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Sandra Zaragoza
Ms. Hull
English 2600
7 August 2015
“Death Constant Beyond Love” Analysis
Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s short story Death Constant Beyond Love reveals that being aware of
when we are going to die changes our way of living. Senator Sanchez has a little over six months to live.
Rosal de Virrey is the village where he meets Laura Farina. She is the daughter of a fugitive that has been
persistently asking for a fake identification. Nelson, the criminal, notices that Senator Sanchez is attracted
to Laura. Nelson attempts to manipulate the senator by sending his daughter to Senator Sanchez in hopes
that he will offer him fake identification. Senator Sanchez’s focus on the key to the chastity belt diminishes
as he realizes he just wanted companionship because he feels lonely. Senator Sanchez represents the
upper class while Nelson Farina, Laura Farina and the townspeople all represent the lower class. Some
ideologies that are present include: marriage, love, relationships between fathers and daughters and
politics. Ideologies are representations of the imaginary relationships to their real relationships of
existence (Althusser 695). Fundamentally, the idea of ideology has a control over people whether they
are aware of ideologies or not. Marquez reveals to us that regardless of social status, everyone struggles
with our desire of suppressing our loneliness while fearing the act of living and dying.
From the beginning we get a sense of dissatisfaction but we also receive a preview of someone
who is powerful enough to change the destiny of another character. “He met her in Rosal del Virrey, an
illusory village which by night was the furtive wharf for smugglers’ ships and on the other hand, in broad
daylight looked like the most useless inlet on the desert, facing a sea that was arid and without direction
and so far from everything no would have suspected that someone capable of changing the destiny of
anyone live there” (Marquez 1). At night, this village is active with criminals and by day it looks like a
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pointless piece of land next to a pool of water. Despite being named Rosal del Virrey (or the Rosebush of
the Vicery), the senator is wearing the only rose in that village and consequently meets Laura that same
afternoon. This hints at the idea that Laura is someone special to the Senator. Because he meets Laura
while wearing a rose, he believes she is the ‘woman of his life’. When we get into relationships, we believe
anything is a ‘sign’ that it was ‘meant to be’. Like when the Senator finds out they are both Aries, this
makes him feel better. He is genuinely convinced that he love her. He loves the idea of her company. The
rose signifies life in that village and by the senator wearing the only rose shows how greedy he is, without
attempting at making the whole village a better place to live. He has a sense of entitlement because he is
in a position of power and expects great things when he does not attempt to tell the truth to his
townspeople.
While Senator Sanchez is away from the campaign, he is comfortably alone but as he starts to get
out of his car he begins to face reality again and discomfort manifests itself. “Senator Onesimo Sanchez
was placid and weather-less inside the air-conditioned car, but as soon as he opened to door he was
shaken by a gust of fire and his shirt of pure silk was soaked in a kind of light-colored soup and he felt
many years older and more alone than ever. (Marquez 1)” We see that before Senator Sanchez makes his
stop at the electoral campaign, he is comfortable in solitude when he is away from his real life
responsibilities like his family life, age and his town’s responsibilities.
The senator want to escape the truth that he found out when reading Marcus Aurelius’ fourth
book of Meditations about how death is inevitable. Despite his convictions, Senator Sanchez decides to
lie to the public as an attempt to run away from the truth and feed his townspeople lies until they turn
into the truth. “But the speech that had been memorized and ground out so many times it had not
occurred to him in the nature of telling the truth, but, rather, as the opposite of a fatalistic pronouncement
by Marcus Aurelius in the fourth book of his Meditations. (Marquez 1)” He decides to lie to the public as
an attempt to repel the truth and gain affirmation from his townspeople. Marquez is using his position of
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power to make things appear differently. He benefits from the hard work of his townspeople and he is
comfortable with where he is on the social ladder.
As the speech of Senator Sanchez continues, his lies are believed and celebrated. “As he spoke his
aides threw clusters of paper birds into the air and the artificial creatures took on life, flew about the
platform of planks, and went out to sea. At the same time, other men took some prop trees with felt
leaves out of the wagons and planted them in the saltpeter soil behind the crowd” (Marquez 1). He is
displaying his fictional world and his townspeople are embracing it because they idolize him.
Senator Sanchez believes himself to be a saint, willing to do favors as long as they also
accommodate his desires. After the electoral campaign, Senator Sanchez takes a walk through the streets
and tries to listen to the struggles of his people has without trying to work too hard. “The senator listened
to them good-naturedly and he always found some way to console everybody without having to do them
any difficult favors” (Marquez 2). This is an example of how the lower class asks for change, reaching out
to the upper class. When the senator helps out the woman with six thin children, he places an ad on the
rear end of the donkey she asks for. Senator Sanchez will be willing to complete a task for his townspeople
as long as the action benefits himself.
Nelson is the only character that does not buy into the senator’s façade. For years, Nelson a
member of the lower class has urged the senator for a fake identification. “Nelson Farina never gave up,
and for several years, every time he found the chance he would repeat his request with a different
recourse. (Marquez 2)” We learn that Nelson is still willing to beg the senator and we learn about Laura’s
place in the story. She is the character that does not really get a voice but is a powerful character.
Nelson decides to play the senator. Nelson formulates a plan and attempts to execute it. Nelson
believes he has raised the most beautiful daughter. He notices the way Sanchez lights up when he sees
Laura. “The daughter has inherited her mother’s color and her figure along with her father’s yellow and
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astonished eyes, and he had good enough reason to imagine that he was rearing the most beautiful
women in the world. (Marquez 2)” This leads us to believe that Laura will have something to do with
Nelson’s plan.
Laura represent the indigenous culture Senator Sanchez has repressed (i.e.: studying Germany
and marrying a German woman, having German kids). “She was wearing a cheap Guajiro Indian robe, her
head was decorated with colored bows, and her face was painted as protection against the sun, but even
in that state of disrepair it was possible to imagine that there had never been another so beautiful in the
whole world” (Marquez 3). Senator Sanchez is confronted with his primal self. Senator Sanchez revels in
her primal aesthetic and Nelson takes note. We are faced with father daughter relationships here.
Knowing the date of his death, Senator Sanchez begins to change his character, he decides to be
more generous. When Laura is sent to the senator, the senator takes in her beauty and allows death to
overrule his decisions. He understood that Laura was sent by her dad in order for her dad to receive a fake
identification and run away from his reality, living as a criminal. “He scrutinized the sleeping guards, then
he scrutinized Laura Farina, whose unusual beauty was even more demanding than his pain, and he
resolved then that death had made his decision for him. (Marquez 4)” We notice that Senator Sanchez is
beginning to change as a character because his death date invades his mind.
Laura begins to see the façade the senator has been working on. Laura obtained a glimpse of
wealth when standing near Senator Sanchez. “Laura Farina was struck dumb standing in the doorway to
the room: thousands of bank notes were floating in the air, flapping like the butterfly. (Marquez 4)” She
gets one step closer in knowing Senator Sanchez and all the money he has is startling to her and
understands that as long as one has money, they will have power over a group of people. Senator Sanchez
affirms this by saying “You see, even shit can fly” (Marquez 4). Laura does not have much of a voice, she
does things according to what others tell her to do. For example, she is there on behalf of her father and
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does not question or resist what is asked of Senator Sanchez. The more money someone has, usually the
more they are able to get away with (i.e.: lying to a lot of people and being able to degrade someone else)
Without knowing that Senator Sanchez’s death date, Laura contemplates living by staring at the
damaged rose he had been carrying around. “The senator followed the thread of her look and finally found
the rose, which had been tarnished by the saltpeter.” The rose symbolizes his life, he had carried it through
the dry village, keeping it close by and trying to keep it alive. The rose, while being protected by the
senator has suffered some damage much like Senator Sanchez’s life. He has affected his life by lying to so
much people, not interacting with people authentically. Much like his death date, he had tried avoiding
the reality of dying by lying to his townspeople.
Senator Sanchez considers who will be left with more pain, Laura’s time on earth left with the
scandal or at the idea that Laura might not be next to him when he dies. Death is starting to invade more
space in his head and “wondered which one of them would end up with the bad luck of that encounter”
(Marquez 4). He is left to think about Laura’s time on earth without him and his remaining time on earth
and his loneliness. The senator is curious about her age and connects with her when he realizes that they
share the same zodiac sign. It was comforting for the senator to learn that he is not the only lonesome
one. He needed to find companionship and is disillusioned when he cannot be intimate with her due to
the chastity belt her father put on her.
Laura’s companionship is a temporary solution to Senator Sanchez’s ongoing loneliness. When
Laura mentions retrieving the key to her chastity belt, the senator holds her back and says “Forget about
the key, and sleep awhile with me. It’s good to be with someone when you are so alone” (Marquez 6).
When the senator thought he wanted to have an extramarital affair, all he was really craving was the right
sort of company, Laura’s warm body next to his. The idea of marriage started with the idea that women
are property, they did not have a choice when men desired to marry them. Women belonged (and still
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might) to their fathers. Marriage was (and still might be) a way of passing their daughters along to other
men.
Finally accepting his fate, he is nestled on her shoulder, Laura’s eyes meet the rose again. “Six
months and eleven days later he would die in that same position” (Marquez 6). Except when he is dying
six months later, Laura is no longer by his side. The harder he tries to avoid his death, the lonelier he
becomes. He fails to tell his wife and kids. He is leaving Laura Farina to live with the scandal and ultimately
dying without her by his side. He is just as lonely as he was in the beginning of the story when we find out
he is aware of his death date.
Ultimately, Marquez is telling us that we all go through life trying to fix our own loneliness,
regardless of social class. We do not get to know if Nelson Farina receives his fake identification, we just
know that Senator Sanchez was willing to give him a new identification. We learn that knowing how much
time you have left on earth changes your character even if the change is minor. We do not know why
Laura is no longer by the Senator’s side, but we do know that she was lying next to him before his six
months, but ultimately he is as alone as he was in the beginning of the story. “Death Constant Beyond
Love” is a story that reveals to us that our inability to face loneliness will only distract us from living, death
will always prevail while love is temporal.
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Works Cited
Althusser, Louis. "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses." On The Reproduction of Capitalism:
Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses. Verso, 1968. 694-701. Print.
Marquez, Gabriel Garcia. "Death Constant Beyond Love." Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 1970. Web. 7 Aug.
2015.