Chronicle of a Death Foretold

In Chronicle of a Death Foretold, which took place in the 1950s off the Caribbean coast, Garcнa Marquez uses the force of hypocrisy within the lives of the characters and the society in which they live. Garcнa Marquez’s idea of adding hypocrisy to such a religious and conservative setting found in Chronicle of a Death Foretold adds an unusual yet interesting twist that forces the reader to stay attached on the novel until the very last work. The force of hypocrisy that Garcнa Marquez embeds within the lives of his characters is another tool used to keep the reader in Marquez’s spell.

Garcнa Marquez presents hypocrisy in three different forms: through his description of the characters, the characters’ actions and words, and the society in which they live. Marнa Alehandrina Cervantes is the town’s prostitute in Chronicle of a Death Foretold and is also a perfect example of hypocrisy within the description of a character and the views of the society that Garcнa Marquez creates. Marнa is “the most elegant and the most tender woman” (64) with an “apostolic lap,” (5) when in reality, if the society’s beliefs and actions were to coincide with each other, she is a disgrace to women and to her conservative society. If a society such as the one Garcнa Marquez creates in Chronicle of a Death Foretold is concerned about Santiago Nasar hindering the honor of Angela Vicario and robbing Angela of her virginity, to the point where Santiago is killed without a trial, surely Marнa Alehandrina Cervantes receive the same judgment. After all, she “did away with [the] generation’s virginity” (64-65), yet Garcнa Marquez is able to transform not only the society’s view, but the reader’s view of such a prostitute as he adds soft, positive, and angelic descriptive words about her. This play on adjectives hides the real characteristics Marнa Cervantes, replacing them with soft, heavenly