Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s short story, “Death Constant Beyond Love” depicts the vulnerability and helplessness of a human when dealing with two of the most enigmatic parts of life. The background of corruption, poverty, and the political campaign become rather insignificant to the broader themes of love and death. Marquez expresses the confusion, power and diversity that come with the feeling of love and how ever changing it can be.
These emotions are portrayed through the wealthy senator, Onesimo Sanchez. His love for Laura Farina becomes a means for him to sublimate his fear of death into sensual passion. However, his demise is inevitable, and he is left lonely and defeated, as death is one of the only constants in life.
Marquez was born in Colombia in 1928, and raised by his maternal grandparents. He attributes his unique writing style to his childhood experiences, and various stories his grandparents would tell him. His grandmother often told him fantastic stories, and usually didn’t pay much attention to details. This characteristic of leaving out seemingly important details sometimes forces the story’s development to be left up to the reader’s imagination.
The recurring image of a military veteran abused from various experiences is a loosely based character that resembles his grandfather; he was a colonel who served on the liberal side of the Colombian civil war. His old war stories shaped Marquez’s political and ideological views, which explains his opposition to the Colombian literary status quo. Marquez’s socialist and anti- imperialistic style can be found in a large majority of his work. Reality is also an important theme he likes to illustrate, usually resembling his Latin American society. This sense of reality mixed in with fantastic elements creates what he is most famous for, a style called “magical realism.” All of these styles can be found in “Death Constant Beyond Love.”
According to philosopher Paul Ricouer, Marxist literary criticism demonstrates the “hermeneutics of suspicion,” which is an approach concerned with what the text is hiding rather than what the text is actually saying.
Critiquing a text from a Marxist point of view is to surface the hidden truths of a work; truths that are not openly stated to the reader. In “Death Constant Beyond Love,” an ideology is shared among the people of Rosal del Virrey, but the core of their values and beliefs extend beyond the simple notion that the villagers are dependent on senator Sanchez. Since ideology is shared beliefs, and values of a culture, one can consider these customs that people embody as a type of religion.
Just as followers of Christianity see Christ as their guardian, the poverty-stricken residents of Rosal del Virrey view Sanchez as their potential savior. In the senator’s campaign speech he said, “We will no longer be foundlings in our own country, orphans of God in a realm of thirst and bad climate, exiles in our own land” (2850).
From the use of the word “orphan,” the senator is conveying a message to the people that they are no longer children of God. His speech is concludes by building and ideal world and promising a picturesque lifestyle that he envisions for them. This can be compared to the biblical accounts in the book of Revelation regarding the second coming of Christ to make a new world for his believers. Senator Sanchez sees himself as some sort of deity over these “orphans of God.”
Similar to Jesus when he paraded the streets of Jerusalem performing miracles and healing the townspeople, the senator made it a point to walk through the town and untroubled the citizens of their worries. He made promises to the desperate and gave medicine to the ill. The residents of Rosal del Virrey share a common ideology, and their beliefs lie with senator Sanchez regardless of his political exploitations.
Senator Sanchez does not only serve as an ideology for the people to believe in, but his relationship with the villagers is one of complete reification. Marxists use the term “reification” to characterize the way in which people are seen as useful commodities. “Then came the trucks with the rented Indians who were carried into the towns to enlarge the crowds at public ceremonies” (2849).
These people were seen as mere instruments, and used to boost the image of the senator’s popularity. His aides were nothing but props used to help construct the fictional world he illustrates to the people , and his acts of compassion are simply hidden motives to keep him in his high political position of power. As a supreme leader and member of a higher economic class, he views all people around him as inferior, and they are only used for his personal advancements. Sanchez has no real sense of empathy or compassion towards the citizens, the Indians, or any of his aids. His economic prosperity is a product of his corrupt and selfish campaign.
From a psychological standpoint, several Freudian defense mechanisms are displayed through the story’s protagonist, senator Sanchez. At age 42, he is happily married, and in mid career controlling both his and other citizen’s lives as a successful politician. His character is clearly altered once he learns that in just six months and eleven days he will be dead. At first he exudes suppression by consciously trying to avoid thinking about his fate. He doesn’t tell anyone about what lies ahead for him, he just continues to go about his daily live as usual.
Freudian psychology states that the projection mechanism allows one to escape their feelings of vulnerability, but they still suffer and feel uneasy about their stressors. The more energy you expend trying to avoid the realization of the issue, the harder it becomes when you eventually have to face reality.
The knowledge that senator Sanchez will die soon fills him with rage, especially towards the poor people who have come to hear him speak at his campaign. His fear of death, and overall disdain is projected and placed onto others, who in this case happen to be the poor people of Rosal del Virrey. Later in the story he clearly vocalizes his feelings of isolation and hopelessness to Laura when he says, “Forget about the key, and sleep awhile with me. It’s good to be with someone when you’re so alone” (2855). This directly shows how powerless and vulnerable the senator is in the face of death.
Over time, his unconscious desire to find love and companionship to soothe his fear exhibits repression. The senator’s emotions subconsciously begin to dictate some of the decisions he makes, especially in his lust for Laura. His political career seems to become less important to him by giving into the beauty of Nelson’s daughter and agreeing to help her father after years of denying his requests. Sanchez seems to be unphased by the consequences and scandal that could possibly come from this type of behavior. He continued to repress his painful thoughts and strived to escape the solitude
that was entrapping him.
One part of the story that seemed intriguing was the vivid details and vibe that is presented when Laura Farina goes into Senator Sanchez’s office. “The senator, for his part, didn’t know what to do with Laura Farina… he held Laura Farina tightly between his knees, embraced her about the waist, and lay down on his back on the cot. Then he realized she was naked under her dress, for her body gave off the dark fragrance of an animal of the woods, but her heart was frightened and her skin disturbed by a glacial sweat.”
For a senator who is known for taking bribes, it seems surprising that he didn’t know what to do with her. It’s also interesting with the imagery Marquez presents when describing Laura, you can imagine exactly how she feels in this circumstance. She seems very uncomfortable and helpless, naturally how any other 19 year old would feel if their father sent them to seduce the senator, for the benefit of her parents.
The term “glacial” represents a cold sweat, which is often what happens when someone is horrified. This could also potentially represent the climax of the story. Regardless, the point of this scene from a Marxist view, is that each experience has mixed emotions. In this case the senator is absorbed by his lust for her, and his natural instincts are telling him to have sex with her.
In Laura’s situation, she is unsure of how to handle the senator’s infatuation with her beauty because the feelings are not mutual. Her father is making her do this and she feels quite frightened to say the least. This shows us that experiences can provide numerous kinds of emotions, and that not everyone feels the same way about an encounter.
Therefore, this story can be read and interpreted many different ways depending on the reader. With Marquez’s unique style, it depends on the thoughts and feelings that go through your head that allow you to react to his writing. The end of this story leaves many open-ended questions up to the readers’ imagination to decide the outcome. However, the way Marquez intertwines the emotional themes of love and death throughout the story show just how powerful and impacting they can be on humans and the way we interact.
