Which social groups are marginalised
Which social groups are marginalised, excluded or silenced in a way?
Chronicle of a death foretold is a book written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez published in 1981 talks about the tragic death of the protagonist Santiago Nasar who is brutally killed by Vicar brothers.
Marquez explores themes like ritual, honour, fate, memory, the sacred and profane, gender roles, class, social restrictions, violence, trauma and community.
The genre of this novel is detective/ crime and its written in first person point of view.
The novel is filled with ironies and the first one is that Santiago’s mother locks the door of her house causing his death rather than preventing it.
And ht most important one is that the whole town knew that the Vicar brothers were out looking for Santiago’s blood but no one was considerate enough to tell him; no one was considerate enough to save his life.
The way women are represented and characterised gives us an idea of the female gender was treated in Latin America during the 1950’s. Women were portrayed as weak and impotent as they weren’t allowed to take charge of anything even choosing their life partner( husband) was not their decision as people back then only beloved in arrange marriages and the decision was made by the parents on the basis of how wealthy and successful the groom was.
The daughter of Purisima Del Carmen were trained to become good wives as they did not have a very social life and the only way to increase social status was to get married to a wealthy guy and the evidence to this statement is the line “The brothers were brought up to be men. The girls had been reared to get married.” Whereas ideally the sentence should’ve been that girls had been reared to be women , this just shows how women were looked down upon.
They knew how to do screen embroidery, sew by machine, weave bone lace, wash and iron, make artificial flowers and fancy candy, and write engagement announcements the following statement shows what was expected out of women all these activities don’t have any serious purpose or value they’re mostly decorative activities and as Angela’s mother believed that if a woman consists of all these qualities she’s bound to be a good wife this throws light on how women agreed to being discriminated and being the weaker gender when compared to men.
Women like Angela’s mother, Santiago’s mother and the narrators mother were highly respected in the society and people took their advice very seriously because they fulfilled their responsibility to get married.
The novel talks about women not being a virgin before fulfilling the only purpose of their life which is marriage is unacceptable which in the case of men is the opposite as they would go to the brothel and lose their virginity to prostitutes and it was considered to be a manly trait. No one would dare question the groom about his sexual life but when it came to women we know how the story goes on.
;The only thing I prayed to God for was to give me the courage to kill myself,; Angela Vicario told me. ;But he didn’t give it to me.” This statement shows how the society values virginity and how the culture values virginity over a woman’s life.
