Death Foretold Gender Roles

In the "Chronicle of a Death Foretold," by Gabriel Garcia, the difference between gender roles of women and men are widely expressed and play a key role throughout the entire novel. It shows how gender roles are actually not as innocent as they seem, and in the novel they even can lead to an entire town being culpable in the murder of a man who could be completely innocent. If it wasn't for the way society unreasonably expects girls to be virgins and guys to defend their honor to the death, Santiago could very well still be alive. In latin america, women are often treated differently from men and children, doing lots of work of almost no reason and being used as almost a sort of object for men. The men growing up thinking they should be dominating
Purisima del Carmen, Angela Vicario's mother, raised Angela and her sisters to be these “perfect wives”. The girls do not marry until late in life by what their family tells them, not out of love, and rarely socialize beyond the outsides of their own home. When she says the daughters she raises are “perfect… any man will be happy with them because they’ve been raised to suffer.” she means that because Bayardo San Román, is a wealthy man, and as they are often seen as aggressive, Angela or her sisters would be perfect since they are raised to deal with harsh situation. When Angelas husband found out she was not a virgin, she was sent back to her family. The fact that she was not a virgin was enough to prevent a marriage from occurring, bring disgrace to the family, and even cause a murder. But gender roles don’t only apply to women, both in the story and real life. The expectations put on men by society are shown as Marquez states “The Vicario brothers were brought up to be men” They serve in the war, take over their father's business when he goes blind, drink and party until all hours of the night, and spend time in the local brothel. And often are seen as violent, even going as far as killing a man to regain their