Death Foretold Gender Roles

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In Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold, he is effectively able to depict women in overwhelmingly powerless roles, where men are able to command women’s lives. The powerlessness women are given is often due to the men’s view of women in this society from 1950’s Latin America. The great conflict that drives this story is created from this powerlessness that men see in women, but ironically this is what gives a female character Angela Vicario power in this story. The conflict of Chronicle is due to Angela’s suspected loss of virginity after the night she was wed to a rich and honorable man by the name of Bayardo San Roman who was also the one who suspected her of not being a virgin. Upon discovering Angela was not avirgin he …show more content…

If men were not able to satisfy their sexual desire however they wanted they would not expect Santiago Nasar a fairly respectful man, in the taking of Angela Vicario. Santiago is not portrayed as purely innocent in the story however, and takes advantage of this power given to men by Machismo and is depicted to regularly sexually molests his housekeeper Davina Flor, as it depicts him “grabbing her whole pussy” (13) and she states that “it was what he always did” (13), the same way his father Ibraham Nasar did to Davina Flor’s mother Victoria Guzman, showing this use of power by the men to satisfy their sexual urges. Giving this submissive role to women show them in an extremely powerless situation. The reason women have to deal with this sexual abuse is that the only way to a fruitful successful life as a woman is to marry well, forcing women to endure sexual abuse if not protected by a man. Making these women powerless when the men decide that they won’t have a long term relationship with these women, and that the relationship was meant to be purely sexual. This combined with a man’s choice in a family over their daughter’s husband in a family, gives men full power over the women’s relationships and ultimately their life, from when a father gives up her daughter to a man for marriage now that man is in power of her …show more content…

In this many people are warned of this event, and the only ones to take these murder claims seriously are often women. One of which is Clotilde Armenta who the twins say that they’re “looking for [Santiago] to kill him” (54). She suspects that they are actually going to commit the murder and goes to “wake her husband and tell him what was going on in the shop” (55), as well as pleading to the law official in the town who is in her milk shop that. These action result in no reaction in her husband him saying “don’t be silly” (55) and little action from the law official saying after the fact that “when [he] saw them [he] thought they were nothing but a pair of big bluffers” (56). Despite the fact that Clotilde’s pleas to the men would become reality, all the other men would not listen or believe what she has to say. It is said that everybody in the village, except Santiago, his mother and their two housekeepers, knew of the twins plans to murder Santiago yet not one who heard would believe that the twins would be serious. “She knew them so well” (55) and says “they looked like two children” (55) her believing “children are capable of everything” (55). Even though she is very sure of her prediction she is still powerless and unable to act on her prediction unless assisted by a capable man, and because no men will see a women’s opinion over their own in this Machismo

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