Society In Gabriel Garcia Márquez's Chronicle Of A Death Foretold

The possibility of growth within a society drives many to voice their views on the world. In myriad ways, artist of all conventions indirectly confront social issues in order to advocate change. For this reason, authors frequently add a sense of ambiguity to their style of writing, as it adds a sense of universality to the novel, allowing the reader to connect with the text more personally as they apply it to their own life. Building upon their personal experiences, authors often depict the dangers of certain traditions, underscoring them with a universal warning for today’s society. Gabriel García Márquez uses striking writing techniques to illustrate the theme of importance of society in satirizing societal customs within his twentieth-century

García Márquez depicts his animosity towards how indifferent society is by using gluttonously graphic imagery throughout the novel. One of the most gruesome examples of this imagery uses magical realism when “[Santiago] stood up, leaning to one side, and started to walk in a state of hallucination, holding his hanging intestines in his hands” (119). Here Gabriel García Márquez’s use of magical realism allows him to blur the lines between reality and the supernatural in order to show in great detail the brutal murder of Santiago. García Márquez purposely does this, as it is often difficult to explain dark events, as these gruesome events are the result of societal indifference, hence illuminating the theme of importance of society. By using magical realism, a style of writing Gabriel García Márquez has helped pioneer, he uses a technique that is grounded in his Colombian roots to tackle a universal message in such an overt way. It is necessary to dramatize the horror of Santiago’s murder as twenty-two members of the community knew he was going to be killed, nevertheless no one warned him about the threat to his

In order to portray the universality of gender roles, Gabriel García Márquez allows the presence of this custom in Chronicle of a Death Foretold, to appear in varying degrees, showing typical and atypical roles. Nevertheless, in this novella García Márquez uses satire in order to invalidate cult of machismo and the presence of gender roles. In this town, there is a strong sense of virility, where men are dominant and of great importance as shown in the Vicario household where it is made clear that, “The brothers were brought up to be men. The girls had been reared to get married” (31). Although the societal customs deems this typical female submissive behavior as acceptable, García Márquez uses satire by implicitly stating that the entire point of a woman’s life is to get married, to become subservient to a man. In the light of this, Angela Vicario is forced to marry a man she does not love but then returned when it is discovered that Angela is not a virgin, as if she is an object. Hence, in using satire, García Márquez shows how these gender roles place women on a level that may be considered even subhuman and dangerous they really are. García Márquez shows the importance of society by showing how a typical female submissive, Pura Vicario, not only condones these gender