Gabriel García Márquez: Life, Works, and Style
Gabriel García Márquez: Life and Influences
Author’s situation at the time: Gabriel García Márquez was born in Aracataca, Colombia, in 1928. He belonged to a middle-class family and was raised by his grandparents. His grandfather, Colonel Ricardo Márquez Mejía, a liberal war veteran, was one of the founders of Aracataca. His grandmother, Tranquilina Iguarán Cotes, greatly influenced him (surnames appearing in One Hundred Years of Solitude and Chronicle of a Death Foretold).
García Márquez participated in social, political, and cultural circles at home and abroad. He belonged to a group of storytellers who propelled the Spanish-American narrative in the 1960s. He is undoubtedly the best-known of these new storytellers.
During his student days in Bogotá, he dedicated himself to literature and journalism. He published his first story, Blue Dog Eyes, and joined the literary circle known as “The Group of Barranquilla.” In addition to working for newspapers as a literary and film critic, he even sold encyclopedias before achieving literary success.
From the 1950s, he combined his journalism with writing short stories and novels. His first novel, Leaf Storm, tells a story continued in A Shipwreck and Some Others. All of them anticipated the rich mythical and literary universe of his masterpiece, One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967).
Later, he continued to publish works of genius: The Autumn of the Patriarch (dealing with the theme of the dictator), Chronicle of a Death Foretold (1981), Love in the Time of Cholera, The General in His Labyrinth (about Simón Bolívar), Of Love and Other Demons, the first book of his memoirs, etc. In 1982, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Setting and Characters in García Márquez’s Works
Space: The action takes place in Aracataca, the author’s birthplace, with references to places like Manaure and Riohacha. The entire story unfolds in the same place: the town square, the surrounding houses, with references to Santiago Nasar’s estate, a description of Santiago Nasar’s house, the widower of Xius’s house, the dock, and Clotilde Armenta’s store. The tropical climate forces the characters to get up early, open their shops, and take naps.
Key Characters
- Santiago Nasar: A 21-year-old, physically attractive, happy, peaceful, Christian man who takes charge of his father’s estate, the Holy Face, after his death. He is successful with women (Alejandra Cervantes, the prostitute), Margot, Divina Flor, and his girlfriend, Flora Miguel.
- Angela Vicario: The youngest of her family, she is not a believer, having been educated to marry. She matures after the incident and becomes clever. She always hides the truth of her relationship with Santiago, if any.
- Bayardo San Román: A train engineer, well-dressed, gallant with women, and religious, he had money and was very fond of loud parties. He was fulfilling his desires, whether to marry Angela or to obtain the widower Xius’s house.
- Pedro and Pablo Vicario: They are responsible for restoring the family’s lost honor. They did not want to go through that ordeal because they were not violent men. In the cell, they are shown as fearful and weak. At the time of the crime, they are shown as barbarians who cannot fail to inflict stab wounds.
Other Characters
The remaining characters are characterized by the few words or phrases they contribute. The protagonist’s friends are young people who enjoy the feast. Older women, such as Plácida Linero (Santiago Nasar’s mother) and Luisa Santiago (his godmother), are finely characterized, with traces of magical realism, premonitions, and dreams. The Arab community is not fully integrated and represents a social group with conservative and vindictive morals. The entire village acts as a theater audience witnessing the crime; it is a community crime.
Language and Style of García Márquez
García Márquez employs a variety of literary forms, mixing a journalistic style with the real and mythical legacy of magical realism. The prose is dense and poetic, incorporating metaphorical elements, hyperbole, repetition, and irony. There is also a mixture of linguistic registers: slang used by the Vicario brothers, and the refined language of the journalist or aristocratic families. Concise, clean, and clear sentences predominate in the characters’ dialogues.