Tragedy in Chronicle of a Death Foretold Essay

The novel, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez contains many elements and concepts of Aristotles tragedy. Chronicle of a Death Foretold uses a protagonist that is modeled on Greek Tragedy. It is better seen as a modern tragedy rather than an Ancient Greek tragedy; as in Chronicle of a Death Foretold the protagonists action is seen as wrong, or his harmartia. This harmartia is a pre-determined route for the protagonist that not even he controls but rather the outside environment does.

In an essay, written by Mike Myers, the idea of literary tragedy and the use of a protagonist can be seen. A literary tragedy presents courageous individuals who confront powerful forces within or outside themselves with a dignity that reveals the depth of the human spirit. Santiago was affected by outside forces as the villagers caused the murder to take place by not confronting Santiago. This modern tragedy compared to Greek tragedy or Shakespearian tragedy where a force from within, meaning desire to become king or overall hatred towards someone, is also affecting the protagonist shows many differences in how Santiago was different from the other protagonists.

In The Idea of Tragedy by Edith Hamilton she expresses her definition of tragedy and what tragedy is closest resembled too. Tragedy belongs to the poet. She states that only the poets have the ability to write tragedy because tragedy is nothing less than pain transmuted into exaltation by the vision of poetry. If poetry is true knowledge and the great poets guide that vision, then they are safe to follow. If one is wrong then this transmutation has arresting implications that can ruin the tragedy altogether.

Once again in Edith Hamiltons The Idea of Tragedy she describes tragedy as a class of its own, not restricted to just one or even two distinctions. She states Tragedy has nothing to do with the distinction between racism and romanticism. Tragedies are a dramatic composition, dealing with a serious or somber theme, typically that of a great person destined through a flaw of character or conflict with some overpowering force, which is Santiago in the novel. He dealt with the Vicario brothers who were too overpowering and they ultimately murdered him. If someone disagrees with that then the contrary has always been maintained that the Greeks went to myths for their tragedies to insure the remoteness from real life which does not admit to the idea of tragedy.

What this exactly means is that this novel uses techniques that model after Greek and Shakespearian tragedies. They dont share the same exact characteristics but altogether they are both considered tragedies, just Chronicle of a Death Foretold is a modern tragedy. These types of tragedy express themselves in the same fashion, which may give us some hint of the nature of tragedy, for far from being periods and periods of darkness and defeat.