Magical Symbolism In Márquez's Chronicle Of A Death Foretold

Generally, the goal of a novel is to enrapture. However, Chronicle of a Death Foretold is an exception to this rule. Throughout the novel, Márquez makes the reader understand that they are reading a report on a death, rather than let us sink into an immersive novel. More specifically, Márquez asks us to grapple with the consequences of framing the story as an in-universe report about the murder of Santiago Nasar “twenty-seven years later,” (1) and how those consequences influence the novel as a whole. Three ways in which these consequences can be seen in the text are: the use of quotes from the characters years after the death, the use of magical realism, and the use of ambiguity. The most salient aspect of this awareness of the text displayed

An extremely strong example of fantastical elements in the text comes from the depiction of Ángela’s choice to blame Santiago Nasar. “She looked for it in the shadows, she found it at first sight among the many, many easily confused names from this world and the other, and she nailed it to the wall with her well-aimed dart, like a butterfly with no will whose sentence has always been written,” (28). This is perhaps the most fantastical line in the entire novel, written to describe a moment that deserves that sort of reverence. However, nobody thinks like this. Nobody thinks about anything like fate when choosing to blame somebody for something. At some time, by somebody, what was going on in Angela’s head in that moment was dramatized to this high degree, whether consciously or unconsciously. After all, the actions of the past are in the past and do gain reverence, as do the people that took part in them, as the truth inexorably turns into stories. It is shown in the novel how this gives the past a magical sort of aspect which adds more character to the text and gives an impression of how the town as a whole now looks at the past without resorting to simply explaining it. This forms a collective and broad reaction to Santiago’s death that works in conjunction with the individual and specific reactions that are

The most obvious use is to convince the reader of the impact of the death of Santiago Nasar. If the novel had not used any techniques that indicate the existence of a “present” time, Santiago Nasar would still die at the end in the same shocking way, but there would be no understanding of any of the consequences of that death. As a result, the story would lose much of its bite. However, they do more than just add a continuation to the story of Santiago Nasar’s death. First, they diffuse throughout the entire novel, never permitting the reader to forget that they are reading about a past event that could be real. Without them, the book might feel much more like a conventional novel, allowing the reader a buffer from reality that is not present in the novel in its final form. The use of quotes allows a personal look at how individual characters look back on the events that a simpler continuation couldn’t provide. This, combined with the use of fantastical elements, creates a feel for the way the town as a whole looks back on them. Looking at the novel from a perspective of craft, these techniques are incredibly efficient storytelling tools when compared to more traditional prose. However, beyond the feel for the town that these techniques create, the ambiguities and morphings of memories present in multiple forms