Analysis of a chronicle of an announced death
The chronic work of a death announced, by Gabriel García Márquez, uses a community in Colombia to demonstrate how a town builds multiple examples of another that is separated from society in many ways. The dichotomy of the race between the characters in the book, as Arab or Hispanic, creates a separation that eventually causes the racist death of Santiago Nasar, a man descended from the Arabs in a place that the Arab immigrants do not receive well. Additionally, the economic differences of some individuals in the work form some important divisions between poor and rich characters, and for their amount of money, they become a part of the other, and live as outsiders. Gender contributes to the construction of the other because the expectations of women, in contrast to the obligations of men in patriarchal society, conduct the resistance and agency that challenge the norms of culture. In chronicle of an announced death, Gabriel García Márquez is built to the other in relation to the community through the criticism of the racial identities of the people, the socioeconomic class of the characters, and the gender theme among people in the novel.
The binara breed in the work is the result of the diaspora of the Arabs of the countries of the Middle East to Latin America during the twentieth century for the problems in their native countries. In the case of Ibrahim Nasar, Santiago’s father, "Wine [Ibrahim Nasar] with the last Arabs, at the end of civil wars" (García Márquez 17). Many other Arabs came in the same way as Ibrahim Nasar, and according to statistics, today, “Latin America has the largest Arab population outside the Middle East and houses seventeen to thirty million people Arabic ancestry. That is more than any other region of the diaspora in the world ”(Delgado 4). However, the Arab diaspora was not an easy time and they faced many assimilation challenges such as racism and prejudice by the hands of Colombians in the novel. In spite of the Arabs they arrived in Colombia to obtain security, when Ibrahim Nasar arrived and bought a disuse to become a house, "the community saw the treatment as a destructive maneuver for the city" (Cuparella 32). Colombia’s natives immediately believed that he was a foreigner and does not fit in his society, then because of his race, it is a piece of the other. This is how Colombians felt most of the immigrants, and these racist feelings created an issue that persists with the son of Ibrahim Nasar and eventually causes the loss of their life.
There is a separation between Arabs and other people in the town by the social construction of racism in the novel. Santiago Nasar is an Arab who speaks Arabic with his father before his death, but not with his mother because she is not a part of the Arabs world. As García Márquez writes, “He had the Arab eyelids and the curly hair of his father (García Márquez 13). Then, Santiago looks like his father and shows his Arab ancestry, clearly. Even in the Santiago family there is a racial division, and outside his home, Santiago does not belong in the town, according to some people. This is because he has a strong relationship with the Arab community, who has their own community and live and work together with their own resources. After the diaspora, "the Middle East Community decided to act collectively as a support system and help each other in the various changes and transitions that they would face as immigrants" (Delgado 5). They marry their people, eat the food of their land, and stay in their own world without the help of Colombians who do not accept them as part of the community. This follows the idea of the other because the Arab community, for its color of its skin and other reasons, are fundamentally different from the "normal" people.
Santiago Nasar’s breed is one of the most important reasons regarding his death. Angela, knowing that he is an Arab and then less valuable in the community, blames him without having to think. "The ease with which the name escapes her language seems. Essentially, he is useless to her. Like Angela, other natives who experienced the immigration of the Arabs perceive them in a bad way, and "as Nasar is clear, Arabic provided a clear sexual and economic threat to the Latin American patriarchal community" (Balil) (Balil). They did not trust them and believed that they would be threats to the community. When the brothers are looking for Santiago, and the people know about the intentions of Pedro and Pablo Vicario, "nobody even wondered if Santiago Nasar was prevented, because everything seemed impossible for everything to be" (García Márquez 27). This is the result of racism and the idea of Arabs like the other, because the people assume that someone warned it and does not mind intervening because they have racist prejudices and attitudes against Santiago Nasar. Even when he is trying to go home, a citizen says, "not there, Turkish, for Puerto Viejo" (García Márquez). This represents and “presents the derogatory position towards the community by the whites;to deny them even their true identity ”(Balil). Since Santiago is an Arab, he receives a violent death, and they killed him only having her word without evidence. His race is the only reason they need to kill him.
The economic class results in the production of the other because the characters have different amounts of money that guide inequality and different levels of acceptance. This is better with Bayardo San Román. He is so rich that many people in the community and the members believe that he is rare and an outsider in the country. He brings new ideas, such as the construction of a railroad, and the destruction of Xius, then he does not fit the town. "[Its] plan is alarming because building a railroad is even more disturbed than buying a warehouse transform it into a spoiled nest for the newlyweds … the community does not feel comfortable having Bayardo nearby" (Cupharella 32). He is seen as the other because he is mysterious and the people do not know much about rich man, but each person has his own opinion of him. How García Márquez explains, "he was so reserved about his origin that even the engendro could more insane be true" (García Márquez 41). A character in the work says that Bayardo San Román, with his magnificent clothes of gold and wealth, "looked like Marica", but in the eyes of the narrator’s mother, "I thought about the devil" (García Márquez 36). So, the man who lives with endless resources and who has the ability to do anything he wants, is a foreign in the town, and is not accepted by the population. He seems to have secrets and does not adapt with the rest of the people in the community. Bayardo San Román is just a visitor.
Santiago Nasar is a part of the other through his economic status because he is a rich Arab, and inherited a cattle hacienda of his father. The whole town knows that he has money, and a man in the work "asked him jokingly why they had to kill Santiago Nasar having so many rich that deserved to die first" (García Márquez 64). The community does not believe that the brothers kill a rich person, and a person in the work says, "Don’t be asshole … those do not kill anyone, and less to a rich one" (García Márquez 66). However, next the Arab diaspora to Latin American countries, there was a change in the economy, and some Arabs were more successful than Colombians. In the words of Ciampoella, "the relationship between the Arabs and the natives often implies a struggle of the classes" (Cuparella 39). There was prejudice against the Arabs because of the success of the Turks and Arabs in marketing in Latin America, and many times Colombians were jealous of fortune that the Arabs made in just a short period of time. While Santiago, an Arabic, lives without money problems, Pedro and Pablo Vicario survive with scarce resources. They are "devastated for so many hours of bad life" (García Márquez 22). Therefore, Santiago Nasar is the other because of the fact that in his society he is one of the richest members, but he is also an Arab, a part of the most economically successful group than Colombians and as a result, hated.
The gender in the work is involved in the theme of the other by the resistance that Angela shows against the patriarchal society in which she lives. The community has a hierarchy of power that favors men. Women, then, are subjugated. The actions of other women against the members of the community created gender fear too. García Márquez clarifies in the novel that “men were raised to be men. They had been educated to marry ”(García Márquez 39). That fits with the binary of the feminist theory in literature that reveals that a woman has a private and public life, and the woman must be in the house because her work is reproductive, and her husband’s work is to be a productive outside the house. The differences in gender follow the issue of honor in the work, specifically in the community because it is because of the idea of honor that the brothers killed Santiago Nasar. They say it was an act of honor because women in society belong to men, so an attack on the honor of women is an attack of the honor of their man or men in their family. Honor is represented by the expectation that women are virgins before them marry a man. Anyway, in the book, Angela does not obey these rules, and is a character who paints the other through his rebellion.
Angela, like other women in her community, is forced to marry Bayardo, and is afraid to keep her honor in the community and be respected. Because she had sex before her married Bayardo San Román, "the beautiful girl who had married the day before, had been returned to her parents’ house, because the husband found that she was not a virgin" (García Márquez 29). The misfortune she showed on her wedding night is quickly shown when Bayardo rejected her and her mother hit her. Angela did not want to lose her respect in the community, so she blames in Santiago Nasar. The idea that women have sex before their marriage is terrible, and "the premature sex of man is acceptable in the Caribbean culture and if it is discovered that a woman has done the same, her sin is considered unforgivable" (Ahmad et al., 10). So, she is the other because unlike other women who follow the traditions of their families and cultures, Angela has sex before her marriage and did not want to marry Bayardo San Román in the first place. She said that "[she] detest the male -men, and I had never seen one with so many ínfulas … I also thought she was a Polish" (García Márquez 38). She has no desire to obey patriarchy or learn the love that her mother suggests. Angela is, therefore, one piece of the other.
Ángela fights the obligations that society imposes on her. When he has sex, "he rebels against his father’s male authority, for the involvement, against organized religion, the honor of the military, and the authority of the academic medical texts lawyers and judges" (Christie 27). In a form of resistance, Angela’s actions provide a barrier between her and the other women. In an analysis, some authors explain that “when Ángela Vicario accuses Santiago Nasar of diversyFor the force of another man’s will (Rahmat and Karim 444).
Other women in the work are examples of resistance and agency, and form the other with Angela in relation to gender. Victoria Guzmán, Divina Flor’s mother, stands against the cycle of her relationship with Santiago’s father and does not allow the cycle to continue with her daughter. When Santiago plays Divina Flor, she orders, "Sleel, white, you will not drink that water while I am alive" (García Márquez 16). Victoria Guzmán is the only person to fight against her rich boss, and in this way she is the other because she distinguishes himself from the rest of the women. She is a part of the lower class, and "most women belonging to the lower class, suffer more and do not get anything from society, and that their fragile position in society is repeatedly reminded" (Rahmat and Karim 442). Then, it was incredible that she broke with what was supposed to do according to society’s standards. Although Divina Flor believes that she is destined for Santiago Nasar’s bed, her mother has different ideas, and then in the work the audience learns that she wants Santiago Nasar dies to protect Divina Flor. The narrator clarifies, "Divina Flor confessed to a later visit, when her mother had already died, that she had not told Santiago Nasar because at the bottom of her soul she wanted her to be killed" (García Márquez 19). Victoria Guzmán did not want to obey the patriarchy in the same way as Angela, and she stops her daughter of her supposed destiny.
Gabriel García Márquez creates the other in chronicle of a death announced because he recognizes the differences that exists in the community in terms of the Arabs and Colombians, the poor and the rich, and women and men. For the skin of Santiago Nasar, he is considered one part of the other because society has racist feelings against him. This is due to the stigma that surrounds Arab immigrants after Latin American protection and security emigrated. He is a victim of discrimination and, therefore, his death is an example of racial oppression. As we see the economic differences between the characters in the work, we understand how the Arabs were resentful of their financial success and their marketing capacity. In addition, the other is represented by the rare wealth of Bayardo San Román and his resources and his skills as results of his money. Finally, the other is built by the resistance and the agency that some women demonstrate against their sexist society despite being different than most women. The other in chronicle of an announced death allows the reader to see how differences in a society create strangers.
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