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Chronicle Of A Death Foretold Narrative Essay

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In Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s 1981 novella Chronicle of a Death Foretold, the narrative recounts the events leading up to the eventual murder of bachelor Santiago Nasar, a man accused of taking the virginity of the defrocked bride Angela Vicario despite the lack of evidence to prove the claim, and the reactions of the citizens who knew of the arrangement to sacrifice Nasar for the sake of honor. This highly intricate novella incorporates a range of literary techniques, all of which are for the readers to determine who is really to blame for Santiago Nasar’s death. Marquez uses techniques such as foreshadowing and the structure of narrative, along with themes such as violence, religion, and guilt to address the question of blame. Although Santiago …show more content…

Instead, it exhibits a journalistic aesthetic that completely transposes what the title infers. “Interviews and the actual events they treat— the distant past and a more recent past— conflate as the narrator shifts his focus frequently and without warning from the murder to its subsequent verbal versions” (Source 1). This journal-like prose is used in order to uncover the motives behind the murder, rather than the perpetrators, which are already known. The sudden transition of the narrator’s recollection and the revision of memory through time casts doubt over the resolution of Nasar’s death. Although it appears the resolution to his death is found, there is an element of uncertainty. “The cocks of dawn would catch us trying to give order to the chain of many chance events that had made absurdity possible, and it was obvious that we weren’t doing it from an urge to clear up mysteries but because none of us could go on living without an exact knowledge of the place and mission assigned to us by fate” (Marquez 96). Although the journalistic writing is effective at delivering the events in a credible way, it does not make the tellings any less subjective. This part of the story states a clear need for the community to identify what happened regarding Santiago Nasar’s death but it also portrays a need for the townspeople to absolve

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