Was Santiago Innocent? Essay Example

the horror of his society. Angela Vicario was culpable for Santiago’s death. Bayardo brought Angela home on their wedding night, as he found out that she was not a virgin.Angela’s mother beat her on this occasion as she had stained their family’s reputation. Pura held her by the hair in one hand and mauled her with the other.

Angela’s face was bruised. Her brother Pedro pressurized her to reveal the name of her perpetrator. She replies saying, “Santiago Nasar” (Marquez, 47). This statement irks her brothers to kill Santiago in order to save their sisters honour. However there is no evidence of truth in Angela’s statement. “She only took the time necessary to say.

.. sentence has always been written. (Marquez, 47) this quote tells us that when her brother asked her to divulge the name of the man who had taken her virginity, she clearly took time to think.

If she was saying the truth, she would have answered the question immediately without any hesitation, but she took time, she delayed her answer. This shows that she was probably lying and that she could have lied in order to protect the person that she had actually slept with. “Easily confused names” (Marquez, 47) were many names in her mind, this shows the number of affairs she’d had.She was trying to pick one name, and she probably chose Santiago because she thought that her brothers wouldn’t go and kill him. The Vicario twins were the ones who had committed a vile deed by murdering Santiago.

They were sent to jail by the mayor as a punishment. The twins claimed to be able to smell Santiago in jail. “No matter

how much I scrubbed with soap and rags I couldn’t get rid of the smell,” (Marquez, 78) this quote tells us that even though Santiago was dead, it was still as though he was alive.It wasn’t actually possible to be able to smell Santiago, but their conscience minds made them feel as though he was somewhere near.

This shows that they did feel guilty and sorry as they probably thought it wrong to murder Santiago. “They’d gone three nights without sleeping” (Marquez, 79) this shows that when they began to fall asleep they would think about their crime an the murder scene of Santiago would keep replaying in their minds. This shows that they knew they had committed an iniquitous deed. They probably knew he was innocent but needed to murder him in order to save the honour of their family.The murder of Santiago was a pill that kept them insomniac for life.

Pedro even feared that “he wouldn’t sleep again for the rest of his life,” (Marquez, 80) Pedro began to have urine problems and he hadn’t slept in eleven months. The murder of Santiago had been publicised in even nook and corner of their town by the Vicario twins. If they actually wanted to murder Santiago they wouldn’t have told everyone about it. It can be said that there was another motive behind publicising the murder.

“Twenty two people had heard everything said....

hat the only reason they had said it was for someone to hear them. ” (Marquez, 51) this quote divulges that they announced the murder around town in order for people to prevent them from murdering Santiago. Being Angela’s brothers it was their duty

to hurt Santiago. But they wanted to be stopped as they probably knew that he wasn’t peccant and that he did not deserve to die. It shows that from within they didn’t even want to kill him.

Pablo claimed that Pedro told him to go by himself to kill Santiago as he wasn’t in the condition to kill anybody.The twins even came and sharpened their knives a second time and announced their sinful deed again and again. This shows how desperate they were to not kill Santiago. “They looked at him with more pity,” (Marquez, 15). Pity is the feeling of sorrow and compassion caused by the sufferings of others, the Vicario twins looked at Santiago with pity as they felt the delinquency already even before they had murdered him.

This again shows that they didn’t want to murder Santiago and he was not culpable for their sisters lost virginity. The twins went running towards the church,” (Marquez, 121) people usually go to church to either pray, ask for forgiveness or a wish. The twins ran to church to ask for forgiveness as they had committed the sinful deed of murdering Santiago as he was innocent. If Santiago hadn’t taken Angela’s virginity then who did? When Angela was asked by Bayardo which was her favourite house in the whole town, “she answered without knowing why, that the prettiest house in town was the farmhouse belonging to the widower Xius,” (Marquez, 34).

Why was this house her favourite?What attachment did she have to that house that she said it without even understanding the question properly? It is also interesting to know that in the book, there are several places

where the phrase, “where the widower Xius had been happy,” (Marquez, 45) has been used. This evinces the importance of this phrase and the character of Xius. If we look deeply, we can realize that the usage of the widowers’ house was the place that Angela had lost her virginity and that Xius was the man she was protecting and the Santiago was a victim, which was why the house was so important to her.When Bayardo asks Xius to sell his house he replies saying, “but you young people don’t understand the motives of the heart” (Marquez, 36) it could be said that the house was the only memory that he had of Angela and that he didn’t want to lose it. Santiago even wanted to go the widowers’ house and sing for the newlywed couple as he was happy for them. If he was guilty then he wouldn’t want to sing for the couple.

Some argue that since Santiago had tried to keep a sexual relationship with his maids’ daughter Divina Flor, that he could have also taken Angela’s virginity. He grabbed my whole pussy,” (Marquez, 12), it was his “shit” (Marquez, 8) character that made people believe so, as it shows his indulgence in these pathetic and demeaning activities. However Santiago can be justified for his actions as the Vicario brothers “went to Maria Alejandrina Cervantes’ house of mercies” (Marquez, 45) “five hours before killing Santiago” (Marquez, 45). Maria was a prostitute, and as the Vicario brothers were at her house it also shows their hypocritical characters.So as some say that Santiago took Angela’s virginity just because he molested Divina, is it right to

accuse the Vicario twins of taking their sisters’ virginity because they went to prostitutes? Santiago and the narrator had been close friends since school, “nobody could believe that we could have a secret without it being shared, all the more so such a big secret” (Marquez, 41). Men usually have that boast about their ‘conquests’, especially to their closest friends.

So even if Santiago had slept with Angela, he would have definitely told the narrator about it.Santiago had insulted Angela by calling her “the booby” (Marquez, 90) and “Santiago was too haughty to have noticed her. ”(Marquez, 90) this divulges that he felt himself arrogantly superior to her and that he wouldn’t have slept with somebody who he abused, he had too much self-respect and dignity. At the end of it all these points prove him to be innocent and show that he was made a scapegoat and that he had done nothing wrong.