Chronicle Of A Death Foretold Gender Roles Essay

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According to Oxford Dictionary, a gender role is the role or behavior by a person as appropriate to their gender, determined by the prevailing cultural norms. Set in Colombia, South America during the mid 20th century, the novel Chronicle of a Death Foretold recounts the story of the appalling murder of Santiago Nasar, in which gender roles and predispositions have a significant influence on the perpetrators of and reason behind the crime. The criminals, twins Pedro and Pablo Vicario, unhesitatingly decide to kill Santiago Nasar to restore their sister, Angela Vicario's, honor after she accuses Santiago of prematurely taking her virginity. The males' responsibility to uphold their family honor and display the power of their masculinity, combined with the females' responsibility to remain loyal and inferior to the males produces the stereotypical …show more content…

The girls had been reared to be married" encompasses the basic communal standards transpiring in this Colombian village (Marquez 31). In Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the author depicts how gender roles and the contrasting principles associated with them positively and negatively affect Angela and the male characters in the narrative, in order to prove how these inclinations variously affect the characters and the reader. Because Angela Vicario's genetic makeup excludes a Y chromosome, her life is condemned to suffering and inferiority. Yet, she surmounts these societal guidelines and flourishes to become a woman of courage and individualism. Although the male characters of the novel, the Vicario twins and Bayardo San Román, are born with authority and preference, their futures' resolution are unfulfilling and subsidiary compared to Angela's. Conclusively, regardless of oppressive events the females in the novel endure, they assume the role of the more capable and accomplished gender, showing their underlying potential and ascendancy over