Death Foretold Ethics

A longtime senior executive for The Walt Disney Company, Roy E. Disney once said “It's not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are." Roy E. Disney explains that making decisions are easy if one has and follows principles or cultural codes. The answer to a decision reflects on the ethics one pursues. No matter if the decision is right or wrong to someone else, in one's eyes it is based one's values and that is why that decision has been made. In regards to Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold, the two Vicario brothers Pablo and Pedro, the murderers of Santiago Nasar’s, killed him because their cultural codes advocated them to uphold their family's honor after they find out from their sister Angela Vicario
that Nasar had ruined her and their family name, by taking her virginity.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold uses three cultural aspects of the Colombian town, the importance of virginity and purity in a woman, and the code of honor which led to the death of Santiago Nasar.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez in Chronicle of a Death Foretold makes a big statement about the significance of a female staying a virgin until she is married in the Latin American culture. Bayardo San Roman returns Angela Vicaro to the Vicario family when he found out that she was not a virgin. The Vicario felt shame when they found out that Angela was not a virgin because of the cultural view of the Colombian town the importance of virginity in a female was a serious topic. Angela’s mother beat her because she was furious about Angela losing her virginity before marriage and humiliating the Vicario family in the Colombian town. Once Angela told her family who was the man who took her virginity, Santiago Nasar, the two brothers Pablo and Pedro committed to one goal. That goal was to kill Santiago Nasar because of what he had done to their sister; ruining her chances of keeping her marriage and also advancing in the machismo Latin American world. From a cultural view of the town, Marquez was asserting to the reader that it was not acceptable for a woman to not be a virgin before she was married. Gabriel Garcia Marquez states on page 41, "On the other hand, the fact that Angela Vicario dared put on the veil and the orange blossom without being a virgin would be interpreted afterwards as a profanation of symbols of purity." Marquez is revealing to the reader how the Colombian town feels about Angela's disgracing the cultural Colombian wedding and implies that the Colombian town feels disrespected that Angela wore “the veil and the orange blossom” that symbolizes fruitfulness, and innocence. Premarital sex was a big issue to the Colombian town that Santiago Nasar, the wrongdoer in the Vicario brothers’ eyes that he had to be put to death for causing dishonor to Angela and her family. To add to this, that society took premarital sex seriously and taken as matter of honor than it is today in the western culture. In the western world, if a woman isn’t a virgin before marriage, it is not seen as something to make a crime for, but rather, is accepted because it is common.
In addition to virginity being so important, Gabriel Garcia Marquez made the honor code a big idea to follow in the Colombian town.
The main reason that Pedro and Pablo Vicario killed Santiago Nasar was because they wanted the wrong that Nasar did to their sister to be righted; revenge is what they wanted in order to clear her name. Gabriel Garcia Marquez states on page 49 ““We killed him openly,” Pedro Vicario said, “but we’re innocent.” “Perhaps before God,” said Father Amador. “Before God and before men,” Pablo Vicario said. “It was a matter of honour”” Pablo Vicario is telling Father Amador about why he and Pedro killed Nasar because they were brought up with the honor code and that the code was the most important traits in their society to have. Not one person in the Colombian town questioned the action the brother were going to take because honor was an important fundamental moral trait that many were brought up with signifying that any brother would get revenge for her sister loss of virginity. However, people like Clothilde Armenta, who was more religious in the town thought their action was inhumane and tried to prevent the death of Nasar from happening. The honor principle was so big that a person that didn’t follow it would be unwanted in the town. The darkness of this ideology led to the death Santiago because this ideal was so momentous and most people in the town didn’t care of what the Vicario brothers were going to do. It was a common a thing to fight for
one’s or family’s honor due to the belief that the harshness of an immoral action like taking a female virginity before her marriage deserved a cruel punishment. Furthermore, the fact that death was considered a reasonable vengeance when immorally taking a girl's virginity indicates how awful it was to sleep with an unmarried woman in the Colombian town. Compare to the western world such as countries like the United States, still in the 1950s traditional ideologies like the actions the Vicario took were seem wrong and not exercised. In the United States, it is less likely that the woman’s brother would go murder the perpetrator such crime would be a first degree murder. The brothers would be charge with many years in prison and not like how the Vicario brothers were treated softly by the Colombian judge. In overall, Pablo and Pedro Vicario were largely excuse for their inhumane actions on Santiago Nasar because they murdered Santiago in order to stand by their sister's honor.