Death Foretold Influences

It Takes a Town to Raise a Murderer

Our thoughts and actions are not necessarily our own; we have been influenced. Rarely do we have our own original thoughts, they have been influenced some way or another. I wake up and use the bathroom, wash my hands, brush my teeth, and wash my face not because I one day woke up and just thought that I should start doing it. I do my routine because I was told that it was an act of me practicing good hygiene. In Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novel Chronicle of a Death Foretold, we see these influencers mold the rest of the story. Almost all of these influences come from the societal expectations of the Vicario twins, Pablo and Pedro. This results in external pressure being put on the twins to carry out such a

Well at least they tried to be; they told almost everyone that they had encountered that they planned on murdering Santiago Nasar. “The Vicario brothers had told their plans to more than a dozen people who had gone to buy milk, and these spread the news everywhere before six o’clock”(58). With this single sentence alone, it is obvious that people were aware, they simply didn't do anything. It reminds me of the story of Kitty Genovese. Ms. Genovese was murdered, actually stabbed to death, in front of her apartment complex. Several of her neighbors heard the cry, however no one came to help. They were all bystanders. “When I saw them I thought they were nothing but a big pair of bluffers”(56). This isn't the first time in the novel that we hear of a character ignoring the Vicario brothers obvious scream for help. They didn’t run around telling people about their plans just to brag, they told people so that maybe, just maybe, someone could actually help them. However, the town's attitude is was nonchalant. Even the Colonel didn’t really care. “No one is arrested just on suspicion. Now it’s just a matter of warning Santiago Nasar, and happy new year”(57). The word warning has little to no real urgency. A child gets a warning when they do something bad the first time. The Vicario brothers were planning on killing someone and their victim only needed a warning? The lack of urgency within the town's attitude shows that they don’t necessarily

The word expectations nods toward the general standards of behavior that people who live in a society are expected to uphold. Good manners and common sense are standard examples of universal social expectations, however to each culture, good manners and common sense looks different. Whether people realize it or not, common sense is not common. This is due to the fact that common sense isn't real. It's a personal view on how things should and should not be handled in relation to your own experiences that you are not forcing upon someone else. In America, it would be common sense to know that killing a person is not a good idea. However, in Chronicle of a Death Foretold, common sense tells the characters that they have to avenge the death of their sister’s virginity and if it includes murder, so be it. The novel puts it into perspective how each culture has their own laws that do not necessarily abide by actual laws. ‘ “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 honor”’(49). Again, we see the fact that this act was performed in the name of honor, another concept that shifts from culture to culture. This entire novel is about cultural expectations. It’s about the death of Santiago Nasar because he supposedly took the virginity of