Although Franz Kafka’s ‘Metamorphosis’ and Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s ‘Chronicle of a Death Foretold’ are set in dissimilar social environments, they have a number of common themes, one of which is sacrifice. Both Gregor Samsa and Santiago Nasar are depicted as ‘sacrifices’, whose deaths ostensibly purify their communities from the sins of dishonor and alienation. The present paper argues that whereas Samsa’s passing obviously makes his family psychologically healthier, unites it and eliminates the shame, associated with his presence, Nasar’s death turns out a means of redeeming the sins of dishonor and the problem of social marginalization, as the family appears to be physically separated from the community following Santiago’s death.
First of all, it is important to consider the conditions and situations surrounding the deaths of the two characters. According to ‘Metamorphosis’, Gregor Samsa once turns into a large insect: “One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that in bed he had been changed into a monstrous verminous bug. He lay on his armour-hard back and saw, as he lifted his head up a little, his brown, arched abdomen divided up into rigid bow-like sections” (Kafka, par.1). Previously to his disability, Gregor was a breadwinner and provided for his ageing parents, younger sister and worked for paying out the family’s debt in addition. Thus, he naturally becomes a common burden of the household. In ‘Chronicle of a Death Foretold’, a similar family tragedy is depicted: a girl from a large and poor family obtains a lucky chance and is chosen by Bayardo San Roman, one of the wealthiest men in the community to become his wife. She is marrying a fortune, but in the night following the wedding, Bayardo returns the girl to her parents, stating that she has lost her main treasure, her virginity (Marquez, p. 36). According to Angela, the person who took her innocence was Santiago Nasar.
This means, Angela’s brothers are now forced to kill Santiago: “The blood of virginity, when lost outside the sanctity of marriage, can only be washed off with the blood of the perpetuator, cries an old Spanish folk tradition. In the town where the novel takes place, the tradition is morally acceptable” (Pelayo, p.125). In both literary works, the households as well as communities at large obviously endure culture-related shame. In small towns like those where the Samsas and the Vicarios dwell, news are spread rapidly, and whereas Gregor’s parents can hide him, Angela’s family cannot secret the fact of the failed marriage, as the entire community attended the wedding ceremony and party (Marquez, p. 52). Therefore, the only way of eliminating the disgrace, fallen upon the community, is finding the perpetuator or at least a scapegoat and killing the person at which Angela points. The main factor which the Vicario brothers take into consideration is time, rather than the necessity of establishing true justice and finding Angela’s ex-lover; if the brothers do not manage to wash off this infamy quickly, their family will be rejected and humiliated by the whole town. (Noble, p.46). Similarly, Gregor’s relatives feel deeply ashamed when Gregor shows up in the presence of the lodgers. In this case, the Samsas’ feelings are associated with the fact that the family is to certain degree deviant due to the long-term presence of Gregor-The-Bug in their home. Thus, they have a fear of being referred to as mad people, keeping a strange domestic animal and violating the basic sanitation rules (Emberley, p.93). As opposed to the social nature of the scandal surrounding the central characters in the Marquez’s literary work, Kafka demonstrates that the stigma of the Samsas is also self-perceived. The characters obviously feel humiliated by the presence of the large bug in their house and the need for getting along with this transformed Gregor based on blood kinship. For instance, when Gregor once visits his family in the dining room, his father feels so disgusted and embarrassed by the creature’s appearance that he begins to throw whatever he finds on the table into Gregor. Greta, the white-handed girl who held in her life nothing heavier than her violin, also feels indignity facing the fact that she is the only person to do the dirtiest work in Gregor’s room (Kafka, par. 42). The Samsas definitely feel uncomfortable living with the lodgers, as it is always difficult to allow strangers to live in one’s own dwelling. In addition, the three characters probably believe their dignity is being gradually being destroyed by the necessity of serving the lodgers, or doing for them all domestic work.
Alienation is also a destructive force which the characters from both works encounter. In particular, the Vicario brothers feel isolated from and marginalized by the society as they bear the family’s blame (Marquez, p. 78). The above addressed dishonor builds an invisible boundary between the family and the community, and in case the twins fail the sacred mission of killing the person who ruined the happiness of the family, they will not be treated by townspeople in the same way they were regarded before. The major proof of this projection is the response of the community to the brothers’ intent to kill Santiago, which they pronounce publicly: “The majority views the Vicario brothers’ deed as a socially and morally acceptable response. Within the moral parameters of Colombian rural society of the 1950s and 1960s, the loss of a woman’s virginity without the balm of marriage destroyed not only the honor of the woman, but also that of the family” (Pelayo, p.125). Interestingly, Marquez notes in his work several cases of marital infidelity, prostitution, and mentions one of the Vicario twins venereal disease, which demonstrate that when taken separately, each person in the town has an imperfect moral system, but as long as such “minor sins” as attending brothel are kept secret, nobody would challenge the reputation of this person or their family (Noble, p.47). Indeed, alienation, similarly to disgrace, have purely social nature in the literary work, and the author seems to explore a broad dimension of these social constructs. At the same time, Kafka, figuratively speaking, seems to place the Samsa family into a “vacuum” and focus on the microsocial experience of the four persons, connected by family bonds. Therefore, the nature of their alienation is first and foremost psychological, i.e. the Samsas estrange from one another. As Gregor recounts, his relatives begin to talk very little, even at the dinner, traditionally viewed as a time of socializing: “Again and again Gregor listened as one of them vainly invited another one to eat and received no answer other than “Thank you. I’ve had enough” or something like that. And perhaps they had stopped having anything to drink, too” (Kafka, par. 28). Later, when Mr.Samsa and Greta find jobs, the family looks even more disrupted. Each of the three “victims” of circumstances spend increasingly more time in solitude or stay separated from the family for the long business day; moreover, they do not seem to practice joint walks and picnics. However, Kafla also pays attention at the aspect of social isolation, which consists in Gregor’s observations that his relatives do not receive guests any longer (Emberley, p.94).
The problems of dishonor and alienation seem to be either partially or fully solved as the two condemned characters pass away. The Samsas seem to obtain a second breath and feel refreshed after Gregor’s death, as they quickly throw out the lodgers, thus reasserting their honor. As the object of their shame disappears, they do not feel enslaved within the walls of their large house and thus decide to find another flat. More importantly, they now believe they are entitled to freely integrate into society:” Then all three left the apartment together, something they had not done for months now, and took the electric tram into the open air outside the city. […] Leaning back comfortably in their seats, they talked to each other about future prospects, and they discovered that on closer observation these were not at all bad, for the three of them had employment, about which they had not really questioned each other at all […]” (Kafka, par. 64). Similarly, the family re-unites, as its members begin to pay greater attention to one another: first, they notice each other’s career prospects; further, the older generation of the Samsas find out that Greta has matured a little and can now build a family. In simpler words, owing to Gregor’s sacrifice, the characters feel and behave “like others” and believe they are now entitled to do all non-deviant people normally do. In Marquez’s literary work,, all townspeople seem to silently accept the murder of Santiago Nasar. Similarly to Samsas, who do not view Gregor’s death as a traumatic experience, the community barely mourns the Santiago’s passing, silently admitting that Nasar is a sacrifice for quiet a noble purpose, which consists in restoring the good name of the family and the town’s society at large. Similarly to the Samsas, the Vicarios do not feel marginalized any more: upon his release from prison, Pedro Vicario marries his girlfriend, who has been waiting for him believing that he is a man, capable of protecting the interests of his family. He obtains a prestigious profession of a goldsmith, which means, people continue to trust him, in spite of his criminal past. However, the family is asked to leave the town, so they move to the nearest village. Although they are physically isolated from their community, the Vicarios are not rejected and manage to find their happiness in the nearest town.
As one can conclude, whereas Gregor’s sacrifice has rather psychological nature, as it liberates the Samsas from the burden of self-perceived humiliation and alienation from one another, the slaughter of Santiage Nasar is a social ritual and social sacrifice, which underlies the preservation of social traditions. When Gregor and Santiago physically disappear from this world, the Samsas and the Vicarios respectively seem to substantially improve their social position and build a much happier life than they had before.
Works cited
Marquez, G. Chronicle of a Death Foretold. Alfred A.Knopf, 1983.
Kafka, F. Metamorphosis. 22 Nov 2008 <http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/stories/kafka-E.htm>
Pelayo, R. Gabriel Garcia Marquez: A Critical Companion. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001.
Emberley, J. Venus and Furs: The Cultural Politics of Fur. I.B. Tauris, 1998.
Noble, W. Conflict, Action and Suspense. Writer’s Digest Books, 1994.
