Ice Friday: Garcia Marquez’s “Chronicle”

Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s A Chronicle of a Death Foretold is, quite literally, infested with literary devices. Note the hyperbole, repetition and dense imagery of the following:

She would stay until dawn writing letters with no future. She became lucid, overbearing, mistress of her own free will, and she became a virgin again just for him, and she recognized no other authority than her own nor any other service than that of her obsession. She wrote a weekly letter for over half a lifetime. (93)

20150717_105906And here:

She only took the time necessary to say the name. She looked for it in the shadows, she found it at first sight among the many, many easily confused names from this world and the other, and she nailed it to the wall with her well-aimed dart, like a butterfly with no will whose sentence has always been written. (47)
IMG_4624No matter how much Mr. Marquez alliterates, foreshadows and hyperbolizes, he does place the reader where he wishes with confidence and clarity:

“Those shitty dog!” She shouted. “Kill them!” The order was carried out immediately and the house was silent again. (74)