Danielle Packard
Mr. Marusevich
English 11 IB
Due 12/20/06
Chronicle of a Death Foretold – Journal Project
1.This novella is written in first person by an unknown character, whom we are led to believe is Marquez because the character is marrying a woman with the same name as Marquez’s real wife. The narrator is detatched, but not objective. The way that Marquez sets up the story makes that so. Although this is a first-person narrative, the story is told almost
2.a) The sentence structure in Marquez’s novella is a bit different than we see in most works. The basic structure of the sentences varies throughout the story. Sometimes, he uses object-subject-verb structures, such as when he wrote “From her he had inherited a sixth sense” (Marquez 7) (The object being “Her”, the subject being “He” and the verb being “Inherited”). Although this sentence structure can be used in writing, English isn’t language that uses it often (mostly we use subject-verb-object sentences). His sentences are often linked by many clauses, making them sometimes overly grand and appear to be run-on. This can be seen in a sentence such as “At the window of a house that faced the sea, embroidering by a machine during the hottest hour of the day, was a women, half in mourning, with steel-rimmed glasses and yellowish gray hair, and hanging above her head was a cage with a canary that didn’t stop singing” (Marquez 88). He rarely uses linguisitic modality, which means he does not use words like “believe” or “think”. Because of the way he tells the story, as if it is a third-person objective point of view, it wouldn’t make sense for Marquez to put what he thinks, because it wouldn’t agree with the style.
Marquez writes with the style of magical realism. His technique combines the truthful aspect of realism with the aspects most associate with folktales. At first, it may not seem as if the sentence structure doesn’t assist that, it does. We are forced to read the story in a different way, almost more like a folktale then a novel, which is exactly what he was trying to accomplish.
b) Figurative language is used throughout the story in an unconventional manner. I found that there were not many similes or metaphores throughout the story – Marquez tends to describe people and things as they are. I did find that there were many symbols. It almost seems as if the story is made up entirely of symbols. Santiago’s dress on the day of his murder was all white, a symbol of purity and innocence. In the beginning when Victoria Guzman takes out the “steaming guts” (Marquez 10) of the rabbit and throws them to the dogs can symbolize the way Santiago’s death was described later in the story. Hyperbole is also another predominate characteristic of this novella. The biggest example of this is the telling of Santiago Nasar’s physical murder, where he “started to walk in a state of hallucination, holding his hanging intsetines in his hands” (Marquez 119) and is walking around the house. The bigger description goes on for almost two pages. I look at his “last moments on earth” as one huge hyperbole, where everything is being exagerated in many ways.
c) The diction in the novella is interesting. It seems as if Marquez’s words were chosen with upmost care to describe a situation perfectly. Marquez tends to use concretions, like when he describes a girl chewing as “kind of sloppy, kind of slurpy” (Marquez 78). We can hear something that is slurping, and see something that is sloppy. In doing this, he tries to give is an easier way to relate to what he is describing, which is already hard enough for a reader to relate to.
d) Garcia-Marquez has a writing style of magical realism. The way he writes combines the truthful aspect of realism, but uses the exagerated, somewhat magical aspect to tell the story. An example of this is when the story of why Santiago does not keep a loaded gun is told. It was said that an accidental bullet “wrecked the cupboard in the room, went through the living room wall, passed through the dining room of the house next door… and turned a life-size saint… into plaster dust” (Marquez 6). The reader knows that a bullet can accidentally shoot (realism) but realizes that the bullet probably wouldn’t have gone trough a few walls and turn a statue to dust (magical).
3.a) Repetition plays a key role in the organization of this story. Because the novella is written in a non-linear plot structure, s
b) The nonlinear plot narrative is a unique way to write a story. For Chroncle of a Death Foretold, I believe it was a better way to tell the story. The narrator is trying to put in the views and imput of many people who were around that day.
4.The title Chronicle of a Death Foretold is a peculiar title for the novella. In some senses, the title doesn’t pertain to the story, but it also is able to. Calling this story a Chronicle doesn’t make sense since the story isn’t in chronological order. His death was foretold many times throughout the story in many ways. Santiago dreaming of trees and birds prior to his murder could be interperted as a foretelling of death. However, the realization of his dreams meaning death was not interpreted until after his death, so his death wasn’t exactly foretold. Pablo and Pedro telling the entire town that they were going to kill Santiago was a literal foretelling of his death, but either no one took them seriously or thought Santiago knew of this already.
5.The tone of this novella is somewhat questioning as well as surreal. Throught this work, our narrator is trying to explain an event that has plagued the town for many years. Not many people know exactly why this happened, or can seperate fact from fiction, so the narrator questions people to remember back to the days when this happened, and to tell their story. The tone is also surreal, because the reader realizes that many events described in the story are a bit exagerated and can not possibly be true. However, the way those events are described can almost convince a person that the events are as written, things happened the way they were stated. The mood of the work is somewhat questioning as well. The reader is curious to know about Santiago’s death from the very first sentence. Around the end of the book, the mood can be described as dissapointed, because the reader never does find out what exactly happend to lead up to the event, and what exactly happened that day.
6.The novella begins the way it does in order to intrest the reader. The first sentence makes a person curious of this man and his soon-to-be read about death. When one gets to the second p
7.In this work, the narrator does not seem intimidated or interested in the authority figures. Rather, he thinks them to not be useful. Father Amador tries to warn Santiago about the plot against him, but fails to. The bishop, who is supposed to be an important figure in the story, doesn’t bother to dock to meet his fellow people, but stays on his boat and just passes by. When Officer Leandro Pornoy is told my Clotilde that the twins were planning on murdering Santiago, he simply told Colonel Aponte. Colonel Aponte figured that things would blow over, and it didn’t need to be worried about. Their actions represent
8.Women played an important role in this novella. Based on the time period of the 1950’s, and going back to what had happened many years earlier, some women had exceedingly important roles in the story. Clotilde Armenta was one of the few people to realize the seriousness of the brewing situation between the Vicaro twins and Santiago. It was at her shop that the Vicaro twins sharpened their knives and openly discussed how they were going to murder Santiago. She attempted to stop the murder by informing police, but they were of no help. Santiago’s mother, Placida Linero, was a dream interpreter, which played an important role in the story. When she was re-telling her version of the story, she mentioned how his dreams had foretold his death, only she had not realized it.. I believe that Angela Vicario was the most powerful woman in the story. She was the root of Santiago Nasar’s murder. Throughout the novel, she is the center of mystery, leaving the question of if Santiago really took her virginity unanswered. Without her, the story would not have made much sense.