Examples Of Grotesque Imagery In Chronicle Of A Death Foretold

No one can ever be sure what goes on behind closed doors, which is why it’s hard to forget that bad people, haven’t always been bad. In the novel, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Santiago Nasar, is murdered by Pablo and Pedro Vicario, because they believed that Santiago had taken their sister’s virginity. Although the Vicario brothers murdered Santiago, it is safe to say that they would have easily been the victims in the situation as well. Marquez portrays the Vicario brothers as victims, and the perpetrators of Santiago Nasar’s murder by conveying pathos through his use of grotesque imagery, imagery relating to scent, and dialogue, in order to showcase the theme that not everything is always what it seems,

and that the way that society functions, led the brothers to do what they did.
To begin with, Marquez is able to showcase that the Vicario brothers are the victims of the murder through his use of grotesque imagery. The narrator says, “The pain in his groin had reached his throat, his urine was shut off, and he suffered the frightful certainty that he wouldn’t sleep ever again for the rest of his life” (92). After realizing what they had done, Pedro begins to feel immensely sick. The thought of how they murdered someone, is swarming Pedro’s mind, and he can’t even use the bathroom. When talking about Pablo, the narrator writes, “Pablo Vicario for his part, ate a little bit of everything they brought him, and fifteen minutes later unloosed a pestilential diarrhea” (92). Like his brother, Pablo cannot fathom what he and his brother have done, and it’s making them extremely sick. This grotesque imagery makes the audience view the brothers as victims, because of the horrible ways they are feeling. They are incredibly sick, and the audience feels remorse for the brothers, thus, portraying them as victims for having to go through this horrendous suffering. Though Marquez is portraying the brothers as victims, they are not victims of Santiago himself, but of society. Their sister, Angela, leads them to believe that Santiago raped her. The fact that Angela is supposedly no longer a virgin, and was returned by her groom, brought great shame upon the Vicario family, and the two brothers felt like they needed to protect their family name. Because of the way society functions, Pablo and Pedro Vicario made a decision that ultimately cost Santiago his life. The imagery Marquez uses, and the use of pathos, showcases how the Vicario brothers are also victims of the murder.
Although Marquez uses grotesque imagery to portray the Vicario brothers as victims, he uses this same imagery to portray them as perpetrators.

After Santiago’s murder, Pancho Lanao says, “What I’ll never forget is the terrible smell of shit” (142). The grotesque imagery within this quote, is shown with the description of the scent after the murder. Because the Vicario brothers murdered Santiago, their crime left a horrible imprint on the village. They are showcased as the perpetrators because not only was Santiago the victim of the murder, but the rest of the village was as well. The occurences stuck in the villagers minds, and it is something they can never erase. For Santiago’s mother, the narrator says, “Then she went out onto the balcony and saw Santiago Nasar in front of the door, face down in the dust, trying to rise up out of his own blood” (141). Though some villagers only heard about the murder and were still distraught by it, Santiago’s own mother saw his dead body moments after he had been murdered. Santiago’s mother was affected by the actions of the Vicario brothers. Because of them, Santiago did not get to continue his life, and had his relationship with his mother cut short. Santiago was not the only victim in this circumstance, his mother was too. While there is implicit evidence that the Vicario brothers are the perpetrators of Santiago’s murder, there is explicit evidence as well. For instance, when the brothers murder Santiago, the narrator says,

“Desperate, Pablo Vicario gave him a horizontal slash on the stomach, and all his intestines exploded out” (141). The imagery used to describe the way Pablo cut into Santiago’s stomach, portrays the brothers as the perpetrators because they deliberately harmed Santiago, violently, and unjustly. Though Marquez uses grotesque imagery to portray the Vicario brothers as the victims of Santiago’s murder, he also uses the same form of imagery to showcase how the brothers are the perpetrators of Santiago’s death.
It is very easy to blame the Vicario brothers for Santiago Nasar’s murder, but Marquez appeals to the audience's pathos within the imagery he uses regarding scent, and makes the audience feel pity for the brothers, in order to make them seem innocent. This imagery relating to scent can be seen when Marquez writes, “Nevertheless, life was becoming so difficult for him as the day advanced that the smell took second place” (92). While in the jail cell, the brothers are lacking hygiene, and thus the cell begins to smell of all their bodily fluids. This imagery makes the audience feel remorse for the brothers, because they are stuck in jail for trying to protect their family’s honor. This can also be seen when Marquez writes, “‘No matter how much I scrubbed with my soap and rags, I couldn’t get rid of the smell,’ Pedro Vicario told me” (90). Pedro can’t get Santiago’s smell out of his mind. The two brothers are haunted by their actions everyday, and cannot cope with what they have done. This makes the audience feel pity for the brothers, because they’ll never be able to live a normal life again. Though they murdered Santiago, they thought that it was the best way to bring back their family’s honor within the village. If society wasn’t so worried about Angela losing her virginity to another man, they wouldn’t have had to try and defend their last name. They are the real victims of the murder, and this is showcased through Marquez’s use of pathos within his imagery.
Marquez also makes the Vicario brothers seem like the perpetrators of Santiago Nasar’s murder with his use of pathos through the character’s dialogue. One instance in which the audience feels remorse for not only Santiago, but his mother, is when she says, “‘Santiago my son,’ she shouted at him, ‘what has happened to you’” (143). The audience feels remorse for Santiago’s mother because she sees her own sons body, beaten to a pulp, and stabbed all over, while he is barely breathing. She doesn’t know how to react at all. This dialogue portrays the Vicario brothers are the perpetrators of the murder, because the took a mother’s child away from her. Another instance where Santiago is portrayed as the victim, and the Vicario brothers as the perpetrators, is when Santiago says, “‘They’ve killed me, Wene child’ [...]” (143). Santiago could barely defend himself as the two brothers ganged up on him. This eventually led to his death, and it left the whole village in a state of disbelief. The Vicario brothers aren’t the victims, because they killed Santiago, and left it to the community to clean up the mess that they had made. Marquez is able to portray the brothers as the perpetrators through his use of pathos within the dialogue of the characters.
The ambiguity between the innocence of the Vicario brothers, and their horrific crime is showcased throughout the novel, to portray the theme that everything is not always what it seems, and that sometimes the perpetrators do what they do, because of the way society functions.

One of the main reasons for the way the Vicario brothers acted is because of what they believed Santiago had done to their sister. The narrator says, ¨Angela Vicario, [..] had been returned to the house of her parents, because her husband had discovered that she wasn’t a virgin” (24). The brothers believed that Santiago had taken their sister’s virginity, and that is what made them murder Santiago. They wanted to protect their family’s name, and avenge their sister for what Santiago did to ruin her relationship. While the two murdered Santiago, Marquez portrays them as bother perpetrators and victims to show how someone can be both innocent and guilty at the same time. There is always an underlying reason for the way someone acts, and the actions one makes. While there are good people in this world, those good people could be doing horrific things behind closed

doors.
In conclusion, the Vicario brothers could be viewed as both the victims of Santiago Nasar´s murder, and the perpetrators. Marquez is able to make both these viewpoints possible though his use of grotesque imagery, imagery relating to scent, dialogue, and incorporating pathos within each of these literary devices, in an effort to show how everything is not always what it seems, and that there is always reasoning behind the way someone acts. Like in real life, there is a backstory to everything.