Character Profile
Characters of interest
- Purisima del Carmen
- Poncio Vicario
- Placida Linero
- Maria Alejandrina Cervantes
- Divina Flor
- Victoria Guzman
- Flora Miguel
- Clotilde Armenta
There are many characters within ‘Chronicle of a Death Foretold’ – more so than most novels/novellas. However, some contain little interest and we only hear about them once or twice, as they play a small role in the lead up to Santiago Nasar’s death. The characters listed above all are small, but fairly important characters, and without them, our understanding of the Community and the time and setting of the Novella, which is very important, would not be as strong or clear.
- Purisima del Carmen
-The mother of Angela Vicario and the twins, Pedro and Pablo.
-When her daughter is brought home by Bayardo San Roman, after he discovers she is not a virgin, Purisima beats her daughter
- She is a strict mother.
- A former schoolteacher, Purisima is married to Poncio and has dedicated her life to being a wife and mother. She has raised her daughters to be good wives and mothers and her sons to be men.
A quote – “No one would have thought nor did anyone say that Angela Vicario wasn’t a virgin…she’d grown up with her sisters under the rigor of a mother of iron.”
- Poncio Vicario
-He is Angela's father.
-He used to work as a goldsmith until the strain of the profession made him go blind.
-He dies shortly after his twin sons are sent to prison.
-Poncio Vicario heads the Vicario household and the family still hold him in high esteem.
-He is not accustomed to being blind and appears confused and anxious a lot of the time
A quote – “Old Poncio Vicario sitting alone on a stool in the centre of the yard…he nodded his snow-white head in all directions with the erratic expression of someone too recently blind, answering questions that weren’t directed at him…happy in his circle of oblivion.”
- Placida Linero
-Santiago's mother.
-She has a well-earned reputation as an interpreter of dreams. She never forgives herself for misinterpreting the dream about trees and birds that her son had the night before his death.
- In her later years, Plácida suffers from chronic headaches that started on the day she last saw her son. Her knowledge that she unwittingly closed the main door of the house against Santiago, where his killers caught up with him, haunts her.
A quote– “She sat in the hammock for a long time, chewing pepper cress seeds, until the illusion that her son had returned left her. Then she sighed: ‘He was the man in my life’.”
- Maria Alejandrina Cervantes
-An ‘elegant whore’ with eyes like an ‘insomniac leopard’.
-Owns the brothel or ‘house of mercies’, where Santiago Nasar among others continue their partying after the wedding
-Maria has a reputation of helping many of the young male characters lose their virginity.
-Tender and beautiful, yet strict about house rules.
A quote– “Maria Alegandrina Cervantes, about whom we used to say that she would only go to sleep once and that would be to die, was the most elegant and the most tender woman I have ever known, and the most serviceable in bed, but also the most strict.”
- Divina Flor
-Victoria Guzman's daughter.
-Santiago desires her sexually, but Victoria watches carefully to make sure he does not do anything to her.
-A young woman just entering adolescence, Divina Flor is Victoria Guzmán's daughter.
-Seeing Santiago always overwhelms Divina with emotions she can not yet define. Santiago touches her in ways she does not like and seems to want to harm her.
- She knows of the plot to kill Santiago, but like her mother, she tells him nothing. She is too young to decide to tell him on her own and is frightened enough by him to want to keep her distance.
A quote by Divina Flor – “Divina Flor, who was the daughter of a more recent mate, knew that she was destined for Santiago Nasar’s future bed, and that idea brought out a premature anxiety in her”
- Clotilde Armenta
-Owner of the milk shop where the killers slept and awaited Santiago.
- Clotilde Armenta claims that Santiago already looked like a ghost when she saw him early on the morning of the murder. She makes a mild attempt to convince the twins not to kill Santiago.
A quote– “‘That day’ she told me, ‘I realised just how alone we women are in the world!’”
There is a surprising amount of information we gain about these characters, as there is a rather large number of them and the book is fairly short. It gives us a clear insight to the type of the society the book is set in, and the roles everyone plays in the Community. Also, our information of the more important characters such as Santiago and Angela would be lacking, as it is through these lesser characters we can gain an insight into what they were like.
By Rosie Samuel