Patriarchy In Chronicle Of A Death Foretold

In the Latin American culture around the 19th century, men always ranked higher than women. It was a patriarchy society where there were stereotypical roles for men and women. The story told by Marquez in the Chronicle of a Death Foretold was derived from this culture. In most part of the book, women seemed to have very limited power. However, Marquez did depicted women with power in two ways. On one hand, as someone said, those who appear to be powerless in society exercise power through every-day resistances. For instance, Angela exercise her ‘power’ by mentally refused the engagement with Bayardo San Roman, though she eventually got married because of the pressure from both family and society. Also, the fact that she lost her virginity before marriage could also be considered her resistance to the patriarchy system. As a human, she had used her power to violate the rules given to women and chase her love.

Before, women had to be secretive and refined. ‘The girls had been reared to get married,’ (P.31) said by Purisima del Carmen. In the society, women were prohibited to get marriage or have relationship with more than one man. It was widely believed that they were raised to get married with men and become good wives. Nevertheless, when the narrator came back to the town years later, the society had changed. During a visit to Victoria Guzman, the narrator described she as ‘fat and faded and surrounded by the children of other loves.’(P.10) These descriptions clearly showed that women had broken the restrictions, and they had gained sexual freedom. By that time, they had the power to change and choose