The Women in Chronicle of a Death Foretold

Compose character sketches of the women in Chronicle of a Death Foretold. Describe their lives, their aspirations, the choices that are available to them, and their individual responses to the circumstances in which they find themselves.  

Pura Vicario is Angela, Pedro, and Pablo Vicario's mother. When Angela was returned home by Bayardo San Roman, after he discovers she is not a virgin, Pura beats her daughter. She completely devotes her life to her children and her husband. Pura is an extremely strict mother, however, wants to seem to the rest of society that she is the ideal mother. Also her children are both fueled by machismo and marianismo.  Her goal is that her daughters are able to marry an eligeable bachelor. "They're perfect," she was frequently heard to say. "Any man will be happy with them because they've been raised to suffer".  Also, that her family is seen as innocent and fit well in the colombian society. As Pura Vicario had the choice to not hit her children and be strict with them. As that is what the character believed to be the best way for the children to behave, instead of treating them with love. "She devoted herself with such spirit of sacrifice to the care of her husband and the rearing of her children that at times one forgot she still existed".  This shows to the audience that Pura Vicario is satifised with her life because she does not try to change it.

Maria Alejandrina Cervantes is a "hoe" who owns a brothel. She surprisngly is the only woman in the novella that is treated as an equal to men. The town sees her as the women to taught the community about sex, whereas usually someone would be killed when a girl looses her virignity out of marriage. Even though she is a prostitute she is seen as an independent woman. As even the narrator said "Maria Alejandrina Cervantes, about whom we used to say that she would go to sleep only once and that would be to die, was the most elegant and the most tender woman I have ever known, and the most serviceable in bed, but she was also the strictest".  As Maria completely contrasts with the sterotypical marianismo girl, she aspires for money and to work on her own. Marquez used this character to create that double standard for women and to comment on the hypocrisy of the Colombian people. Also many readers speculate, if Maria represented feminism in the novel because she was an independent woman and disgarding society's rules.

Angela Vicario is undoubtely one of the most important characters in the novella. As many readers argue if Angela is the protagonist of the story, because we see her transformation from an innocent girl to becoming a woman. At the begnning of the novella the narrator said "She had a helpless air and a poverty of spirit that augured an uncertain future for her". Angela was forced to marry Bayardo San Roman against her free will. However, after she was returned by Bayardo home and after 20 years Angela became a very mature woman. The narrator wrote "She was so mature and witty that it was difficult to believe that she was the same person. What surprised me most was the way in which she'd ended up understanding her own life. After a few minutes she no longer seemed as aged to me as at first sight, but almost as young in my memory, and she had nothing in common with the person who'd been obliged to marry without love at age of twenty". Once again, this could fall under the feminist perspective that the women learned that understanding her self is more important than being in a married relationship.