Chronicle of a death foretold: main and secondary CHARACTERS [SUMMARY!]

The novels of the Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez usually have a network of characters. Just look at the number of generations that appear in One hundred years of loneliness, There are even editions that have the genealogical tree of the main family so that the reader can follow the story. However, there are other novels that, although they do not have a large number of characters, do develop in depth those who bring the story to life. In this case, in this lesson from a Teacher we bring you a count of the characters of A Chronicle of a Death Foretoldby Gabriel García Márquez published in 1981.

Before delving into the characters of A Chronicle of a Death Foretold, it is worth briefly discussing the central argument and the characteristic style from A Chronicle of a Death Foretold.

Santiago Nasar, a carefree young man, wakes up around 6 in the morning without knowing that that will be the last day of his life. And although all the people know that they are planning her murder, the news fails to reach her hands to allow her an escape and save his life.

The night before, the wedding between Ángela Vicario and Bayardo San Román would have been celebrated. However, the latter would have rejected her for not being a virgin. With the breakup and disappointment of Angela's family, her twin brothers, Pedro and Pablo Vicario, begin to follow in Santiago's footsteps. Well, after finding her beaten up at her house, she confesses that the culprit of his love break is Santiago.

The style of García Márquez

This is a short book in which Garcia Marquez takes us into a flirtatious style between journalism and literature. With previous novels that made famous the famous "magical realism", in this writing we find an effort of journalistic meticulousness typical of the chronic.

By using a narrator who is involved in the story we feel even more credibility to what we are reading. It is a text full of data and information (almost as if it were showing us old newspaper clippings or police reports); it is loaded with verisimilitude from a creative and intriguing prose.

As is common in his story, he accompanies it with a neat game with adjectives and a wide network of characters that, although many of them do not fulfill major functions, they fit within the great fabric of the story. To have an understanding of the book, reading a summary can help to understand more deeply the place and role of each character.

Although we present in the previous section the main characters of A Chronicle of a Death Foretold, we find others that occupy a secondary role and that are crucial for the entire work to maintain its tension and meaning:

• Placida Linero: mother of Santiago Nasar.
• Victoria Guzmán and Divina Flor: mother and daughter who work as cooks on the hacienda of Santiago y Plácida.
• Pontius Vicar and Pure Vicar: father and mother of Angela, Pedro and Pablo.
• The bishop: he plans to arrive in town on the day the murder is committed.
• Colonel Lázaro Aponte: he is the one who seizes the knives from the twins before they commit the crime.
• Luis Enrique: brother of the narrator.
• Cristo Bedoya: friend of Santiago Nasar.
• Flora Miguel: Santiago Nasar's girlfriend.

Besides them, there are other characters from A Chronicle of a Death Foretold who play minor roles in the play such as Mercedes Barcha and María Alejandrina Cervantes who are neighbors of the town, as well as Faustino Santos who is a butcher or Polo Carrillo, owner of the plant electrical. Although everything has a narrative and game function within the story, the previous list highlights the characters that face the plot and its development.