Chronicle of a Death Foretold

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Page 1 of 6 Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Márquez One Monday morning young Santiago Nasar is killed outside his house by two brothers who were avenging their sister's honour. The amazing feature of this story is that most of the people in the community were knowledgeable of the crime before it happened. Armed with this knowledge of a death foretold, no one prevented the crime from happening. Chronicle of a Death Foretold is a story that pieces together the memories of the morning of the death of Santiago Nasar. It is a powerful story of honour and responsibility. In this essay we will explore the power of words in both the film and the novel. The film used for discussion in this essay is the 1978 version, directed by Francesco Rosi. The words describing Bayardo San Román are powerful in indicating important attributes of his character. Not much is known about Bayardo San Román thus far in the novel. He had arrived mysteriously and did not disclose any information regarding his life. The words of this extract inform the reader that Bayardo took care to conceal his true nature, especially in his manner of speech. His choice of words did not reveal much about the man himself. This piece of information together with the narrator's opinion of Bayardo, is effective in relating to the reader some insight to his character. The narrator says that his mother remarked that Bayardo reminded her of the devil (Márquez 2007:27). The narrator also describes Bayardo as a man who gets what he wants. He managed to buy a house for Angela Vicario from a man who never wanted to sell it. The narrator also describes Bayardo as having 'got married with the illusion of buying happiness...' (Márquez 2007:38). Bayardo's family came to carry him away after his discovery of Angela not being a virgin. When they took him away with cries of grief and mourning, the narrator

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