Chronicle Of A Death Foretold By Gabriel García Márquez

Chronicle of a Death Foretold, a novella by Nobel Laureate Gabriel García Márquez, tells through the eyes of an unnamed narrator the events that lead to the murder of Santiago Nasar by the two Vicario twin brothers Pablo and Pedro.

Hours after marrying the beautiful Angela Vicario, Bayardo San Roman returned his bride in disgrace to her parents as she was not a virgin. After a beating from her mother, Angela was forced to reveal the name of the man who had defiled her purity. In a somewhat spurious manner, she revealed the man to be Santiago Nasar. Her two twin brothers, Pablo and Pedro Vicario, announced their intention to kill Santiago Nasar for dishonoring their family name.

When the book starts, Santiago is portrayed as wasteful and immoral. When he is named as the one who had taken the virginity of Anglea Vicario, no one questions his guilt.

But by the end of the book, it is obvious that Santiago did not commit the crime. But he has already been killed and the entire town, who did not stop the killing of Santiago, feels guilty for their inaction.

The author, best known for his One Hundred Years of Solitude, creates a crime mystery where the question isn’t who or what but why. Why did everything happen in such a way? Why do people have to resort to such actions? Why are we worse than the wildest animals? Why did no one stop the killing?