As a brick house relies on a stable structure to support the house, a story relies on a narrative structure to not only support but to add to the overall story. in contrast to the traditional linear storytelling, Chronicles of a Death Foretold has a circular structure; the narrator takes on a journalistic investigation (also known as an inverse detective) in such a way that time keeps looping back on itself. Each section starts and within a few hours the central action of the novel is covered, but with this, the story goes off in digressions, flashbacks, and flashforwards, with the different people’s accounts on what happened. Marquez’s wordsmanship is impeccable, and despite the confusion, many may encounter, upon closer examination, the story is extremely tight. We learn about the histories of numerous characters and get a basic character profile of each character detailing, their backgrounds leading up to Santiago’s death, and we find out where life took them after his death. The way in which Gabriel García Márquez structures the story Chronicles of a Death Foretold is pivotal to the telling of the story and this is because of how each element of the structure, such as circular, journalistic investigation, flashbacks, flashforwards, and digressions, can add to the telling of the story.
To start with, circular structure is a form of literary narrative structure in which completeness does not originate in coming to a “conclusion”. Instead, the sense of closure originates in when the story comes around back to the beginning of the narrative. An example of this in Márquez’s writing style is seen in the very beginning when he starts the novel with the climax of the book. Marquez starts with “On the day they were going to kill him, Santiago Nasar..” (Marquez 3) with this Marquez is telling you what happens at the end and throughout the book, he brings you along with the narrator on an attempt to discover the events leading up to Santiago’s death.
This starting structure affects the entire telling of the novel changing it from a conventional “whodunnit” to a “how was it done” story. The story as it takes you through its investigation constantly circles back to the narrator and his search for an answer to why the murder was allowed to happen. This can be seen in the beginning when he learns of the morning’s events from Plácida Linero, Victoria Guzmán and Divina Flor, his sister Margot, and his mother.
(Marquez 1-26). As the narrator interviews them we learn about the details of the morning of Santiago’s death, from when he wakes up at 5:30 am to when the narrator’s mother discovers him dead at 7:05 am. After e
