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Emily Nightingale

Mrs. Balka

IB English Year 1

13 November 2018

Chronicle of a Death Foretold Supervised Essay (Prompt #7)

Within the setting of the novel Chronicle of a Death Foretold, the culture of Colombia is

shown to value many aspects of life. However, one of the most important is of the pride in

religion and the symbols placed on their society. Catholicism and religion in general is highly

valued as shown by the symbolic names of characters that represent religious figures and the

standards placed upon women to be pure as the Virgin Mary. Therefor, the attitude of religion is

represented as a very significant driving force in the novels society and the author, Gabriel

Marquez, uses this to represent the corruption of society and how each member disowns this idea

of false purity throughout the novel.

The character Santiago Nassar is a prime example of the corrupt view of religion in

society due to the way he is represented. Not only does the character’s name mean “saint” but he

is found several times throughout the novel wearing clothes made of, “white linen…” which is a

symbol of purity (5). By giving this character certain attributes that contribute to a supposed

“holiness”, Marquez showcases the main character as a symbol of christlike qualities. It is later

nearly directly inferred that Santiago is a christlike figure at the end when he is stabbed and,

“there wasn’t a drop of blood”(118). Various symbols in the last few pages of the novel nearly

replicate the actions taken during Jesus’ crucifixion which then again represents Santiago as

innocent of the crime he was accused for. However, the blunt corruption within the town’s
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depiction of religion comes in the many machismo based aspects of Nassar. For one, he is known

to have, “grabbed [Divina Flor’s] whole pussy” making him a sexual abuser. Any person known

to have christ like qualities would never commit such heinous actions and still think of

themselves as pure. This is just one example of the many actions that men were permitted to no

consequences for due to the great importance of a man’s “macho” features and reputation.

Marquez directly alludes to these biblical references to represent how apart from the horrible acts

the main character seemed to have commit, he was still shown as a symbol of purity due to the

equal value in religion and manly attributes.

Another devalued aspect of religion was the standards of purity women were upheld to

and how they were falsely represented. Women were meant to represent the purity of the Virgin

Mary in by abiding rules such as no sex before marriage. Not to mention, the women’s names for

one were also symbolic of purity symbols such as Divina Flor meaning “divine flower”; this

parallels her innocence and fragility that was expected from a woman due to marianismo values.

This motif of flowers were often used to showcase a women’s purity when in fact they were also

slyly used to represent the fake purity they upheld as a community. Marquez chooses to develop

this through the idea of artificial flowers. As an example, the first time Bayardo San Roman

seemed to have laid eyes on Angela Vicario, he had seen that her and her mother had, “crossed

the square carrying two baskets of artificial flowers” and immediately loved her (28). Bayardo

had obviously fallen in love with her looks without any sort of inclination as to whether or not

she was pure as hoped. Furthermore, the flower’s Angela was holding gave off a sense of

innocence that was convincing enough for him relish in and fully believe. The inclusion of these

artificial flowers represent the women’s false purity within the town and Marquez uses it to
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develop the idea of the town’s double-standard of what purity truly is when connected with

religion.

Overall, by alluding to these biblical references and using religious symbols throughout

the text, Marquez represents societies backward view of purity in their religion and how it is

warped to fit societal standards. The novel as a whole is based off of the critiques of society, so

by adding this sense of religious outlook into the plotline, the author succeeds in showing the

town’s corruption in even the purest of areas in life which only adds to their wrong-doings as a

whole.