The Importance of Memory in Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Essay Example

The idea of memory is central to both the form and theme of Gabriel García Márquez’s novel Chronicle of the Death Foretold (1981). Because the novel utilizes a non-linear approach to narrative, the ambiguity of memory and the lack of any objective historical truth become major influences on the plot of the novel and on the expression of the novel’s theme. The significance of the novel’s non-linear storytelling and the vagaries of memory that are explored in the novel is to heighten the sense that truth and certainty are, at root, human constructs that may or may not relate to any kind of objective reality. Marquez’s use of memory in the novel is meant to undermine the reader’s sense of conviction in the objective reality of both personal and collective experience.

This ambiguity of both personal and collective memory is shown from the opening of the novel. The narrator of the story observes that Santiago Nasar, in the week prior to his murder, experienced disturbing dreams. These dreams were interpreted by his mother to hold little or no ominous significance. The idea that dreams carry a latent capacity to foretell the future is acknowledged by the narrator, despite the fact that Santiago’s mother, Placida Linero, failed to acknowledge the foreboding quality of her son’s dreams. The narrator remarks: “Nor did Santiago Nasar recognise the omen” (Márquez, 2). The implication of the narrator’s assertion is that the narrator’s memory of events supersedes the first-hand experience of Santiago. The reader understands that the narrator is imposing a story, through memory, that will yield a cohesive and rational understanding of the events of Santiago’s murder.

The certainty of imposing a linear narrative on the events is immediately undermined by the narrator’s confession that, even in collective memory, two simultaneous (and opposing) versions of events can be recalled. The weather on the day of Santiago’s murder is used as an example of how divergent memories of an ostensibly objective event proliferate. The narrator remarks that “Many people coincided in recalling that it was a radiant morning with a sea breeze […] But most agreed that the weather was funereal, with a cloudy, low sky and the thick smell of still waters” (Márquez, 2). Obviously, either recollection of the weather facilitates a sense of narrative, with the recollection of fair weather providing an ironic undertone to the events, and the memory of a gray, rainy day providing a timely mood of doom. The main point of the narrator’s reference to the weather is to immediately undermine the reader’s sense , lack the objective certainty. After-all, weather is not connected to human memory, but exists as an objective reality despite the individual observer. For this reason, Márquez’s decision to express an ambiguity about weather early on in the novel indicates his overall thematic intent to explore the fallibility and ambiguity of personal and collective memory.

The exploration of narrative and memory in Chronicle of a Death Foretold must be understood as being so closely connected that the two functions are actually one and the same. In other words, what Márquez is expressing in the novel is the idea that memory carries with it an intrinsic mode of narrative that is stimulated by objective events, but which is necessarily distinct from objectivity. This point is demonstrated  by the author  in the novel when the narrator recounts about his own brother’s prior knowledge of Santiago’s murder. The narrator writes that his brother had “drunk so much that his memories of that encounter were always quite confused” (Márquez, 41)  but that, despite this fact, there was a certainty that his brother had met and drank with the Vicario twins who informed him of their plans to kill Santiago. Another aspect of the narrator’s recounting of his brother’s memory is that the narrator, while openly admitting that his brother’s memory is flawed, still relies with conviction on his brother’s testimony in order to reconstruct the chain of events that preceded Santiago’s murder. This shows that there is a human tendency to reach for verification of a preferred narrative. It also shows that memory can be a collective, rather than merely individual, function. This idea of ambiguous collective memory is central to the imposition of rationality and order on otherwise irrational experiences.

A similar pattern permeates all of the narrator’s references and testimonies in relation to the crime. From the official report by the magistrate to the narrator’s own fragmented memory of events, the notion of reliability and certainty is systematically undermined rather than reinforced. As the events of the novel unfold in disparate pieces, the reader begins to feel that each avenue of certainty or objectivity is being taken away, only to be replaced by hazy recollections and imposed viewpoints that fail to be substantiated by facts. This is, of course, the basic theme of the novel as a whole: that the certainty of objective experience is, in fact, a myth in terms of a functioning reality in human affairs. However, what is less obvious in relation to the novel’s theme is whether or not Márquez is suggesting that objective reality simply does not exist in the way that humanity desires for it to exist.

In other words, it is possible that what Márquez is trying to express in the novel is the idea that there simply is no objective reality at all. The human desire for linear, rational experience simply imposes order on an otherwise disordered and meaningless universe. An explicit statement of this theme is expressed in the magistrate’s marginal note, discovered by the narrator, which reads: “Give me a prejudice and I will move the world” (Márquez, 59). This statement places the theme of memory in the novel totally in the forefront because the idea of “prejudice” extends to all experiences, not merely those which are connected to the present or the future, but to the past as well. Most readers are probably comfortable with the idea of inaccurate memories, but many readers may not understand the full impact of prejudicial memories. Rather than placing the blame for fragmented memory on a physical or chronological function, Márquez chooses to explore the idea that memory is contaminated by prejudice. This means that lapses in memory are the result of emotional and psychological processes and, as such, indicate more about these subjective identities than about empirical events.

This perspective serves to undermine not only the validity of memory in the novel, but the validity of the present. This is because the prejudices and biases that color memory are also present during the initial experience of events. Also, the ability to rationally understand experience is rooted in a self-reflective process, so that memory, as unreliable as it may be, forms not only a crucial part of defining the present, but provides an overwhelming influence over the interpretation of events in real-time. The process of the narrative itself indicates this theme because as the narrator of the story digs deeper into the past, the tone of his presently held ideas and convictions is changed. The past, in fact, co-exists with the future in human consciousness and both the present and the past are locked into the subjective prejudices of each individual perceiver. For example, at one point the narrator mentions about the Vicario brothers that “the reconstruction of the facts, they had feigned a much more unforgiving bloodthirstiness than really was true” (Márquez, 29). This statement is doubly ironic because it in no way impacts the empirical outcome of Santiago’s murder. The statement also reflects a degree of disingenuousness given that the twins carried out a methodical killing despite their “feigning” blood-lust.

Marquez’s use of memory in Chronicle of a Death Foretold is meant to undermine the reader’s sense of conviction in the objective reality of both personal and collective experience. The idea that memory exists in a state of individual prejudice supports the thematic conviction in the novel that objective reality may be unknowable both by individuals and society. The irony of this supposition is supported throughout the novel by the depictions of violence and real-world suffering that occurs due to the inability of human beings to penetrate to the core of empirical experience. Instead of sharing a world that is based on unchangeable facts, Márquez suggests that humanity is locked into subjective experience which colors memory to such a degree that arriving at an impersonal, factual account of reality is impossible.

Works Cited

Marquez, Gabriel Garcia. Chronicle of a Death Foretold. Vintage Books, NY. 1982.