Journalism and Literature in García Márquez's Masterpiece

The Chronicle: Synthesis of Journalism and Literature

The term chronicle brings us to one of the journalistic genres. The press style of a chronicle is defined by its position between news, reviews, and reportage. Gabriel García Márquez wrote articles, reports, and editorials in many periodicals. From a primary standpoint, his work asks for recognition of a synthesis between literature and journalism.

It is true that it does not exactly match the standards required by chronicle reporters, but it meets some of them. For example, there is a real historical basis for the treatment of facts. However, it is also the result of the free imagination of the author. For some critics, linking the work with journalism detracts from it, although many consider it a masterpiece.

"Chronicle of a Death Foretold" is a two-faced text where the novelist and the journalistic chronicler converge. The following coordinates correspond to the press:

• The precision of temporal and spatial coordinates.
• The real basis of the event.
• Interviews with witnesses.
• The narrator travels to the place of the incident.

Novelistic Aspects and Techniques

The following aspects correspond to the novelist:

1. The structuring techniques of the narrative (timing jitter, multiperspectivism).
2. Changes in names.
3. The use of hyperbole.

Perspectivism and Narrative Polyphony

The character of the novel's narrative is defined by polyphony, i.e., that we know the story through different voices. The continuous movement of the narrator's point of view, witnesses, and sources gives the play the condition of being multiperspectival, which implies the presence of an active reader who must couple all the pieces together.

There are many examples that illustrate this large amount of views on the same reality, such as the timing of the event or the guilt or innocence of Santiago Nasar. Even variations occur in a single individual's perspective, as seen with Victoria Guzmán and Santiago Nasar.

The Narrator's Role and Perspective

At first sight, we have an omniscient narrator. However, a closer look reveals that this served several elements to reconstruct what happened: the investigation, the autopsy report, letters from his mother, the manifestations of the witnesses, and their own memories.

When the narrator uses or remembers what he knows, he uses the third person and adopts an omniscient focus. When acting as both character and narrator, he uses the first person. In some sequences, the narrator is present in some way. In general, one can say that in the passages where the narrative is the narrator's point of view, it is expressed with a degree of objectivity; in contrast, descriptions are often impregnated with subjectivity.