Desensitization In La Violencia Marquez

Due to the supposed power inanimate objects control people with, feelings of helplessness consequently cause both Marquez’s characters and real Latin Americans to merely accept a terrible fate than actively prevent it, “like a butterfly with no will whose sentence has always been written” (47). Unfortunately, Marquez’s simile compares victims of omens to a delicate insect with no choice on its already decided fate. In Latin-American cultures, omens dictate when misfortune occurs in one’s life, a decision no person overrules since a supernatural force wields more control. However, Marquez insists to his readers that omens do not permanently target someone for adversity and claims people could avoid disastrous events, but they must actively attempt

“In folio 382” the investigating magistrate writes “Fatality makes us invisible” (113). Sadly, Marquez’s anthropomorphism reveals to the readers the effects of desensitization and inaction. La Violencia (1948-1958) and the ongoing Colombian Conflict witnessed a lot of murder and violence as a means of taking back power. Soon, regular, violent revolts influenced the mindset of the people; many began perceiving violence as the only solution to their problems. Mimicking this conviction, Marquez’s diction expresses the lack of choice the Vicario brothers feel before following through with their threats against Nasar, especially when Pablo Vicario says “There’s no way out of this” (61). Since death frequently occurred, many Colombians accepted it as a regular component of their daily lives, a conclusion Marquez strongly rejects. Marquez disdains the treatment of someone’s murder as simply another statistic and the lack of initiative taken against curbing the violence in many Latin-American

When retelling what happened that night, Pura Vicario includes the unnecessary detail of hearing “three very slow knocks” (45). Through Pura Vicario, Marquez alludes to a common omen among Latin American countries: the popular belief that misfortune occurs in sets of threes. Marquez’s addition of auditory imagery to the character’s testimony exhibits to the readers the tendency to incorporate omens into everyday conversation. Possibly unintentionally, Pura Vicario exaggerates the ill-fated atmosphere of the event by including a potentially inaccurate detail, moreover stressing the association of dire superstitions to the discovery of her daughter’s lack of chastity and rejection from the groom. References to omens even occur in professions, as Marquez demonstrates to the readers with Dr. Dionisio Iguaran’s explanation of Xius’s cause of death. The local doctor claims Xius died after Bayardo San Roman’s persistently asked to purchase his house three times, despite the fact Xius “was healthier than the rest” (37). Marquez’s situational irony indicates the unprofessional nature of Dr. Dionisio Iguaran. Normally, people expect doctors to rely on data and scientific evidence to diagnose their patients properly. Especially in the United States, most people would not trust doctors who determine illnesses