Gabriel Garcia Marquez can be seen as one of the 20th century’s greatest storytellers exploring the notions of machismo and honour within a Latin-American context in Chronicle of a Death Foretold published in 1981. Chronicle of a Death Foretold follows the series of events up to and after the death of Santiago Nasar and explores the town peoples’ culpability several decades on. Through the chronicle of events Marquez explores the Latin American cultural paradigm coupled with the naivety of Santiago Nasar as a foreigner in the paradigm and how it ultimately leads to his death. By developing the notion of the ignorant foreigner, Marquez is able to recreate and explore the brutal honour code of the Hispanic paradigm. The characterisation of Nasar …show more content…
As a third generation Arab immigrant Nasar and learned from his father the “manipulation of firearms, his love of horses and the mastery of high-flying birds of prey” but also learnt the “good arts of valour and prudence.” His learnt prudence or common sense from his Arab father would in fact be his downfall, as it was completely incompatible with the contextually correct common sense it which it was perfectly logical to murder a man on the premise of regaining your sisters lost virginity and honour. This lack of understanding as a foreigner lead to him to react to the news that the Vicario brothers were waiting to kill him not with panic but rather the “bewilderment of innocence,” exemplifying his naivety towards the Hispanic psyche and how he did not contemplate the danger to himself but was confused as to why he deserved it. His peaceful and prudent nature can also observed in his reluctance to engage in violence only ever wearing it in the country and never walked into town armed, a practice established by his father and he only ever perceived guns as a safety measure not needed in the civilised town. However, he can be seen to have realised his fateful disposition in his dying moments as he began laughing. Having realised the error in his judgement he still holds onto his “usual good bearing” a product of …show more content…
His family was unlike the other Arab families where his father married Placida Linero a Latin-American woman out of a “marriage of convenience” rather than “marry amongst themselves” as the other Arabs did. Nasar’s was also and “exception” to the other Arab men of his generation in that he spoke Arabic with his father but never in front of his mother, whilst the other men “listened to their parents in Arabic and answered them in Spanish”. This places his in a place in society where he didn’t truly belong anywhere, neither in the cultural paradigm or the Arab community. This weak bond amongst the Arab community might have been a reason as to why Yamil Shaium didn’t warn him immediately, and is also another example of when the foreigner has misunderstood the cultural paradigm thus further sealing Nasar’s