Chronicle of a Death Foretold

“Santiago Nasar knew it was true, but church pomp had an irresistible fascination for him.”

Santiago’s fascination with the pomp of the bishop’s arrival foreshadows the crowd that will gather to witness his death. He knows that the bishop will likely not get off the boat, but he wants to feel part of a community action by witnessing the bishop’s visit. The act of observation is an important way of documenting historical and social events such as the visit of the bishop or a murder. Santiago’s decision to be a part of this crowd suggests that he shares the same mindset as the people who gathered to watch his murder.

“He already looked like a ghost.”

As Santiago passes through the town, people see him as a “ghost” (13). This spectral appearance adds to the sense that his death is already preordained, raising the issue of The Complicity of the Crowd. Santiago is dead and the body walking through the streets is simply waiting to fully become the ghost he is destined to be.

“No one even wondered whether Santiago Nasar had been warned, because it seemed impossible to all that he hadn’t.”

At the time of Santiago’s death, everyone in the town is aware of the rumors. They all know about the twins’ plan to kill Santiago. Since so many people know, an overload of inaction is created, leading to The Complicity of the Crowd. Each person assumes that someone else has warned Santiago. With the rumors so prevalent and the anticipation building so rapidly, no one stops to think whether Santiago has been warned. The individuals who do not warn him are able to abandon their responsibility to the anonymity of the crowd.

“You always have to take the side of the dead.”

In their discussions about the impending murder, the characters speak to one another with a sense of helplessness. They feel unable to intervene and stop the murder, even though Santiago is still alive. Instead, they are more concerned with taking sides and establishing narratives than actually intervening to prevent violence.

“In those days it wasn’t permitted to receive communion standing and everything was in Latin.”

The use of Latin during mass and other aspects of Catholic dogma are treated as immutable and unchangeable parts of the culture in the town. However, Catholic doctrine did change and the use of alternative languages for the saying of mass was implemented. The narrator acknowledges that this relic of the cultural past is not as unchangeable as people once believed, hinting that other Catholic-infused aspects of the culture—such as the reverence of Mary and the concept of virginity—may be equally as changeable, if only people could imagine the change.

“‘When I wake up,’ he said, ‘remind me that I’m going to marry her.’”

Bayardo’s declaration of his intent to marry Angela hints at the more general belief in fate and destiny. Though his words may be part of a chauvinistic boast, he frames his desire in a predestined manner. All he needs is to be reminded of his fate—then he will achieve it.

“My mother was the only one who wouldn’t go out to greet him when she found out who he was.”

The actions of the general during the civil wars in the country’s history may be questionable. Despite the general’s dubious moral history, most people ignore this because of his wealth and celebratory. In this sense, material conditions have the power to override moral concerns. Just as Bayardo’s proposal to Angela is determined by his immense wealth, his father’s status is immune to criticism because he is famous and wealthy. Some people, however, are able to pierce through the veil, though they are noticeably in the minority.

“He died because of that.”

In effect, Bayardo indirectly kills Xius by overpaying for the widower’s home. In taking away the home with an offer that the old man cannot refuse, he takes away part of Xius’s identity. Through his wealth, he purchases the physical representation of Xius’s grief and denies him the opportunity to inhabit the space which once belonged to his wife. Bayardo’s wealth is corrosive, especially when it cannot be denied.

“I had a very confused memory of the festival before I decided to rescue it piece by piece from the memory of others.”

The book itself is an investigation into the events surrounding the murder of Santiago Nasar. Both the book and the investigation illustrate the way in which people’s competing narratives clash together, reflecting The Reconstruction of Memory. People cannot agree on the weather, yet alone the circumstances surrounding a terrible crime. This hints at the inherent subjectivity of existence. Even for a man who was present in the town at the time and knew the people involved, the recollection is “very confused” (43). Every person who was there has a confused memory of the incident and the narrator is on an impossible mission to collate these competing, subjective narratives into a single, objective version of events.

“‘We killed him openly,‘ Pedro Vicario said, ‘but we’re innocent.’”

The twins maintain their innocence while also admitting to murdering Santiago. Rather than providing an example of cognitive dissonance, the apparent contradiction in their words reveals the importance of Honor and Violence in the town. To the twins, as to many other people, the murder of Santiago was justified. As such, the twins cannot be morally guilty because the murder was inevitable to them once Santiago was accused of sleeping with Angela. In this way, honor is more important than the law.

“Those two aren’t about to kill anybody, much less someone rich.”

There is a general assumption among the people of the town that wealth insulates against consequences. When the rumor about the imminent murder of Santiago begins to spread, people do not believe that the poor twins could get away with murdering the wealthy Santiago. Like many of the common assumptions held in the town, this is proven to be false: Santiago is no less protected from murder than Bayardo is protected from public humiliation.

“It’s as if it had already happened.”

Pablo encourages his brother to carry out the murder by framing their actions as inevitable. Even though both men have done nothing, Pablo tells his brother that the murder is predestined. It has already “happened,” even as Pedro scrambles desperately for any excuse to stop himself. The force of fate, social obligation, and public reputation conspire to drive them forward.

“It was she who did away with my generation’s virginity.”

The honor system which the townspeople hold to be so important is riven with incoherencies and contradictions. Angela’s perceived “virginity” and “honor” are held to be so important that a man must die, while most of the men in the town regularly visit the local brothel and have sex before marriage. Men are held to a different standard than women, murdering one another over sins they regularly commit themselves, reflecting the code of Honor and Violence that predominates.

“He’d drunk so much that his memories of that encounter were always quite confused.”

Reality, as it appears in the novel, is an ephemeral idea. Many things affect memory, from time to alcohol to misinterpretation. As such, The Reconstruction of Memory from competing memories is an impossible task. The narrator weaves together the drunken half-remembered interpretations of many different people and, in doing so, implies that nothing in the story can truly be relied upon.

“But it was an order from the mayor, and orders from that barbarian, stupid as they might have been, had to be obeyed.”

Killing a man in the name of honor may seem a ridiculous conceit, especially when no facts have been confirmed and no trial has taken place. In the context of the story, however, absurd and ridiculous ideas must be entertained. Orders must be followed, even when they are demonstrably “stupid” (72). Convention is a powerful force and one which exculpates even the most ridiculous actions.

“It was like being awake twice over.”

In the aftermath of the murder, the twins endure a moment of intense emotion. This intensity is not like dreaming, but a more pronounced version of waking life in which everything is intensified by the reality of what has transpired. They are waking up from a dream and confronting reality with a new perspective.

“She dressed her in bright red so nobody might think she was mourning her secret lover.”

When departing the town, Angela is made to dress in the brightest possible colors. Her public performance of innocence is a doomed attempt to recapture her “honor.” In the same way that the murder became a public spectacle, everything is turned into theater as the people of the town wrangle with their complicated social expectations.

“For the immense majority of people there was only one victim: Bayardo San Román.”

In the misogynistic society portrayed in the novel, the only true victim is Bayardo. The people of the town consider woman to be little more than property, so Angela’s sexual experience is treated as though Bayardo has been cheated in a business deal.

“Mistress of her fate for the first time, Angela Vicario then discovered that hate and love are reciprocal passions.”

Only once Angela has lost everything is she free to feel emotions on her own terms. Since her affair and public shaming, she has little to offer a patriarchal society. Since she can no longer offer the value that society has placed on women’s perceived virginity, she is not compelled to marry a man she does not want to marry for the sake of her family’s honor. As such, she is free to marry whomsoever she pleases. She finds freedom in her marginalization.

“For years, we couldn’t talk about anything else.”

The people of the town “couldn’t” (97) stop talking about the murder. They are compelled to discuss the matter because they feel a shared sense of responsibility for what has taken place, tacitly acknowledging The Complicity of the Crowd. No one stepped in to warn Santiago until events were seemingly inevitably set in motion. The people are trapped inside a desperate need to explain the absurdity of what has transpired, and they want to create a satisfying narrative. That the narrator is still embarking on this task many years later suggests that they have failed.

“More than a century of cases were piled up on the floor of the decrepit colonial building that had been Sir Francis Drake’s headquarters for two days.”

The office building has existed for centuries but is defined by only two days. The presence of Sir Francis Drake is an allusion to the violence of colonialism, which lingers in the country long after the colonialists’ supposed departure. The vestigial institutions are still defined by their colonial associations rather than their contemporary function. In a similar way, the town is now defined by a brief burst of violence which affects and shapes the perception of the geographical space.

“They scarcely noticed it, because they were still interested in the costs of the wedding.”

The guests are so focused on the financial costs of the wedding that they are unable to comprehend the real costs which will soon be paid. Santiago is among the people interested in the material dimensions of the wedding, hinting again that he has no idea of the fate that lays in store for him. The real “costs of the wedding” (103) will be felt keenly by Santiago, once he has been made aware of what they really are.

“Everything that happened after that is in the public domain.”

The events surrounding the murder are put in motion, accelerating at such a speed that they cannot be stopped. The blame belongs to the society which allowed the murder to transpire and, thus, the narrative belongs to the community—it is all now “in the public domain.” The narrative of Santiago’s murder is not the story of a man or two men, but of a community of people who failed him and who failed themselves—an indictment of The Complicity of the Crowd.