A Chronicle Of A Death Foretold Analysis

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Recommended: Religion in colonial America

Marquez’s criticizes the Catholic religion in A Chronicle of a Death Foretold through the town’s hypocrisies. The story takes place in a town that has a strong emphasis on religion, yet society refers back to archaic rituals of honor. Society and its religious leaders persistently defy the Catholic faith, which allows for the brutal murder of Santiago Nasar. Through the hypocrisies shown in the chronicle of Santiago Nasar’s death, Marquez shows the failures of the Columbian culture’s Catholic faith as it has a negative impact of the community.
Marquez starts the description of the day of the murder with the Bishop’s visit to the town. Through this visit, Marquez begins to show both the town’s reverence for the Catholic faith and hypocrisy within the religion. The entire town prepared for the Bishop’s arrival with hopes that he would stay to bless the town, even though the Bishop had never left his boat in the past. This situational irony shows the town’s reverence, because the community continues to prepare the town for the bishop’s arrival even though he never stays. He only waves from his boat as it fades away from the town. This shows hypocrisy of in the Catholic religion, because the Bishop does not like the town even though Marquez gives no reason for the Bishop not to other than the fact that it was a small rural town. The Bishop never stays in the town, and only briefly makes appearances at the docks without even leaving his boat. This goes against the Catholic faith, because some of its core values are of forgiveness and acceptance. By not visiting the town the Bishop is being hypocritical and not practicing the values that he preaches. Further proof of the Bishop’s failure to help the town is that many people believe that...

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...atment of Santiago Nasar.
Marquez criticizes the Columbian culture’s devotion to the Catholic faith through the culture of the town in A Chronicle of a Death Foretold. Society in the town has a strong emphasis on the Catholic faith, which is shown though the Bishop’s visit, and the views on premarital sex, yet they defy their faith and resort to honor. The Bishop and Father both go against the religion that they preach by not following values of the church such as forgiveness, acceptance and respect. The people of the town also let the murder happen by following the primitive social belief in honor, and by doing nothing to help Santiago Nasar even though the entire town heard the Vicario brother’s plan. All together, these examples show that culture strong belief in religion has a negative impact on the community as it leads to the brutal murder of Santiago Nasar.

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