Examine the Complexity of the Concept of Honor in the Novel. You Might Want to Look at Killing to Preserve Honor as Well as Severity of Limits Imposed in Women.

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In Chronicles of a Death Foretold, the author uses the concept of honor as one of the major themes in the novel. Gabriel Garcia Marquez makes the theme of honor very emphasized and is taken very seriously in the culture of the Colombian town in which the narrative takes place. Nobody in the novel ever questions any action that is taken to preserve someone's honor, since it is commonly believed to be a fundamental moral trait that is vital to keep intact. A person without honor is an outcast in the community. The Vicario twins kill Santiago Nasar in order to restore the honor of their sister. She dishonors he family by marrying another man when she had already slept with someone else. More over, to fix this mistake of hers, the brothers believe that they must kill Santiago Nasar, the man that took their sister’s virginity, in order to recover the honor of their family. All of the characters in the novel are influenced by this powerful construction of honor. The defense of this ideal is directly responsible for Santiago Nasar's murder. Not many residents of Nasar’s town tried to prevent the death of Santiago Nasar from occurring, Clothilde Armenta and Yamil Shaium did, but most people simply ignored this event, because they believed that his crime deserved a punishment, in this case death. The fact that death was considered a reasonable retribution for the crime of taking one’s virginity indicates how awful it was to sleep with an unmarried woman; doing so ruined her chances of marrying well, and marriage was women's one way to advance in the world. In conclusion, the theme of honor is extremely emphasized in the novel by the author, especially in the case of the Vicario twins, whose excuse for Santiago Nasar’s murder was to bring back their family honor, which he had taken from their sister, by taking her virginity. The justification of this ideal is directly

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