Honor And Fate In Chronicle Of A Death Foretold

The role of Familial Honor and fate in Gabriel Garcia Marquez's

The Chronicle of a Death Foretold

"On the day they were going to kill him, Santiago Nasar got up at five-thirty in the morning..." (3). In this manner, in the first line of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's novel, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, the reader is introduced to Santiago, the main character who is viciously murdered by Pedro and Pablo Vicario for allegedly taking the virginity of their sister, Angela. In the novel, Marquez uses family honor and the role of fate in determining the course of events and setting up an inevitable outcome.

The theme of family honor is developed in the description of the Vicario brothers' reasoning for killing Santiago and plans to kill him. When taken to court after the crime was committed, they were acquitted on the basis that they acted in "legitimate defense of honor." (49) It is here that the brothers' mentality becomes clear and some of the value systems of this society become evident to the reader. Neither the brothers nor the society in which they lived perceived a fault in their killing of Santiago Nasar because they were attempting to restore familial honor, which was obviously extremely important in their society. Earlier in the novel, Prudencia Cotes understands what the twins are rushing off to do, but instead of attempting to stop them, says, "I can imagine, my sons... honor doesn't wait" (62). Through these two passages a clear picture is drawn of the type of society this novel is based around and how much their honor meant to the inhabitants of this town. When a family's honor had been as badly destroyed as it had been in the Vicario brothers' case, the members of that family were obligated to obtain some kind of restitution. The twins continued to defend their actions even before the priest, Father Amador, saying, "We're innocent... before God and before men." (49) The upholding of family honor was an unwritten code above any law which transformed an offense that would have been punishable by death in any other case into an upheaval of supreme justice. It is written that the "brothers were brought up to be men." (31) They had been taught this way of living by their own code of honor and knew that they had to act in order to restore at least some of their family's lost honor by annihilating the man who had taken Angela's virginity. The code by which they lived was, in the end, the only reason and the only excuse they had for taking another's life and the fact that this reason held up in a court of law in order to merit acquittal for the Vicario twins demonstrates the immense weight it must bear in the town. Even though the brothers were known to be religious in a highly religious community, they felt no guilt over what they had done, as witnessed by their prison mates, who "never noticed any indication of remorse in them." (49) It is in this fact, more than any other that one sees the seemingly twisted chain of thinking behind the "necessary" killing of Santiago Nasar.

The theme of fate is obviously brought into play when Marquez's anonymous narrator says, "There had never been a death more foretold." (49) All throughout the morning of the day they killed Santiago, the twins paraded through town boldly and bluntly advertising their intended actions, to such an extent that the mayor himself was aware of their intentions, but by some failure in thinking or communication, they were not stopped. Fate appears to be governing the life (or, more aptly, death) of Santiago Nasar by providing the Vicario brothers with an amazingly unchallenged path to kill him. Though the entire town knows he is to be murdered, all