How does Marquez present gender roles in Chronicle of a death foretold?
Chronicle of a death foretold takes place in a small Colombian coastal town somewhere around 1950. In this city conservative morals and machismo prevail where honor is an important aspect of the citizens life for which one should kill if necessary. This mentality also explains why women and men are expected to behave the way they do in the novel. Women are portrayed as weak, powerless, live a sedentary life and should always take care of their husband while, in the other hand, men are expected to defend their honor at any cost and, if financially stable, can marry whoever they want to.
It is here where Marquez decides to add a sense of double-standards through the role …show more content…
Honor would reflect your social status and when it was taken away from you, it was your duty to take it back.
"We killed him openly," Pedro Vicario said, "but we're innocent." "Perhaps before God," said Father Amador. "Before God and before men," Pablo Vicario said. "It was a matter of honour."
From this extract we can tell that, the Vicario brothers don't think of the killing of santiago as a murder, it was just honor killing. We can also assume that everyone in town thinks same way for the Vicario brothers are not fully punished for what they did, they’re sent to jail for some time and after, they go on with their lives.
It is important to note that the Vicario brothers didn’t seek to kill Santiago in the first place, they were forced by the people in town.
“... it seemed that the Vicario brothers had done nothing right with a view to killing Santiago Nasar immediately and without any public spectacle, but had done much more than could be imagined to have someone to stop them from killing him, and they had failed.”
They were obstructed many times. They had their knives taken away by the officer but they were sent to sleep with no repercussion. Seeing how none would stop them, they go public about the killing, hoping that at least Santiago would hear of it and run
Chronicle of a death foretold takes place in a small Colombian coastal town somewhere around 1950. In this city conservative morals and machismo prevail where honor is an important aspect of the citizens life for which one should kill if necessary. This mentality also explains why women and men are expected to behave the way they do in the novel. Women are portrayed as weak, powerless, live a sedentary life and should always take care of their husband while, in the other hand, men are expected to defend their honor at any cost and, if financially stable, can marry whoever they want to.
It is here where Marquez decides to add a sense of double-standards through the role …show more content…
Honor would reflect your social status and when it was taken away from you, it was your duty to take it back.
"We killed him openly," Pedro Vicario said, "but we're innocent." "Perhaps before God," said Father Amador. "Before God and before men," Pablo Vicario said. "It was a matter of honour."
From this extract we can tell that, the Vicario brothers don't think of the killing of santiago as a murder, it was just honor killing. We can also assume that everyone in town thinks same way for the Vicario brothers are not fully punished for what they did, they’re sent to jail for some time and after, they go on with their lives.
It is important to note that the Vicario brothers didn’t seek to kill Santiago in the first place, they were forced by the people in town.
“... it seemed that the Vicario brothers had done nothing right with a view to killing Santiago Nasar immediately and without any public spectacle, but had done much more than could be imagined to have someone to stop them from killing him, and they had failed.”
They were obstructed many times. They had their knives taken away by the officer but they were sent to sleep with no repercussion. Seeing how none would stop them, they go public about the killing, hoping that at least Santiago would hear of it and run