices

The knowledge of Santiago Nasar’s approaching death was

collectively shared—by all but Nasar—up until the very instant the

Vicarios “gutted him like a pig”. Gabriel García Marquez’s Chronicle

of a Death Foretold is novella of moral questioning, taking a brutal,

unadorned perspective on the themes of responsibility, the strength

of human conviction, and the power of ambiguity in obscuring our

oversights. In this novella, Santiago Nasar—apple of his mother’s

eye—becomes the target of the Vicario family’s vengeful scheme, as he

is accused of “deflowering” Angela Vicario. Everyone in this cohesive

community knows about Nasar’s impending murder, and yet, Santiago

remains in the dark. Everyone—and no one—has a rationale to their

silence. In this passage from the first chapter of Chronicle of a Death

Foretold, Marquez features multiple premonitions and afterthoughts to

Nasar’s death. That, coupled with the variety of characters and their

reasons for non-involvement, as well as the constant deviation from

the subject at hand, contributes to the ambiguity and horrific element

in Santiago Nasar’s demise.

This novella is set in a rural Colombian town, where

tradition and pious-living is the implied standard. In this passage,

Marques includes various “premonitory” remarks, consistent with the

characters’ strong belief in the validity of premonitions, fate, and

general augury. “Life will be too short for people to tell about it.” (1)

Such is the remark of Santiago Nasar, wistfully recalling the previous

night’s festivities. This is highly ironic considering that he dies in an

untimely way, soon after. With this in mind, it appears as the he is

unknowingly prophesying the truncated state of his lifetime. “My sister

felt the angel pass by.” (2). The angel is surely a reference to death,

and the way that Marquez manipulates syntax—by curtailing the

beginning sentences of the paragraph—makes it seem like the image

of the angel is almost a mirror to a passing ghost. Everyone recalls

certain indications of Nasar’s approaching demise, and yet, nobody

seriously considers them. “ “It was a strange insistence,” Cristo Bedoya

told me. “So much so that sometimes I’ve thought that Margot already

knew that they were going to kill him.” ” (12-14). These premonitions,

or “omens” of Nasar’s mortality are both startling and intriguing, as,

despite the fact that all characters have a set rationale for their lack of

responsibility in his death, they all had the necessary presentiments to

be seriously concerned for him. In a tormenting way, their forebodings

make them more culpable.

In this brief paragraph, we are introduced to six

characters, five of which seem to have a rationale for their complete

inaction in alerting Santiago Nasar of the looming murder. The wide

range of both characters and excuses infuses a sense fateful ambiguity

in Nasar’s death. It is natural, especially in the circumstance of a

negative occurrence, for readers to seek comfort in blame; we pursue

the notion of assuaging the urgency of such grievous acts through

accountability. Thus, the fact that almost all of the characters have

their own rationale for silence is disorienting. Cristo Bedoya, Nasar’s

good friend, recalls Margot’s almost knowing behavior, subtly

transferring his share of responsibility into another character’s

behavior. “ “If I’d known, I would have taken him home with me even

if I had to hog-tie him.” (25) The narrator asserts that his sister was is

innocent, trailing his contention with a remark by Margot herself,

expressing what she “would” have done. However, there is no

corroboration to her statement, save for her brother’s opinion—clearly

an instance of unreliable narration. The narrator’s mother was also

unsuspecting, despite the fact that she “She knew about everything

before anyone else in the house” (27), something both highly dubious,

and lacking in required objectivity. Don Lazaro Aponte, the town’s

mayor and former colonel firmly held that “I had my own very real

reasons for believing he was wasn’t in any danger anymore.” (20-21).

It appears as though Aponte’s authority (a byproduct of his occupation)

enables him to vaguely defend his actions with unjustified certitude.

His word is taken—surely he had valid, and important reasons. The

priest himself, Father Carmen Amador—with a name ironically

translated into “caring-for-all”—feels absolved of liability, given that

“When I saw him safe and sound I thought it had all been a fib.” (22).

Much of the horror to Santiago Nasar’s is the lack of clarity in the

circumstances surrounding its occurrence. The fact that every all

characters (even the priest) seem to be ambivalent about his death

and yet certain of their premises for their inaction is almost inhumane.

All at once, the reader is confronted with the infirmity of human

morality, which is—in it’s essence—terrifying.

A defining feature of this excerpt (as well the novella), is

the ambiguity-driven style of prose. This particular paragraph is

impregnated with ambiguous dialogue, constantly deviating from the

subject at hand. This constant abstruseness in the chronicle distances

the reader from the truth, subsequently enhancing to the horror

surrounding Nasar’s decease. “She thought once more about the good

fortune of Flora Miguel, who had so many things in life and was going

to have Santiago Nasar as well on Christmas of that year.” (2-3) Prior

to this, the narrator’s sister remembers feeling an angel pass by, but

suddenly truncates her premonitory memory with a remark about

Santiago’s future fiancée. “He took leave of her with the same wave

with which he’d said good-bye to his mother and went off toward the

square on the arm of Christo Bedoya.” (16-17) The constant

circumvention of facts in the chronicle of the events leading to

Santiago Nasar’s death is disconcerting. It is horrific for readers to

envisage that the characters would be able to recall, in exhaustive

detail, all the insignificant moments of that fateful day and still claim

innocence and ignorance.

Through his masterful manipulation of ambiguity, Gabriel García

Marquez girdles Santiago Nasar’s death in horror and doubt. Including

an array of premonitory thoughts, character excuses and deviations

from the intended subject, the author instills a sense of distrust about

the morality of society, and the notion of “truth”. This excerpt is rather

reminiscent of a passage from Mette Jakobsen’s The Vanishing Act, in

which the disappearance of the mother remains eternally unknown,

a ramification of the indirect nature of both the dialogue and the

intrapersonal relationships in the novella. Chronicle of a Death Foretold

is truly a work of horror.