World Literature 4/1/13 Today we will Finish Motorcycle Diaries Discuss Background for Chronicle of a Death Foretold (CoDF) Pass out books and packets Homework: Ch 1 and Sequence of Events Worksheet
Film: Motorcycle Diaries Think about this: Compare and contrast Ernesto and Grenada What made Ernesto Fuser unique? What caused Ernesto to change in the movie? How would you describe the landscape of South America? How would you describe the people of South America? How would you characterize the treatment of women? Men? How would you characterize the role of ritual in this culture?
Group 1: Machismo/Men Chronicle Groups Group 2: Role of Women/Women Group 3: Ritual/Tradition Group 4: Journalism/Honor Group 5: Magical Realism/Supersititon
Chronicle of a Death Foretold The life of Gabriel Garcia Marquez The most important relatives of García Márquez were undoubtedly his maternal grandfather and grandmother. His grandfather was Colonel Nicolás Ricardo Márquez Mejía, a Liberal veteran of the War of a Thousand Days. He lived in Aracataca, a banana town by the Caribbean, a village which he helped found. The Colonel was something of a hero to the costeños, for among other things, he refused to stay silent about the banana massacres, delivering a searing denunciation of the murders to Congress in 1929. A very complex and interesting man, the Colonel was also an excellent storyteller who had lead quite an intriguing life -- when he was younger he shot and killed a man in a duel, and it is said that he had fathered over sixteen children. He would speak of his wartime exploits as if they were "almost pleasant experiences -- sort of youthful adventures with guns." The old Colonel taught the young Gabriel lessons from the dictionary and took him to the circus each year. He also told his young grandson that there was no greater burden than to have killed a man, a lesson that García Márquez would later put into the mouths of his characters.
His grandmother was Tranquilina Iguarán Cotes, and would be no less an influence on the young García Márquez than her husband. She was impressively filled with superstitions and folk beliefs, as were her numerous sisters, and they filled the house with stories of ghosts and premonitions, omens and portents -- all of which were studiously ignored by her husband, who once said to young Gabriel, "Don't listen to that. Those are women's beliefs." And yet listen he did, for his grandmother had a unique way of telling stories. No matter how fantastic or improbable her statements, she always delivered them as if they were the irrefutable truth. It was a deadpan style that, some thirty years later, her grandson would adopt for his greatest novel. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fzxhqpb1wm
Chronicle of a Death Foretold The inspiration for the novel The story centers on a murder that had occurred 27 years earlier and that reportedly involved people with whom García Márquez was actually acquainted. On Jan 22, 1951, in Sucre, Colombia, Cayetano Gentile Chimento, 22, a medical student and the heir to the town s largest fortune, was butchered with a machete for reportedly deflowering a woman named Margarita who had been returned to her family on her wedding night by her groom Miguel Reyes Palencia. Victor and Joaquin Chica Sales, the bride s brothers, spent only a few years in prison for what was regarded as a crime of honor. The real husband tried unsuccessfully to get the marriage annulled in Colombia; remarried to Enriqueta Obregon in more liberal Costa Rica he had 12 children and became an insurance agent in Barranquilla. The real rejected wife lived alone until her death. Two characters in the novel are based on others in Garcia Marquez s life: Mercedes Barcha (narrator s wife) and Luisa Santiaga (narrator s mother)
Chronicle of a Death Foretold While reading, pay attention to: Treatment/portrayal of women/role of women in Columbian society The rituals and traditions of the society The role of honor in the society Elements of Magical Realism/ superstition Role of men/ machismo The journalistic elements of the writing
Homework Read Ch. 1 and be prepared for Quiz; fill out Ch. 1 Sequence of Events Worksheet