Chronicle of a Death Foretold Reflective Statement

In today’s interactive oral I gained a better understanding of the Colombian culture, specifically religion and weddings, and applied this knowledge to what I already knew about our culture and to Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novel A Chronicle of a Death Foretold. Catholicism has been widely practiced in Colombia ever since the Conquistadors first introduced it to the country. As such, Colombian Catholics strive to complete the seven sacraments of baptism, reconciliation, Eucharist, confirmation, matrimony, holy orders, and the anointing of the sick. By completing these sacraments Catholics strengthen their relationship with God. In Colombia, the sacrament of matrimony is a very big deal. Weddings are large and grand, with lots and lots of people in attendance. A Colombian touch which is added to weddings are orange flower blossoms, which are meant to represent happiness, fulfillment and purity. Another tradition utilizes 13 coins, representing Jesus and the 12 apostles. These coins are blessed by the priest and then given to the bride. Colombian wedding receptions are quite similar to our own here in America. There is lots of celebrating, with a ton of food, and music. People dance, drink and have a good time. In the beginning of Chronicle, everyone has just returned from the wedding of Bayardo San Roman and Angela Vicario. Their family hadn’t been very big, so they basically invited the whole town. This shows the importance of weddings being big. So at the beginning of the book, the next morning, the entire town is basically hung over and not really ready to process anything that takes any amount of thinking. This helps to explain the fact that while so many people knew Santiago was going to be killed, Santiago never found out himself. Today’s Interactive Oral was very interesting, and I enjoyed learning more about the culture of Colombia, the differences in how sacraments of the Catholic church are carried out there from here, and finding