The Importance Of Fate In Latin-American Cultures By Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Growing up in an area with a large Mexican community I never really understood how much my culture means to me. I grew up with the stories my dad and grandfather would tell me about my ancestors. My people were the raiders from the hills of Mexico City and that we were a family of warriors. I never held much weight to the warrior part of my grandfather’s stories but I did know that my great grandfather was a fighter. He left Mexico and rode the train up to Denton Texas and sold tamales on the square his entire life. He fought to give my grandfather a better life here. I don’t talk about my dad’s side of the family much, in this day in age being seen as white has more advantages than being seen as Mexican. This thought changed as I came to

     The Old Gringo is a fiction novel written by one of Latin America's most renowned and eloquent authors, Carlos Fuentes. Filled with war, adventure, love and more, this novel takes you back to the Mexican revolution fought in 1912. This contemporary fiction is based on many themes found and experienced by the main characters in this novel. The relationship between Mexico and the United States, the drive to find one's true self and the different ways two men need a woman are only a few themes contained in this story. The question: Is he Ambrose Bierce or just an old gringo, is one that I had to answer while reading this book. We all have different opinions, but it is a question that all ask

Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Chronicles of a Death Foretold shows how Machismo drives all male ambition. Machismo, in Latin American countries was derived from the word macho meaning an intense masculine pride. Machismo was first used in 1948, and was taken as a code of honour for men, rules that would make you considered macho. Respect and reputation are highly regarded as important traits in Machismo, and are the driving force of reason in the novel. (Add another sentence about the broadness of Machismo).

In Gabriel Garcia-Marquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold, the concept of appearance versus reality is manifested in three of the major characters around whom the novel revolves. The surface impressions of Santiago Nasar, Angela Vicario, and Bayardo San Roman are deeply rooted in Latin culture; underneath the layer of tradition, however, lies a host of paradoxical traits which indicate the true complexity of human nature.

When we think about society there is often a stark contrast between the controversy projected in our media about the issues that our society faces and the mellow, safe view we have of our own smaller, more tangible ‘local’ society. This leads us to believe that our way of life is protected and our rights secured by that concept of society that has been fabricated and built upon during the course of our short lives. However, what if society were not what we perceive it to be, and the government chose to exercise its power in an oppressive manner? As a society we would like to think that we ourselves are above such cruelty, yet as The Lonely Crossing of Juan Cabrera recounts the state of Cuba in the 1990’s so must we remember that all societies and governments view the individual differently as opposed to the whole. Each group has unique expectations that are enforced upon the individual goes beyond those expectations. The individual can very quickly find their rose glasses view of their society cracking before their very eyes as the reality of taking such a rise comes into view.

Characters are made to present certain ideas that the author believes in. In Gabriel García Márquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold there are many characters included that range from bold, boisterous characters to minuscule, quiet characters but one thing they all have in common is that they all represent ideas. Characters in the novel convey aspects of Marquez’s Colombian culture.

Although prostitution may be one of the world’s oldest professions to this day it is seen as a degrading and disrespectful career especially when regarding female prostitutes. In Chronicle of a Death Foretold, the town is very critical and strict about chastity and premarital sex. Maria Alejandrina Cervantes is the town madam which by society’s standards makes her to most marginalized, but ironically she is not brought down by her society’s rules. Gabriel Garcia Marquez uses characterization and irony to demonstrate Maria Alejandrina Cervantes’s contradictory role and to develop the theme of going against society in Chronicle of a Death Foretold.

In Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Gabriel Marquez employs the motif of flowers within the novel to illustrate the role of women within a Latin American society; the cultural and symbolic implications of this associate flowers with purity, victimization, gender barriers, and deceit. In doing so, Marquez creates a microcosm of Latin America, exposing the core of Columbian culture and society with all its aspects such as ethnicity, and social norms and conventions that led to a series of insecurities and poverty in the community, and its affect on the role of women. The cultural context of this novel must first be considered before examining the symbolic importance of flowers.

In the story, “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings,” writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez intertwines the supernatural with the natural in an amazing manner. This essay analyzes how Marquez efficiently utilizes an exceptional style and imaginative tone that requests the reader to do a self-introspection on their life regarding their responses to normal and abnormal events.

Marquez, Gabriel Garcia. _Chronicle of a Death Foretold_. Trans.Gregory Rabassa. New York: Vintage-Random House, 1982.

Pedro Paramo is a novel that cannot be fully understood without consideration of its rich cultural background. It is this Mexican background, which informs so much of the novel, providing the main conflict. The narrator of the tale remarks “some villages have the smell of misfortune” while describing the locale of Pedro Parámo, the small Mexican town of Comala where the story plays out on many levels (83). On the surface level, this story is merely about a tyranical man who ruins his hometown of Comala. But in reality he does much more than that, his presence detroys the town completely, driving everyone out and converting the town to a type of purgatory. This deeper harm that he causes, by damning the rest of his townsmen is the evil

Chronicle of a Death Foretold, by Gabriel Garcia-Marquez Works Cited Not Included Chronicle of a Death Foretold, by Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, is a story that brings one to question the code of honor that exists in the Columbian town. Marquez' paints a picture that shows how societal values, such as honor, have become more important than the inherent good of human life. The Vicario brothers' belief that their sister was done wrong was brought upon by this honor, along with racial and social tension. The dangerous path of both honor and religious faith caused Santiago's untimely death.

The book Inheritance by Lorena Garza Gonzalez with Lisa Trevino Cummins was an interesting book to read. The authors focused on the richness of the Latino culture and family. The book consisted of many short stories of the memories the authors had while growing up. The memories they shared had an important meaning that made them who they are today. They shared the good values, the good times, and the bad times they experienced throughout their Latino culture. The stories focused on love and family and it showed how important it is in their culture. The authors talked about their cultural and family themes, gender roles, parenting dynamics, and marital dynamics that describe the Latino culture.

The novella, “chronicle of a Death Foretold”,raises the question of (whether fate controls our lives more than we think). Fate is an important theme in this novel because it can not be changed. Marquez believes that even if you know your fate, you can not change the outcome. Marquez shows that people cannot alter their fate through the plight of the characters Santiago Nasar, Angela Vicario and the twin brothers.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s text depicts the cultural life and setting of Latin America. His inclusion of conventional values portrayed in the novel such as pride and honor influences specific characters such as Pedro