"Chronicles of a Death Foretold": Theme Paper

Essay by heyidcstfuHigh School, 11th gradeA+, May 2006

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Honor is something that human beings have practiced throughout history. It can even be considered the oldest tradition. From the chivalrous knights who's honor code was their life, to the great samurai warriors of Japan that in order to save lost honor, they had to commit kamikaze, which was their way of suicide. In Gabriel Garcia Marquez's novel, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, two brother's, twins, are burdened with the tradition of honor. Their sister has claimed a man by the name of Santiago Nasar, took her virginity before marriage. To regain their sister's honor, and their family's honor, the Vicario brother's duty is to kill Santiago.

The story is all about a man named Santiago Nasar, who's name brought up when Angela Vicario can think of no one else. When she pauses to search for a name, it seems to the reader that the criminal is not Santiago, but rather someone else that Angela is trying to protect.

She looked for it in the shadows, she found it at first sight among the many, many easily confused names from this world and the other, and she nailed it to the wall with her well-aimed dart, like a butterfly with no will whose sentence has always been written.

"Santiago Nasar," she said (Marquez 47).

By announcing Santiago's name the way that Angela did, she basically condemned him to death. Without a second thought, Angela Vicario most likely named an innocent man, who had no idea what the Vicario twins began to plot the moment Angela said his name.

Angela Vicario was given back to her family by Bayardo San Roman after he had married her, and discovered that she was no longer a virgin.

"Bayardo San Roman didn't enter, but softly pushed his wife into the house without...