Santiago Nasar Machismo

Men have always been favored within societies and in order to maintain their position they generally display masculinity in the form of machismo, to assert such power. In a 1950's Columbian town, a man named Santiago Nasar is slaughtered in order to preserve the Vicario's family's honor. Angela Vicario, returned newly wed, denunciates who is responsible for her lost virginity and dishonorable return. She pronounces Santiago Nasar as her perpetrator, therefore being the cause of his gruesome termination. In Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel García Márquez, the author illustrates machismo by emphasizing the actions and behaviors of the men to oppress the women, in order to conceal the significant impact women held on the fate of Santiago

By now, everyone in the town knows about Santiago's fate, however no one has directly spoken to Santiago. Santiago walks home to change his clothes and later eats breakfast at the narrator's house. While Santiago walks home, he sees the townspeople lined up on the square waiting for the show to start; shouts are coming from all angles, some telling Santiago to run, others uttering rude comments about his ethnicity. Perplexed by the whole situation, Santiago stands in the middle of the square desperately trying to comprehend the noise. Clotilde Armenta, the store owner, is the voice which exceeds all others, aiding Santiago in his final attempt to get away. "Then Clotilde Armenta grabbed Pedro Vicario by the shirt and shouted to Santiago Nasar to run because they were going to kill him. It was an urgent shout that drowned out all the others." (Márquez 115). Although Clotilde is highlighted, the addition of Pedro and Santiago exemplifies the machismo is every situation. The author could make Clotilde the only person in this situation and have it still make sense. However, highlighting Clotilde would diminish the masculinity within the situation, which is detrimental to the society's machismo. The addition of Pedro and Santiago takes the shine of Clotilde's actions away; it causes the reader to look away

After Clotilde's shout, Santiago runs towards his house in his final escape effort, closely followed by Pedro and Pablo. Looking out her window after finding out the fate of her son, Plácida Linero sees the two furious brothers barreling towards the house but fails to notice her son sprinting right in front of them. Thinking her son is already safe inside, she seals her son's fate with one action. "Then she ran to the door and slammed it shut. She was putting up the bar when she heard Santiago Nasar's shouts, and she heard the terrified pounding on the door, but she thought he was upstairs, insulting the Vicario brothers from the balcony in his room. She went up to help him." (Márquez 117). In spite of there being no machismo directly stated, the mistake made displays how a women messed up a situation and, in turn, ruined someone's life. The author purposely made Santiago's fatal end a females fault, specifically his mother's. Previously, Cristo Bedoya was the one being Santiago's knight in shining armor, searching for Santiago high and low in order to save him. However, Plácida just as easily could have been Santiago's savor by slamming the door on the twins after her son had run in. Even though what Plácido did was not pleasant, she drastically altered the fate