The secret plan of Chronicle of a Death Foretold is wholly based on the apprehension that keeping a adult female ” s virginity is of import plenty to kill for and conversely that anyone go againsting this societal moray was put on the lining decease. Virginity is viewed as synonymous with award. This facet is what Garcia Marquez challenges with the usage of sarcasm. Throughout the book, he inserts facets that speak straight to the importance of this subject and reinforces this construct by usage of several devices, of which sarcasm is the most outstanding.

“ No 1 would hold thought, nor did anyone say, that Angela Vicario wasn ” t a virgin. She hadn ” T known any old fiancAA© and she ” vitamin D grown up along with her sisters under the asperity of a female parent of Fe. Even when it was less than two months before she would be married, Pura Vicario wouldn ” T let her travel out entirely with Bayardo San Roman to see the house where they were traveling to populate, but she and the blind male parent accompanied her to watch over her award. ”

The thought of protecting her virginity is so of import as to hold a blind male parent as a chaperone. This is absurd, to do a unsighted adult male to “ watch ” over Angela Vicario, and is how Gabriel Garcia Marquez ridicules the prepossession of pre-marital virginity.

The social value placed on these prepossession is besides demonstrated in little ways like the name of the female parent, “ Pura. ” Pura in Spanish agencies pure ; virginity and pure in this society were one and the same. Pura ” s sole intent throughout the book is to maintain Angela ” s virginity safe from those who would puncture it, and to penalize Angela for doing the error of losing her virginity before matrimony.

The dry facet of the book is that while adult females accepted and perpetuated this regulation of society, they seem to about, in a affair of fact mode, accept that many wouldn ” T be “ pure. ” This is shown when they discuss how to mask the deficiency of virginity.

Another sarcasm is how harlotry is handled in the novel. It is accepted as a normal and is non looked upon with great contempt. However, it presents the construct and communicates the narrow and fatalistic position that immature adult females can either be virgins or prostitutes. The issue of Marquez ” s, appears to be non that this veiw is restricting the hereafter, but that society allows to hold this veiw dictate 1s ‘ life.

This value of virginity is intertwined in the faith which in Chronicle is portrayed as a seam in the fabric keeping society together. The narrative revolves around the event of a visiting bishop. Religion is viewed as pervading every facet of the society. It is indispensable to what they are all about as anything else they do. Marquez assumes we understand this and happen it farcical. Metaphorically, faith and the construct of virginity are mocked when the slug caroms and ends up hitting a statue of the Virgin Mary, the ultimate symbol of virginity and pureness in Latin American civilization. It seems to state that it is faith and symbols like the “ Virgin ” Mary, that provide the struggle that lead work forces to move fatalistically, without pick.

The value of virginity in Like Water for Chocolate like in Chronicle Of A Death Foretold, portion of society. This is clearly stated by Chencha after the incident of her colza when she states, “ You all know how work forces are, they wont eat off a home base that International Relations and Security Network ” t clean. ” After she was defiled and treated so dreadfully, in her head, she could non visualize matrimony in her hereafter. She saw heself as being doomed to populate the remainder of her life lonely, like Tita. It is hence a affair of surprise when she returns with her new hubby. The remark is made by the storyteller:

“ Chencha ” s folks had been categorically opposed to their love affair, and he ne’er would hold known where to happen her if it hadn ” T been for Chencha ” s traveling back to the small town and his coming to see her. It didn ” T affair to him that Chencha wasn ” t a virgin, he married her right off. ”

Yes, it is a social outlook that a adult female must be celibate till the nuptials dark, but here it did non affair to the new hubby. This represents Esquivel ” s beleif that true love overcomes any obstruction including deficiency of virginity.

It is normal and natural how Laura Esquivel prefers to turn to the construct of virginity versus what possibly the jeer used by Garcia Marquez. It is fact that adult females should be virgins before they marry, but if they are non, life goes on, and adult females and work forces realize that it is non the terminal of universe or life if a girls virginity is absent. This position is strongly upheld when Gertrudis is taken off and loses her virginity in that brief explosion of passion with the captain. She so travels to a whorehouse whereas a cocotte she is easy shed blooding off all the passion that has built up inside herself that she is unable to incorporate. It is non talked of that she has ruined her opportunity of matrimony, nor is it mentioned that she has become a cocotte. It is implied by the writer that Gertrudis will populate a normal happy life free despite her lecherousness for so many work forces outside the bonds of matrimony.

An highly of import facet of this book is the complete deficiency of faith throughout the novel. Esquivel intentionally ignores one of the most of import facets of the Mexican civilization and Latin American civilization as a whole, faith. Almost all, if non all, social restraints and Torahs are based upon the outstanding faiths of the country. The country where the narrative is set is 96 per centum Catholic presently and was more conspicuously catolic in the clip period of the narrative. Catholicity contains within its values the thought that a miss must stay a virgin until matrimony. When Esquivel ignores faith as a whole, she besides implies that while some of the values upheld by the church are worthwhile many are absurd in practical life However no affair what the province of a maiden ” s muliebrity is it does non truly count to mundane life.

Of today ” s criterions, in our extremely industrialised states, the common credence that a adult female would remain celibate till matrimony is viewed as absurd and about absurd to many people. Esquivel ” s narrative seems to about connote that this regulation is a map of seeking to maintain kids from making stupid things. It besides conveys that it shouldn ” T affair if there is true love among those involved. To go married in is a status of love, and love should non be based on the status of the Hymens. It is because of this thought, that Garcia Marquez attack to the effects of missing virginity while realistic in certain societies, seems to be satirical and dry in ours.