Death Foretold Machismo

In Chronicle of a Death Foretold, written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Marquez incorporates the culture of Colombia with a focus on three ideas that were prevalent during the 1950’s: the stress placed on women to be pure for marriage, the concept of machismo, and the importance family honor. Marquez presents these aspects of Colombian culture as an epitome of a flawed way of thinking, because ultimately this ideology ends with murder. Marques critiques the gender role women take, by focusing on their need to be pure for marriage, and the way that men dominate, and control them in family life. Marquez also rebukes the concept of machismo and the importance of honor, by having these justify the murder of Santiago Nasar.

In Chronicle of a Death

The idea of machismo was and still is very important to Colombian culture which Marquez uses to pressure the men in the novel to act according to what society expected them too. Machismo is defined as a strong or exaggerated sense of manliness, and also a strong or exaggerated sense of power or the right to dominate (Dictionary.com). Both parts of the definition are applied to the story. The first place this is evident with the strong sense of manliness is with Bayardo San Roman. He ensures that the town knows he has “access to endless resources” and he flaunts his wealth with his “saddlebags decorated with silver” (Marquez 27, 25). Bayardo being wealthy creates this sense of superiority where people thinks he’s “capable of doing everything, and doing it quite well” (Marquez 27). Bayardo machismo causes him to be arrogant to the point he doesn’t “even attempt to court Angela” because he’s so confident that she’ll marry him from his social stature. This goes both ways women wouldn’t want to marry a man “if he hadn’t done what a man should do,” demonstrating the pressure that is put on men to be strong and represent their family (Marquez 62). It’s also evident with the two Vicario brothers, Pedro and Pablo. The two brothers “were brought up to be men,” and because of machismo they have an overwhelming need to protect their family (Marquez 31). Men in the family are told to take care and watch over the family, so when learning of Angela’s impurity, they feel as if they failed to do their job as men of the house. This idea of machismo influences characters such as Bayardo and the Vicario Twins to act in a way that will impress others. By doing so both become so driven by the need to be manly that they miss how their actions are perceived and the consequences that follow, which Marquez attempts to demonstrate by having the Vicario Brothers murder, and displaying Bayardo being so vain, and