Morals are very important and are often carried down in many religions and traditions. The specific moral of honor is given to one who shows unbelievable character while portraying honest qualities and has the highest moral beliefs. In the novel “Chronicles of a Death Foretold” one of the prevalent themes is honor. As the plot unfolds the readers get a better understanding of how honor plays a huge role in the telling of the story. The setting, Columbia in which this story takes place also sets the theme of honor being that honor is a virtue taken very seriously here and certain actions such as killing would be seen as a lack of this moral virtue. Allowing the value of honor to overpower their actions characters in the novel act in ways that the audience sees as short of having such virtue.
To begin with, in the novel In order to defend their sister and family’s honor, two twin brothers Pablo & Pedro Vicario murder Santiago Nasar. The action of murdering Santiago raises awareness around the theme of honor because not only did the community know of the premeditated murder , but the act of murdering someone in itself should not be honored. It can be argued that the act of the twin brothers were not looked down upon in comparison to Santiago taking Angela’s virginity before marriage.“ We killed him openly…before god and before men… it was a honor of god” states Pedro Vicario. This quote exemplifies how the brother was able to label his murderous act as one of honor in order to cover up what he had done.According to Cheney (2013, 403), the “concept of honor is to live up to expectations, to fulfil the terms established”. This quote means that one must do whatever it takes to live up to expectations and be honored. In the sense of this quote the twin brothers actions were correct , yet many people may have thought their speaking of their wrong doing was not following the concept of honor. All in all, the brothers killing can be labeled as a honorous act because they were protecting their sister.
Adding on, another way that characters allow honor to overpower their actions is when the community decided to not speak on the brothers wrongdoing. Most people in the society tend to think that fights over honor are better left to those involved. In the Vicario twins' case they are found innocent because they killed Santiago to get back at their sisters lost virginity . In the article “Elements of Social Protest in Gabriel García Márquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold: A Study in Magical Realism” the authors state “ The novel serves as a comment on a society where it is the murdered who is to be blamed for being killed and the murderer is considered to have done an act of heroism.” (Mustanir, Ayaz, Sobia, 2015). This quote explains how the society in which they live in praises behavior that retaliates against those who do not act in the utmost respect and honor even if the retaliation isn’t exactly the right thing to do. In many people's eyes the brothers were not only seen as heros, but they were seen as completing their duty and honor. In the novel the Vicario brothers state “Honor is love”.
Discussing the overall theme of honor, Angela Vicario may feel like it is her honor to follow through in a marriage where she is not familiar with the man. The pressure to marry this man to uphold her honor caused Angela to have many worries and fears. “Angela Vicario never forgot the horror of the night on which her parents and older sisters with their husbands gathered together in the parlor imposed on her obligation to marry a man she had barely seen” (34). This line from the novel exemplifies how Angela does not know this man but, she allows honor and duty to overpower the actual feelings of fear in order to live up to the expectations of her culture and traditions. Knowing that she was not a virgin either probably added on to these feelings of fear that her family may not accept her or most importantly her husband bayardo won’t accept her either. Unofurntaley, after coming clean about her virginity the dishonor ended up falling on the man who took her virginity in contrast to it falling on Angela who did not want to marry Bayardo from the beginning.
In the novel, the honor code falls hand in hand with masculinity throughout the text. A
A scenario where honor falls hand in hand with masculinity is when Bayardo gifted his beloved wife to be, Angela with a music box. After seeing Angela with her mother signing off raffle tickets he decided to buy all the tickets which resulted in him winning the musical box. After winning this prize, Bayardo sent this prize to Angela's house which was soon returned by her brothers being that they were very protective of her. The Vicario brothers may have felt as if it was their duty to protect their sister so using both their masculinity and fulfilling their expectations they go to return the box,but end up returning drunk. This may be seen as the brothers not fulfilling their honor and duty to protect their sister at all cost. On the contrary, when Angela decides to abide by the honor code and tell her husband that she is not a virgin she is punished, yet if she was to lie she would also be seen as not abiding by the honor code. As seen in the text when it is a man, they receive leniency in comparison to females who are automatically shunned and silenced. Instead of using the honor code as a code for the whole city to live up to it can be seen as a code to control women's actions. In the novel as seen in this scenario a woman's chasity is placed on a higher nobility than ones honor which can be seen as a controlling mechanism. “The concept of honour is a complex one, especially, when seen in the context of the culture of Third World countries. Stemming from “either superior birth or moral integrity” (Seed 1988, 254), honour is always seen in the backdrop of the cultural values deemed as necessary to measure prestige on both individual and societal level. It is the same idea of prestige that works behind the cultural construction of gender, whereas the latter was what played a major contributory factor in building the system of honour (Ortner and Whitehead 1981). Seeds (1988) argued that the code of honour worked differently in the case of women as compared to men” (Mustanir, Ayaz, Sobia, 2015). In this quote from the article, it explains how the concept of honor is complicated especially when basing it upon the construction of gender. This story itself examines how honor is measured differently when looking from a male and female's perspective.
In most of the novel, we are barely introduced to the main character, but in the novel they describe him as a “open hearted” individual. Santiago’s appearance in the novel was cut short when he is murdered a day after the biggest wedding in his small town in Columbia, right outside of his own home. He was killed by the twin brothers of the Bride, Pablo and Pedro Vicario. The bride was given back to her parents by her husband due to her husband finding out she was not a virgin. Her two brothers then beg her for the name of the man who took her virginity and she named the man as Santiago Nascar.