Chronicle of a Death Foretold

by

Gabriel García Márquez

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on Death Foretold makes teaching easy.

Chronicle of a Death Foretold Symbols

The Bishop

On the morning of Santiago Nasar’s murder, the Bishop is visiting the town to deliver his blessing. He is less a character than he is a stand-in for some sort of abstract, unattainable holiness…

read analysis of The Bishop

The River

In one sense the river, which runs right through the town, is a figure for time in the novel—it forges interminably ahead while simultaneously appearing to recur. Further, the river is the town’s only connection…

read analysis of The River

Flowers

Flowers appear in many forms throughout the text, though their meaning remains somewhat ambiguous. Many of the characters have names that include the Spanish word for flower, “flor”: there’s Divina Flor, Flora Miguel

read analysis of Flowers

Birds

Like flowers, birds and references to birds appear throughout the text, often to a somewhat ambiguous effect. Santiago Nasar dreams of birds the night before his murder, and Plácida Linero fails to recognize this…

read analysis of Birds