Religion in Chronicle of a Death
Foretold : Catholicism
•Religion is very important to the plot
•men in power
•Premarital sex not allowed- but this isn’t a dishonour
for men
•Honour killing is condoned by Father Amador, who
says they are ‘perhaps’ innocent ‘before God’ if not
men and the law
•After the murder, Angela Vicario is again in
‘possession of her honour’
Religious figures
• The Bishop – The priest and Santiago dress up
smartly for him, but Angela thinks he is
wasteful to ‘throw the rest of the rooster in
the garbage’ and only eat the comb soup, and
he ‘hates this town’
• Father Amador : the doctor says ‘only a priest
could be so dumb’ and doesn’t warn Santiago
marriage
• Santiago’s mother’s ‘marriage of convenience’
without ‘ a single instance of happiness’
• Bayardo’s ‘contract of love’ with Angela
• Angela is forced to marry ‘a man she had
barely seen’
• Bayardo and Angelo both have an ‘illusion’ of
marriage
Other religious ceremonies
• Santiago was Christened
• The atmosphere was ‘funereal’ and there
were enough flowers for ‘14 1st class funerals’
• The Vicarios are in ‘rigorous’ mourning for
their daughter but it is ‘relaxed inside the
house’ suggesting it is just an act
• Bayardo is disrespectful of their mourning and
of the Widower Xius
• Bayardo ‘helped with’ the mass in latin
• The narrator’s mother doesn’t go to mass +
‘associates the distant uproar’ of the bishop's arrival
with the wedding party
• ‘The Vicario brothers crossed themselves when they
saw’ father Amador and the altar being carried
• Pura Vicario ‘looked like a nun’ who ‘devoted herself
with such spirit of sacrifice to the care of her
husband’
• Narrator’s sister ‘the nun’ – but she ‘wasn’t going to
wait for the bishop because she had a hangover’
superstition
• Santiago’s dreams are an ‘omen’
• ‘sick people in the archways to receive God’s
medecine’
• Belief in ghosts – pura vicario says ‘answer me
if you’re still of this world’
• Also used in speech as an exclamation eg.
‘good heavens’ ‘for the love of God’ and ‘holy
mother of God’
Murder
• Treated as a religious sacrifice with ‘sacrificial
tools’
• The cut on santiagos’ hand ‘looked like a
stigma of the crucified christ’