Social System in Gabriel Marquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold and Albert Camus’s The Stranger
“Like father, like son” the old saying goes. And naturally this is so, for if the parent lacks morals, logically the child will too. Just as parents shape their children, authority figures shape their societies. Authority figures have great impact on the common people, for if they act in dishonest or fraudulent manners, the society considers it acceptable to do the same. Such reflections between authority figures and society are seen throughout Gabriel Marquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold and Albert Camus’s The Stranger. With societies constantly looking to authority figures for guidance, Marquez and Camus satirically depict folly in the actions of the leaders in order to criticize the social system and reveal the accepted selfishness that is reflected by the people.
In order to completely understand the manner in which authority figures actions become reflected on society, a reader must observe the social system through the eyes of the narrator. Marquez begins Chronicle of A Death Foretold by establishing the town to appear very religious. The novel commences with the townspeople thoroughly preparing for the yearly arrival of the bishop. The whole town arranges for his arrival, bringing him many gifts and animals. Although Marquez establishes the city as consumed in religious dedication, a reader must analyze the thoughts of the townspeople in order to truly understand the society. The individuals of the community make elaborate preparations, not to show their spiritual devotion, but to benefit their personal selves. Each person concerns themselves with receiving a blessing from the bishop. The people seem to be...
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...ngs in order to expunge their sins, The Stranger also presents faith as a means to obliterate sins. In both systems, people rely on religion in hypocritical manners. Instead of desiring a spiritual peace, the people have been taught by authority figures, like the magistrate, to use religion in self-interest.
Overall, Marquez and Camus break the spiritual, rational, and impartial facades of the authority figures by exposing the idea that; since the leaders of the society were unable to provide a moral structure for their citizens, an accepted form of selfishness unfolded within the societies. The social systems in both novels act as the shadow of the bishop and the magistrate. Like a shadow, the societies follow in the leaders footsteps, for the society lives as a dark reflection of the authority figures who promote selfishness and false public images.
The novels The Stranger and The House of the Spirits have distinctly different plots. The authors of the books have different styles and techniques used to create their vision of a great story. In The Stranger by Albert Camus and The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende, the characters, Meursault and Esteban Garcia are established as socially distant from their associates. They have neither emotion nor remorse for anything they have done. These characters are only connected to each other through this one flaw aside the difference of individual character. The authors have built their characters in such a way, in order to incorporate an outcast in their novels.
In the experimental novel The Stranger by Albert Camus, he explores the concept of existentialism and the idea that humans are born into nothing and descend into nothingness after death. The novel takes place in the French colony of Algiers where the French-Algerians working-class colonists live in an urban setting where simple life pleasures are of the upmost importance in the lives of working class people like the protagonist of the novel Meursault. What is fascinating about this novel is that it opens up with a scene of perpetual misfortune for him through the death of his mother although he seems to express otherwise. The reader perceives this nonchalance as a lack of care. Maman’s death and its impact on Meursault appear in both the very beginning and very end of the two-part novel, suggesting a cyclical pattern in the structure. This cyclical pattern suggests not a change in the moral beliefs of Meursault but rather his registering society’s systems and beliefs and craft meaning in his own life despite the fact that he meets his demise in the end. Camus uses Maman’s funeral to characterise both Meursault and the society and customs created by the society Meursault lives in in order to contrast the two while at the same time reveal how while society changes, Meursault does not. Rather, Maman’s funeral becomes of unprecedented importance in Meursault’s life and allows him to find that nothing means anything in his meaningless world at the time of his death. He finds peace in that.
This essay has compared the differences between the societies in these two novels. There is one great similarity however that both make me thankful for having been born into a freethinking society where a person can be truly free. Our present society may not be truly perfect, but as these two novels show, it could be worse.
Values are a vital part of any community. They shape the identity of a culture and help to form the identity of each individual in that society. Sometimes these embedded values have more power over a person than anyone would like to admit. Gabriel García Márquez shows the power of the value of honor in his book, Chronicle of a Death Foretold. In García Márquez’s writing, the theme of honor shows to have control over most of the characters. Through the many characters in García Márquez’s book, we can see that the heavy burden of one’s honor is portrayed as the reason for Santiago Nasar’s unfortunate homicide.
In the three chosen works of literature, Ordinary people by Judith Guest, Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and Antigone by Sophocles, alienation, initiation, journey, suffering and reconciliation are among the themes covered by the these great works of literature. The writers through the various characters in the scripts have clearly brought out the five themes as the main themes. These works of literature act as a reflection of what was happening in the society then. In terms of literature not much has changed and would still expect the same to be happening in the society today. As acknowledged, literature indeed reflects the society, its ill values and good values. In mirroring of the ills of the society, the view is to make the society realize its mistakes and make amends. The good values are set out for others to emulate. As an imitation of human actions, literature presents an image of what people do, think and do in the society.
Individuals are generally perceived to be productions of their upbringings and socialization. Latin author, Gabriel García Márquez and Algerian writer Albert Camus, introduce how their characters conflict with socialization as a result of their cultivation in Love in the Time of Cholera and The Stranger respectively. In Márquez’s novel, the key female role is assigned to Fermina Daza, a middle class Latina in the 1800s-1900s, expected to hold prestige and marry wealthy by her father and societal pressures. In The Stranger, Meursault, the protagonist, develops a niche for logic rather than influence which provides the Christian based society with a reason to have a heinous perception of him when he fails to express emotion at his mother’s funeral. The mainstream societies in Love in the Time of Cholera and The Stranger expect affectionate relationships between parents and offspring that the protagonists, Fermina Daza and Meursault, lack which vitally develops their character away from societal norms
The novella “Chronicle of a Death Foretold” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez is viewed largely as a scathing critique of societies bound to an unrefined code of honour. While that premise is relatively simple,fairly straightforward and easily justifiable, a case in stark contrast to the aforementioned idea could also be argued.The main idea for this new case being,that defending the very essence of honour was necessary for the survival of the community in order to prevent any form of moral decline and no one man should put to a stop,the actions of those who were morally obliged to undertake the restoration of honour,after all the affairs of honour were “sacred monopolies, giving access only to those who are part of the drama”(97). Indeed,as any reader who has an idea of human history would note,that there is a natural human desire for vengeance against those who desecrate their sacred ethos.Unfortunately, this essay will not dwell on this counter point, neither would a thesis be made out of it, it is only mentioned to highlight the negative implementing factor used in the restoration of honour and that factor is brutality.
In Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Gabriel García Márquez uses the religious symbolism, allusions, and imagery to reveal the purpose of Santiago Nasar’s death; as the society’s sacrificial lamb.
García, Márquez Gabriel. Chronicle of a Death Foretold. Gregory Rabassa New York: Knopf, 1983. Print.
In the story Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Gabriel Garcia Marquez portrays how the bystander effect impacts the people around Santiago Nasar to act submissively revealing how people do not want to help others in difficult situations, unless it directly affects them. Marquez informs readers how individuals only see the different ways for personal gain, thereby not having “time” to help others in need. As Santiago Nasar nears his death, many of those who are informed of it do nothing to save his life, as they all rely on others to help rather than taking matters into their own hands and stepping up. Ignorance by specific townspeople, like Angela Vicario, Lazaro Aponte, Clotilde Armenta, and even a friend, Cristo Bedoya. Each person’s ignorance caused them to fail in helping a fellow citizen to their small town while some did not take enough initiative in preventing the murder.
In Gabriel Garcia Marquez's book “One Hundred Years of Solitude”, the characteristics of each family member resemble another. They may start differently, but their fates follow the same tragic conclusion. The Buendia men suffer from their own macho pride and recklessness. The women are subjected to the will of the men, and are burdened with tragedy that follows them. This book is locked in a time circle for 100 years, doomed to repeat the mistakes of their ancestors. The Buendia family all share unifying facts that tie them together creating their own solitude. Marquez describes the life and fate of the Buendia's struggle with madness, incest, and 100 years of solitude that is wiped out in he end of the book.
The biblical references throughout the Chronicle of a Death Foretold help identify the characters, Bayardo San Roman, Maria Cervantes, Divina Flor, and the Vicario children, and add depth to the death of Santiago. Without the many religious symbols such as, the Divine Face, the murder of Santiago, the cocks crowing, and the characters, there would be little weight placed on the reactions of the townspeople towards the knowledge of Santiago’s impending death. The religious symbols solidify the idea that Christ has come again in many different forms and ideas, yet dies to renew the people’s covenant with the Lord. “Give me prejudice and I will move the world” (Márquez 100).
The plot of Chronicle of a Death Foretold is totally based on the understanding that maintaining a woman’s virginity is important enough to kill for and conversely that anyone violating this social moray was risking death. Virginity is viewed as synonymous with honor. This aspect is what Garcia Marquez challenges with the use of irony. Throughout the book, he inserts aspects that speak directly to the importance of this theme and reinforces this concept by use of several devices, of which irony is the most prominent.
The symbolism in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novella, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, emphasises the connection of the rural Colombian people and the Bible. The names, deaths, and spector activity as symbolism greatly affect the novella’s parallels to Christianity.
In Albert Camus' The Stranger, society only affects the main character, Meursault, after he comes to a mid-story crisis. For all practical purposes, Meursault was living in a French society of the 30's, whereas Al...