The irony of this quote should not be lost on the reader, After all common sense would dictate that brutality is the preserve of barbarians or the “Others”. To this day, that concept has prevailed to emphasize the notion that brutality and the savages that practiced it existed independent of normal,everyday,structured life. As the analysis of the novela,Chronicle of a Death Foretold will later prove, this independence from savagery that has come to define the separation between what is civilized and what is not could for some societies not be any further from the truth. It’s author, Nobel Prize winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez echoes the sentiments of the aforementioned quote and firmly entrenches his ideas concerning brutality as a tool of justice and questions the moral standing of a society that depends on it to restore balance and honour. The story,which revolves around the murder of a young man named Santiago Nasar, He is killed solely due to the unproven charge that he had deflowered a girl by the name of Angela Vicario and in essence stolen her honour and that of her family. Throughout the story there is a dark and foreboding atmosphere surrounding the unnamed town in which the story takes place in as evidenced right from the start, the linguistic style is ominous,the day is described as “distressing” ,the narrator explicitly states that he will be murdered, the augury performed by the protagonists mother relays results that are nowhere near the truth. But to be able to understand the atmosphere of brutality that pervades the story, the onus is on us to determine the dominant idea in which it manifests itself. Entrenched within tradition, brutality is a tool that is most effective when an individual or a group of individu... ... middle of paper ... ...). He represents the society as not being entwined with the evils that plagued the other community, showing that there can be different forms of judgement that do not involve the brutish side of human nature. The effect aims to make the reader see the entire situation in a new light,as evidenced in the first paragraph. The Arabs there are normal,everyday,hardworking people and the “other” community exist independent of them, savage,brutal and bloodthirsty. The novella ends on an inexplicable note and like any other great form of art, makes what is understood less than what is learnt. For example,we do not know for sure who really deflowered Angela Vicario but that is not the Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s aim, his true goal as evidenced by this essay is to “carve up, like a pig” the notion that brutality and honour go hand in hand and do away with it in modern society.
Believers of the Old and New Testaments claim that violence is a sin and can only lead to more brutality and death; poet Tony Barnstone firmly agrees. In his poem “Parable in Praise of Violence” Barnstone lambastes the American obsession with violence-- that it is often triggered by inevitable events which could be handled in different manners. The speaker in “Parable in Praise of Violence” reflects on all parts of his “sinful” culture and comes to the realization that people often use violence as a way to deal with emotions of grief and anger caused by events and concepts they cannot explain.
Cormac McCarthy’s “Blood Meridian” does a marvelous job of highlighting the violent nature of mankind. The underlying cause of this violent nature can be analyzed from three perspectives, the first being where the occurrence of violence takes place, the second man’s need to be led and the way their leader leads them, and lastly whether violence is truly an innate and inherent characteristic in man.
Conflict is constant. It is everywhere. It exists within one’s own mind, different desires fighting for dominance. It exists outside in nature, different animals fighting for the limited resources available, and it exists in human society, in the courts. It can occur subtly, making small changes that do not register consciously, and it can occur directly and violently, the use of pure strength, whether physical, social, economic, or academic, to assert dominance and achieve one’s goals; this is the use of force. Yet, with the use of force, the user of force is destined to be one day felled by it. “He who lives by the sword will die by the sword.”
In the course of Garcia Marquez’s work, the importance of respect was revealed to be taken almost sacredly in the characters’ Columbian culture. Honor was viewed as a crucial piece of one’s morality. Without honor, one was considered an outcast in society. For example, Angela Vicario was sent home on her wedding night because she was not a virgin. As a result, her mother beat Angela for invoking dishonor upon the family. Angela explains to the narrator, “‘I wasn’t crying because of the blows or anything that had happened… I was crying because of him,’“(P. 91, Garcia). Angela acknowledged that her impurity was reprehensible, therefore she accepted her mother’s thrashing. Her immoral actions led to a failed marriage and scorn upon her family, as well as her husband, Bayardo San Roman.
“The Cask of Amontillado” is a classic story in the usual style of its writer Edgar Allan Poe: dark, mysterious, and frightening. It follows the narrator, Montresor, as he manipulates, imprisons, and murders a man named Fortunato as retribution for some sort of insult. Not much plot is revealed in this story—we do not even know what the insult was that prompted this murder—but we do get an in-depth look at the character of Montresor from his own point of view. Montresor is a complicated man; he is both cruel and unreliable, but also smart enough to carry out his devious plan. As a character, Montresor reveals his personality to be perceptive, clever, vain, and heartless.
It is an unconventional recollection of the author to the events prior to, during, and following the murder of a Santiago Nasar, wealthy young local Arab man. A native woman of the town, Angela Vicario had become the love interest of a flamboyantly rich and young Bayardo San Roman, son of famous and renown civil war general. In a matter of four months they were married. On the first night of their union San Roman learned his new wife was not the blessed virgin he thought he married. Angela
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.
Throughout our world’s history there have been instances of where violence was used as a common interaction. Hunter-gathers are a prime example (Grant). We perceive hunter-gathers to be friendly non-violent people who pick berries, hang by fires, and have no concept of jealousy or property (Grant). The side that we do not know is a very gruesome one that shows the true colors of the pre-historic hunter-gatherer. It is a lifestyle of bloodshed and violence as a way of showing power and territorial dominance (Grant). For example, hunter-gatherers showed their evil nature in an incidence where two fishermen accidentally drifted into an island of Sentilese people and were killed instantly as an attempt to show territorial dominance (Grant). There has also been evidence that states great thinkers believed humans are evil (Grant). Sigmund Freud, born in 1856, was a Czech neurologist who proclaimed in 1930, that man is one of the worst types of animal (Grant). He wrote in his book Civilizations and its Discontents, “ Men are ...
One of the most prominent expectations of women in Latin America, and certainly the main idea surrounding “Chronicle of a Death Foretold”, is the idea that women should be pure, maintaining their virginity, prior to marriage. In the novel, Angela Vicario was forced by her parents and family into accepting a proposal from Bayardo San Roman, none of whom knew she was no longer a virgin. Knowing that her future husband would expect to spend their wedding night with a virgin, Angela scrambled to find ways to reinstate her virginity and deceive San Roman so he would not detect her impurity. Angela's friends assured her that “They only believe what they see on the sheet..and they taught her old wives' tricks to feign her lost possession” (Garcia Marquez 38). Unfortunately, Angela was ill-advised by her friends and San Roman was not fooled the night of their wedding. Being a man of high expectations, San Roman did not settle for his impure wife, as Angela's friends had suggested he might, rather he marched her back to her parents' home and simply returned her- as if she was a purchase he could merely give back. Angela's actions brought shame and dishonor upon her family. What Angela did was so reprehen...
Santiago Nasar is going to die. There is no doubt, no questioning, no second-guessing this reality in writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez's book, Chronicle of a Death Foretold. Set in a small Colombian town during the early 50s, Santiago Nasar is a young and rich man destined to die at the hands of the Vicario brothers for deflowering their sister, Angela Vicario, of her virginity. To restore honor to their family name, the two brothers plot to kill the accused protagonist of the alleged crime. However, while Santiago remains in the dark to his impending demise, the rest of the town, aware of the murder plot, does nothing to prevent it. In the wake of the murder, the townspeople desperately want to believe that Santiago Nasar was ill fated to die in order to evade the moral guilt of having killed an innocent man in their ritualized society.
In “The Fortune Teller,” the author, Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, uses symbolism to prove to one that an affair is not worth a person’s life. He uses the letter to symbolize hate between Villela and Camillo regarding the affair. This very ambiguous letter has terrified Camillo and put an end to his life. The letter enhances the theme of the short story by showing the anger and hate that Villela now had for Camillo. This hate is a focal point in the short story that leads to ending the affair along with Camillo and Rita’s life. Ultimately, the affair caused a large amount of tension between the three. However, the author was successful in grabbing the reader’s attention with the letter as the turning point of the short story.
Edgar Allen Poe’s tale of murder and revenge, “The Cask of Amontillado”, offers a unique perspective into the mind of a deranged murderer. The effectiveness of the story is largely due to its first person point of view, which allows the reader a deeper involvement into the thoughts and motivations of the protagonist, Montresor. The first person narration results in an unbalanced viewpoint on the central conflict of the story, man versus man, because the reader knows very little about the thoughts of the antagonist, Fortunato. The setting of “The Cask of Amontillado”, in the dark catacombs of Montresor’s wine cellar, contributes to the story’s theme that some people will go to great lengths to fanatically defend their honor.
Unpleasant truth’s that the author has presented to the reader, show that as a result of Briony’s crime, she has no one to atone for, that she is the person who decides outcomes relating to Robbie and Cecilia. Thus, in the stages of the human condition, one finds mortality within the power of words, while others have an ultimate demise. In conclusion, the unpalatable truths of the human condition represented in texts confront readers as they are challenged to recognise life’s obstacles.
It is said that up to thirty thousand men may have died at the battle of Hastings, a conflict that occurred almost one thousand years ago. World War II, which lasted less than seven years, has been estimated to be responsible for up to forty million deaths. Thus, many people often ask the question why? Why does such conflict occur? Who or what is responsible? The culprit does not hide nor has it escaped scrutiny and blame. It comes in many shapes and sizes, faces and places. It is called violence and the potential for it resides in every single person on this earth. Whose violence conquers all? It is hard to measure the significance of violence, especially when it can cause so much destruction and death as well as stimulation. However, violence cannot simply be explained as male testosterone since women have and continue to demonstrate the ability to be violent as well. It also cannot be explained as a by-product of rage, jealousy, greed, or stupidity. No. Violence is an innate human quality and one may even go so far as to call it a necessary human function. Violence is a building block of society. A tool even; it helps shape and evolve society. For example, the Napoleonic Wars are described on the Canadian Encyclopedia website as having “greatly stimulated the export economy of the Canadas (Upper and Lower) and the Maritimes…” and that the result (of the wars) was responsible for the “development of the Canadian forest industry...” Violence (conflict) is necessary to producing social change and an improved society. The theme of violence in Beowulf is portrayed by the character Beowulf’s presence, usefulness and hero status in the poem with the understanding that violence is a necessary function of society. Violence also extends ...
The idea of protecting her virginity is so important as to have a blind father as a chaperone. This is absurd, to make a blind man to “watch” over Angela Vicario, and is how Gabriel Garcia Marquez ridicules the preconception of pre-marital virginity.