Gabriel Garcia Márquez incorporates and emphasizes several symbols such as the hawk, flax, and boat to help foreshadow and characterize the murder of the main character, Santiago Nasar , in the novella “Chronicle of a Death Foretold”. Even though readers know that Santiago Nasar will be murdered from the first sentence of the book, they always try and believe that something will prevent his death. The author uses symbols present in Latin American culture to create tension and suspense in the novel as they reaffirm that his death was destined and nothing and no one could have prevented it, destroying the readers' hope. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The first symbol readers are confronted with is an animal, the hawk, which appears in the epigraph. The falcon in Christian tradition is a symbol that represents evil. The wild hawk is a predator that attacks other birds. Garcia Márquez uses lines from a poem by a 16th-century poet, Gil Vicente, as the novel's epigraph: "The hunt for love/is haughty falconry." These verses are a summary of the entire novel and serve to foreshadow the death of Santiago Nasar as his alleged love affair with Ángela Vicario causes his murder by her brothers to defend the family's honor. Like the hawk that, once it spots its prey, chases it relentlessly, the Vicario brothers, once they know the name of the man who deflowered her, order her to take her own life. Analyzing the diction we notice that three words "hunting", "haughty" and "falconry" characterize the dynamic part of the book while a single word, "love", gives us the reason. Furthermore, the imagery of these verses, highlighted by the use of the words “hunting” and “falconry,” appeals to the readers' senses by creating the image of a hunted animal. Furthermore, these two words are associated with the animal kingdom, which leads readers to characterize Santiago Nasar's death with animal qualities such as inhuman, brute, grotesque, and irrational violence. This will prove true as his death was inhumane, symbolized by the use of crude pig knives to kill him. Brutal because he was stabbed repeatedly, almost had his throat cut, grotesque because in the last moment of his life he was holding his intestines in his hand. Irrational because although everyone knows he will be killed, no one will act to prevent this from happening. This epigraph creates tension in the readers as they know that the book will be about the search for and murder of a man characterized by brute violence and inhuman qualities. The novel is set in a small village in South America which has very strong Christian religious roots. ; therefore, the second symbol representing death is linen as this was the cloth used to wrap Jesus Christ when he died. Santiago Nasar is described several times with characteristics and symbols reminiscent of Jesus Christ. “Santiago Nasar wore a white linen shirt and trousers, both unstarched, just like the ones he had worn the day before for the wedding” (page 3). The fact that Santiago Nasar wears white linen clothes is reminiscent of Jesus Christ and foreshadows his death. In Jewish tradition, in preparation for burial, the body is carefully cleaned and wrapped in a simple linen shroud. Jesus was also wrapped in a shroud and buried. The author dresses Santiago Nasar in white linen as if he were already dead, telling through symbolism that his destiny has already been written. Furthermore, this quote shows that white linen clothes were his dress code for special occasions and that he was unconsciously going to a special occasion, much more special than the bishop's arrival, than his own death.This is underlined by the use of the word "not starched" since the bands with which the corpses were wrapped were not starched because they had to be flexible, while the clothes, especially the ceremonial ones in South America, are always starched so that the dress looks straightened and holds its shape. This foreshadows that Santiago Nasar's death was expected. The Vicario brothers had been predicting to kill him ever since they were told that he would be the one to take away their sister's virginity and announced it to the whole village. The death of Jesus Christ was also predicted as it was mentioned by the prophets of the Old Testament, and later predetermined by Christ himself during the Last Supper increases the similarity with the novel. Furthermore, the color white in the Christian religion is associated with purity and innocence: this prefigures the fact that Santiago Nasar like Jesus Christ, once again, was killed for sins never committed, but rather for traditional values ​​and the sins of their respective society. Santiago Nasar was wrongly blamed based on Angela Vicario's simple words and was from that moment destined to die to maintain the traditional code of honor as the Vicario family would only regain its honor with Nasar's death. On the other hand, Jesus Christ was killed to uphold the tradition of the Jewish religion as he challenged and outraged the rabbis by claiming that he was God. The use of the flax symbol makes Santiago Nasar's murder similar to that of Jesus Christ; he was the lamb that was to be sacrificed for the collective sins of the country and his death was written in destiny. On the first page of the book we are presented with another symbol that represents death, the boat. “The day they were supposed to kill him, Santiago Nasar got up at half past five in the morning to wait for the boat on which the bishop would arrive.” The author immediately tells the readers that Santiago Nasar will be killed and at the same time introduces the symbol of the boat, a boat that is expected to arrive at the village that day. The importance that Santiago Nasar attaches to the arrival of the boat is so great that it seems to the readers that the boat comes especially for him. The boat has always symbolized the means of transport between the world of the living and that of the dead. Both the Egyptians and the Greeks imagined that the soul of the deceased was transported on a boat between the world of the living and that of the dead: the underworld was separated from the world of the living by a river. The boat really comes for him and he, instead of running away, waits for that, his death. The structure of the sentence is typical of journalism, simple and linear; contrasts with the narrative content, full of references to the classical tradition and Latin American literature. The boat is still described at the time of departure on page. 15: “He appeared at the bend of the river, snorting like a dragon, and then the band of musicians began to play the bishop's hymn, and the cocks began to crow in the baskets and all the other cocks in the city woke up. The boat is parallel to the visual image of a dragon. The dragon is considered the strongest and most feared animal as it spits blazing fire which can further hint at hell. The departure of the boat is followed by the roosters' crows. The rooster has more than a symbolic meaning: on the one hand it represents virility and also lust, which are the reasons why Santiago Nasar will be killed, but on the other hand there is also the warning rooster of Saint Peter which reminds us that Peter denied the Lord and let him go to his fate, which is actually what the villagers will do by allowing a murder to be committed. The crowing of the roosters therefore foreshadows the actions of the villagers who fail to alert and prevent the murder. The wording used in this quote makes constant reference to the animal kingdom as the author states that.