Who Is To Blame For Santiago Nasar's Death

"Trying to finish it once and for all, Pedro Vicario sought his heart, but he looked for it almost in the armpit, where pigs have it" (Marquez 118). What ultimately causes Santiago Nasar to sacrificially die? In Latin America, Pablo and Pedro Vicario are Angela's twin brothers who fully immerse themselves into machismo to defend Angela's honor after she is returned on her wedding night for losing her virginity beforehand. The blame is immediately placed on Santiago Nasar by Angela, a long time friend of the Vicario's who is known for sexual harassment to his servants and late night trips to the whorehouse. The race to murder Santiago in defense of honor occurs with no successful preventions from the townspeople. In Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the author illustrates how the Vicario brothers' ids were the primary motivators in the death of Santiago, in order to portray how brutality ultimately sealed Santiago's fate.

Throughout the book, the Vicario brothers' ids are recognized by the townspeople. As their brutal nature is prevalent in various situations, further coming out as the time to kill Santiago Nasar comes closer, people begin to take notice. When Pedro Vicario asks Clotilde Armenta, the shopkeeper, where Santiago Nasar is, she is alarmed by the twins whom she has known very well. This is highlighted where she says, ""They looked like two children," she told me. And that thought frightened her, because she'd always felt that only children are capable of everything" (Marquez 55). As the twins prepare to kill Santiago, their inner ids are prevalent to Clotilde Armenta. The reason children are "capable of everything" is because they have not developed a solid moral system where they understand consequence. In other words, the twins do not fully understand the role of morals in "defending their honor", and the potential consequences. They are capable of brutality without a conscience. This illustrates their motivation to murder Santiago Nasar in relation to their mental maturity.
The importance of sacrificial hog killing in comparison to the death of Santiago Nasar is relevant throughout the book, foreshadowing his death.

One illustration occurs when the butchers discuss the extent of Pedro and Pablo Vicario's way of killing hogs in comparison to others, and if slaughtering might "reveal a soul predisposed to killing a human being" (Marquez 52). While the butcherers share stories of being haunted by their job at times and how they are particular about the circumstances they kill animals under, they recall how "the Vicario brothers sacrificed them same hogs they raised, which were so familiar to them that they called them by their names" (Marquez 52). This represents the drastic difference between the Vicario brothers and other butchers when it comes to butchering animals, thus illustrating their lack of a superego. The Vicario brothers show aggression, a lack of morals, and psychopathic tendencies. Therefore, there is reason to believe they were predisposed to act on their inner id and kill a human

being.
The Vicario brothers show no signs of a conscience as they kill Santiago Nasar. Though they have been friends with this man for their whole life, they kill him brutally with the belief it must be done. Marquez writes, "Then they both kept on knifing him against the door with alternate and easy stabs, floating in the dazzling backwater they had found on the other side of fear" (Marquez 118). This metaphor explains how the twins lose their fear while killing him, describing the water as "dazzling". The relevancy of the twins showing no fear while killing one of their own friends shows how their ids were the primary motivator. They found the opposite of fear while killing a man brutally with "easy stabs", forcing a slow, painful death on Santiago Nasar. The twins escape reality while repeatedly stabbing Santiago Nasar. The town cries out in fear, but the twins feel no shame believing they are defending their family's honor to cover what Angela did.
In Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the author illustrates how the Vicario brothers' ids were the primary motivators in the death of Santiago, in order to portray how brutality ultimately sealed Santiago's fate. Their ids are recognized by the townspeople as their brutal nature overshadows their defense of honor. Marquez also likens Santiago Nasar's death to a sacrificial hog killing, relating back to how the Vicario brothers go about killing hogs. In addition, the Vicario brothers demonstrate a lack of conscience while brutally murdering Santiago Nasar.