Chronicle of a Death Foretold Community Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #4

When the bishop's boat bellowed, almost everybody was up to receive him and there were very few of us who didn't know that the Vicario twins were waiting for Santiago Nasar to kill him, and, in addition, the reasons were understood down to the smallest detail. (3.35)

What sort of conversation do you think is happening surrounding this event? Keep in mind that almost everyone is drunk because they had been partying the whole weekend. Are they thinking rationally? Are they just gossiping?

Quote #5

Finally, they drank the bottle in silence, very slowly, gazing with the boobish look of early risers at the dark window in the house across the way, while fake customers buying milk they didn't need and asking for food items that didn't exist went in and out with the purpose of seeing whether it was true that they were waiting for Santiago Nasar to kill him. (3.46)

Now this is just ridiculous. People have not only overheard the Vicario brothers, they're also going out of their way just to see if the rumors are true. How much of their behavior do you think is attributable to mob mentality?

Quote #6

For years we couldn't talk about anything else. Our daily conduct, dominated then by so many linear habits, had suddenly begun to spin around a single common anxiety. (5.1)

The narrator doesn't talk very much about life in the town before the event, but this quote gives us a little insight. He says that their lives are "dominated then by so many linear habits." So it's a town where people do the same thing day in and day out. But then suddenly this event happens, and everything is different. Do you think that people were reluctant to approach the twins because of habit?