Santiago Nasar, the Slain Saracen: Racist Motivation of Crime in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold

First published in Literophile, a Universiy of Delhi Literary Journal, May 2007

Illustration by Moosa Khan

Crime has been an inherent part of both the oral and the written traditions since their very beginnings. In fact some crime or the other accompanied all major theories of creation and the earliest epics. In Greek mythology the gods themselves could come into being only with Zeus slaying his father Kronos, a Titan. The gift of fire for man was stolen by Prometheus from the gods for which he came to be punished for eternity. In the Judaic tradition the first murder by man was committed between God’s own grandchildren- Cain and Abel. The battle of Troy had its miseries in the elopement of Helen. Even our own epics could build stories to be told for generations only because of the crimes committed by Ravana and Duryodhana and the other Kauravas. However, with the crusades and more importantly with colonialism we see an unforeseen motivation for crime in man. Much of it arises out of and extends into racism.
In Chronicle of a Death Foretold Santiago Nasar, the young man of Arab origin is killed by the two avenging brothers Pablo and Pedro Vicario in front of a whole town gathered around to watch the foretold event. The justification-an act to rescue and reclaim the lost honour of their angelic sister. The culprit- the decadent machismo of the Latin American society. The sole victim for the majority of the society- Bayardo San Roman, the cuckolded husband. This is the truth as claimed by the narrator and agreed upon by most critics.
Yet, the narrator himself says “…no one believed that it had really been Santiago Nasar.” [p.56, Chronicle…, Doaba Publications, Delhi 2002] For once, what the narrator says can be concretely believed to be the truth with ample evidence within the novel itself to support it. Then what is one to make of the previously cited syllogism based on the essential premise of Angela Vicario’s word? How is it then that the whole of the closely knit society is able to allow and thereby commit a crime of such horrendous nature, of brutally killing an innocent young man?
Racism seems to provide the only rational solution in the search for a motive for such an irrational killing.
If, contrary to the novel, one is to proceed by examining the novel chronologically the reason behind Angela Vicario’s (false) accusation has to be looked at first. By not revealing the name of the real seducer Angela is clearly shielding another man on whose silence the onus of the killing lies heavier than the rest of the community. Gonzalo-Diaz-Migoyo in his essay Truth Disguised: Chronicle of a Death (Ambiguously) Foretold claims the narrator (Garcia Marquez) to be the real “perpetrator.” He is the cousin of Angela and an attempt to shield his identity would be an even more important desire for the girl. Perhaps his guilt is the reason for his obsession to uncover why no one prevented the act and his writing the novel may be an attempt at its exorcising. Anyhow it is not a particular act of vengeance but really protecting someone else that propels Angela to give Nasar’s name. However, “She only took the time necessary to say the name. …and she nailed it to the wall with her well-aimed dart, like a butterfly with no will whose sentence has already been written.” [p.29, Ibid]The ease with which the name slips off her tongue seems to suggest that the life of an Arab, a person outside her own community, is not worth more than that of a butterfly for her, as suggested. Nasar’s name in particular can be seen to be the first one to come to mind on account of his popularity, even a possibility of him being a past crush of hers should not be ruled out. For as Margot, the narrator’s sister says “I suddenly realized that there couldn’t have been a better catch than him (Santiago)… Just imagine: handsome, a man of his word, and with a fortune of his own at the age of twenty one.” [p.11, Ibid]
As is clear Nasar, the Arab provided a clear sexual and economic threat for the Latin-American patriarchal community and I will attempt to elucidate this further.
That Santiago Nasar was a threat for the community, perhaps for some perceived only subconsciously, can be seen amongst the various reasons of people for not having alerted him. While the narrator claims a certain ambivalence to have prevailed as to why no one assumed the responsibility of telling him, no concrete reason can be found to have existed simply because of the total failure of the accusation. Except for the brothers perhaps, who didn’t even pause to give it a thought, hardly anyone had taken the possibility of a liaison between Nasar and Angela seriously. Therefore all reasons for not having informed Santiago are either to be seen as an inconsiderate and unfeeling racist attitude towards the ethnic Other, or sheer hostility towards him and hence a pleasure derived from the killing.
That Santiago was a potent sexual threat can be seen not just through the narrator’s sister but also through Divina Flor who “knew that she was destined for Santiago Nasar’s furtive bed” and as she says many years after his death, “Another man like that hasn’t ever been born again.” In fact it is for this purpose that Victoria Guzman, her mother, lends a hand in the killing (through concealing what she knew even before Nasar got out of bed). Clearly the fear of the Oriental ram tupping the white ewe existing since Shakespearian times wouldn’t have been absent from the mind of this town, especially a Spanish community, after having lived under close to eight hundred years of Moorish Muslim rule.
Santiago, the inheritor of a rich legacy was also clearly begrudged because of his affluence. While everyone admires the financial resources and the party that has been thrown by his white counter part-Bayardo, Nasar’s life is cut short before he is able to throw one himself. He voices his wish clearly, (himself possessing the resources for it) when he says, “That’s what my wedding is going to be like. Life will be too short for people to tell about it.” [p.10, Ibid] However, the Vicarios and the rest of his community have other plans. Pollo Carillo says to the narrator that “he (Santiago) thought that his money made him untouchable” while his wife added, “Just like all Turks.”[p.64, Ibid] The silence of such a people can hardly be called anything but racist. The voluntary acquiescence of the people reminds one of the Nazi (the superior Aryan race) killings of Jews and more recently the targeting of Muslim businesses in Gujarat during the riots, both based on equally flimsy rationale but attempting to wipe out the economic threat from the Other.
In fact the reasons for not having done anything to prevent the act, especially those of the two men representative of authority- Father Amador and Colonel Aponte, come across only as poor excuses for the lack of desire to protect an Arab, even to the investigating magistrate. The young man (with a literary bent of mind) makes various points in his report that suggest the sheer un-believability of the incapacity of anyone to have prevented the act. Regarding the guilt of Nasar and its outcome, ironically he notes “Give me a prejudice and I will move the world.” [p.63, Ibid] At the insistence of all the people who saw Nasar on the dock and with Christo Bedoya but did not see him enter his in-laws’ house he writes “fatality makes us invisible.”[p.71, Ibid] All excuses seem feigned arguments to allow the event to take place without having to accept any responsibility for it. Perhaps that is the reason for so many people flooding to give testimony without being asked for it.
Father Amador although knowing about the impending killing and despite being God’s own representative, thinks it is a matter for the civil authorities. He thinks about putting a word in Placida Linero’s ear but forgets. More than saving a life, beholding the spectacle of the Bishop is important for him. On seeing him at the dock he supposes everything to be fine. And finally he tells the narrator, “The truth is I didn’t know what to do.” [p.43, Ibid]
Colonel Aponte is told about the twins carrying knives by Leandro Pornoy, the policeman who has already seen the killers with the knives and wandered back to report in an intentionally casual manner that is strangely reminiscent of the police sponsored violence of Gujarat. Colonel Aponte on his part does take a small step of confiscating the first pair of knives from the twins without arresting them but, on their procurement of a second set, gives priority to a game of dominoes over the life of Nasar. Clearly a disinterestedness in, if not an outright desire for, the killing of Nasar is at work on that fateful Monday, inside the hearts of all white men.
A further proof of there being a strict ethnic divide in the town is the attitudinal difference between the Arabs and the rest of the people of the town before and after the murder of Santiago Nasar. The only Arabs mentioned to us prior to the murder are Yamil Shaium and Nasar’s to be father in law Nahir Miguel. While it is ultimately the latter who gets to warn Nasar, the former also tells his best friend Cristo Bedoya about the situation so as to inform him without causing a shock. These are the only two men, besides the one conscientious woman, Placida Linero who make a real effort to prevent the murder. Nahir Miguel offers his gun and his house as a refuge while Yamil goes to look for his bullets. Even after the murder it is only Arabs, including Shaium with his jaguar gun, who chase the twins cognizant of the crime they had committed. For the rest of the town it is still a matter of honour, even if everyone knew the victim had nothing to do with the twins’ sister.
The final confirmation of the racist ideology at work comes from the point onwards when he leaves the house of Nahir Miguel in a confused and shocked state. Shouts such as “Not that way Turk; by the old dock,” [p.73, Ibid] present the derogatory stance towards the community by the whites; of denying them of even their true identity. The manner in which he is taunted and egged on towards the square (resembling a sporting ring) where the townsfolk have positioned themselves as spectators to view the killing almost seems to represent a Spanish Bull Fighting scene where the people taunting him act like forcados, the professional taunters while the twins become the matadors killing the virile bull, Santiago with repeated thrusts of their banderillas or knives. The association of the image of an animal with the Other once again goes to highlight the bestial sexuality and physical prowess of the Arab male and stresses the need for a taming through any means, any crime by the civilised race.
Moreover, the manner in which the twins, who have been so far presented as a reluctant duo, kill Nasar, casts off all doubt about their own subconscious stance towards the Arab. Even in medieval times, the lingering code of which they were protecting, death when administered to a friend was, more often than not, administered ‘neatly’. The clean death of a knight with a single stroke of the sword. However the death they give to Nasar is closer to the butchering of a Saracen caught by the Crusaders on the way to Jerusalem or that of a Moor at the hands of a Spaniard during the Reconquista in Spain.
It is tough to comprehend how, in the face of such solid evidential support for the true motivation for killing of a man by an entire community, the whole idea of racial and ethnic insecurities and hatreds has been neglected by critics. Moreover, to prevent this kind of slaying of innocent Saracens or, for that matter, any future holocausts such as the Nazi pogrom or the Gujarat riots, one has to look more closely at the psychology of such grotesque crime within the novel as well as in real life. Literature, through suggestions such as the ones in this novel, goes a long way in raising important questions in the mind of the reader. It is only through the sensitization of the common man to the negative aspects of ideas such as race and superiority that crimes not just against an individual but whole communities and races can be prevented. Literature and life, it seems, has to work hand in hand to identify criminal motivations and thereby, through awareness, ultimately wipe out crime from each other.