Spanish 30- Un Cronica de une Muerte Anunciada CHARACTERS (CH.1-3)

Santiago Nasar

A wealthy, 21-year-old man of Arab descent who manages the cattle ranch El Divino Rostro, inherited from his father. Described as slender, pale, cheerful, and peaceful; skilled with horses, firearms, and falconry. However, his repeated sexual harassment of Divina Flor complicates his favorable public reputation. Ángela names him as responsible for her lost virginity, but these chapters do not establish whether her accusation is true.

Ángela Vicario

The youngest daughter of a poor, traditional family, raised to marry and perform domestic work. Beautiful but initially portrayed as timid and dispirited, she dislikes Bayardo’s arrogance and marries him under family pressure. He returns her after discovering she is not a virgin; her mother beats her, and she names Santiago when her brothers demand an explanation.

Bayardo San Román

A wealthy, attractive, mysterious outsider of about thirty who arrives six months before the wedding. He impresses the town with his abilities, generosity, and influential family, although the narrator senses sadness beneath his confidence. He wins over Ángela’s family through charm and extravagant spending, then returns her on their wedding night.

Pedro Vicario

the younger twin by six minutes. A pig butcher and former soldier, he is described as more sentimental but also more authoritarian than Pablo; military service strengthens his habit of commanding. He first decides to kill Santiago, but becomes reluctant after the mayor confiscates their knives. He also suffers from gonorrhea contracted during his military service.

Pablo Vicario

also a pig butcher. Initially more imaginative and decisive, he becomes dependent on Pedro after his brother returns from military service. Nevertheless, Pablo takes charge after they are disarmed, obtains replacement knives, and persuades Pedro to continue. Both twins publicly announce their intentions and later defend the killing as a matter of family honor.

Plácida Linero

Santiago’s mother, Ibrahim’s widow, and a respected interpreter of dreams. Ironically, she fails to recognize anything threatening in Santiago’s dreams before his death. Protective of her only son and skeptical of the bishop’s concern for the town, she remains deeply affected by Santiago’s death decades later.

Ibrahim Nasar

Santiago’s deceased father, an Arab immigrant who entered an unhappy marriage of convenience with Plácida. He taught Santiago Arabic, horsemanship, falconry, and firearm safety. He had a sexual relationship with Victoria Guzmán when she was an adolescent and later brought her into his household as a servant.

Victoria Guzmán

The Nasar family’s cook and Divina Flor’s mother. Having experienced Ibrahim’s treatment of her, she resents Santiago and tries to protect her daughter from him. She knows about the threat but does not warn Santiago; she claims she dismissed it as drunken talk, while Divina later says Victoria secretly wanted him dead.

Divina Flor

Victoria’s adolescent daughter, who helps serve the Nasar household. Santiago repeatedly gropes and intimidates her, and she feels vulnerable to the same treatment her mother experienced. Frightened and unable to act independently, she does not warn him, but leaves the front door unbolted so he can return in an emergency.

Purísima del Carmen / Pura Vicario

Ángela and the twins’ mother, a former schoolteacher whose gentle appearance conceals a severe temperament. She raises her daughters for marriage, obedience, and sacrifice, and insists that Ángela can learn to love Bayardo. Her brutal beating of Ángela reveals how strongly she enforces the family’s expectations of female sexual purity.

Poncio Vicario

Ángela and the twins’ father, a poor goldsmith who loses his sight after years of painstaking work. His blindness leaves him increasingly dependent and marginalized; at the wedding, guests repeatedly move him out of their way. His sacrifices connect the family’s poverty with its determination to preserve respectability.

Ángela’s older sisters

Raised in domestic skills and the care of the sick and dead, they reinforce the expectations imposed on Ángela and help pressure her into marriage. They are closely attached to each other and suspicious of men’s intentions. Another sister has died, and the family is still observing mourning during Ángela’s courtship.

The narrator

An unnamed childhood friend of Santiago, Cristo Bedoya, and the Vicario twins, with family connections to the Vicarios. He participates in the wedding celebrations and later reconstructs the killing through interviews, memories, and legal records. His closeness to the people involved gives him access, but conflicting recollections prevent his account from becoming completely certain.

Luisa Santiaga

The narrator’s mother, Santiago’s godmother and namesake, and a blood relative of Pura Vicario. Usually exceptionally well informed about local events, she learns of the threat unusually late. She immediately sets out to warn Plácida, placing the endangered person above divided family loyalties, but learns on the way that Santiago has already been killed.

Margot

The narrator’s sister, who accompanies Santiago at the dock and invites him to breakfast. She admires his appearance, manners, and financial independence. Unaware of the threat while she is with him, she is horrified when she learns about it and carries the news home to her mother.

Luis Enrique

The narrator’s brother and a close companion of Santiago during the celebrations. A skilled guitarist, he joins the group’s serenades. The twins tell him their plan, but his drunkenness leaves his memories confused; he later says he would not have believed they were capable of murder.

Jaime

The narrator’s youngest brother, approximately seven years old. He accompanies Luisa Santiaga as she rushes to warn Plácida, without understanding what is happening.

The narrator’s sister who is a nun

Participates enthusiastically in the wedding festivities and is too hungover to greet the bishop. At the end of chapter 3, she wakes Luis Enrique by announcing Santiago’s murder.

Mercedes Barcha

The narrator’s future wife. During the wedding festivities, he proposes to her when she has only recently finished primary school; chapter 2 reveals that they marry fourteen years later.

Cristo Bedoya

A close childhood friend of Santiago and the narrator. He helps calculate the wedding’s extravagant cost, accompanies Santiago home after the celebrations, and is with him again at the dock that morning.

Flora Miguel

Santiago’s fiancée, whom he is expected to marry at Christmas. Margot considers her fortunate to be engaged to such a handsome, respectable, wealthy young man. These chapters provide little information about Flora’s own personality.

María Alejandrina Cervantes

The owner of the local brothel, described as elegant, tender, generous, and firm. She was Santiago’s intense romantic attachment when he was fifteen, until Ibrahim forcibly separated them; they subsequently maintained a strong affection. She is also intimate with the narrator and insists that she would have stopped the twins had they come looking for Santiago at her house.

Clotilde Armenta

The perceptive owner of the shop where the twins wait for Santiago. She takes their threats seriously, sends warnings, urges the mayor to detain them, and tries to delay or incapacitate them with alcohol. She recognizes that they may want someone to stop them and release them from their supposed obligation to defend family honor.

Don Rogelio de la Flor

Clotilde’s husband, who manages their business during its evening operation as a bar. He dismisses her concern because he cannot imagine the twins killing anyone, especially a wealthy man.

Colonel Lázaro Aponte

The town’s mayor and a retired military officer. He confiscates the twins’ first knives but neither arrests them nor ensures Santiago is warned. His confidence that taking the weapons solves the problem reveals his failure to recognize the seriousness of the threat.

Father Carmen Amador

The parish priest. He receives warnings but initially considers the matter the civil authorities’ responsibility, then forgets his intention to alert Plácida because he is preoccupied with the bishop’s visit. The twins surrender to him after the killing, and he later acknowledges his failure to act.

The bishop

A religious authority whose anticipated arrival occupies much of the town’s attention. Despite the preparations and gifts, he never leaves his boat and delivers a distant, mechanical blessing. His visit helps distract people, especially Father Amador, from the immediate danger to Santiago.

Faustino Santos

A butcher and acquaintance of the twins who sees them sharpening their knives. Although initially doubtful, he takes their announced intentions seriously enough to inform a police officer.

Leandro Pornoy

The police officer who receives Faustino’s warning, speaks with the twins, and reports their intentions to Colonel Aponte.

Prudencia Cotes

Pablo’s fiancée, who supports his participation in the killing because she considers defending family honor a requirement of manhood. Chapter 3 reveals that she waits through his three years in prison and then marries him.

Prudencia’s mother

Welcomes the twins for coffee while they are preparing to kill Santiago. Her statement that honor cannot wait shows that older women, as well as men, help enforce the expectations driving the crime.

The widower Xius

The owner of the house Ángela admires. He initially refuses to sell because the house and its furnishings preserve memories of his deceased wife, but eventually yields to Bayardo’s enormous offer. He dies two years later; Dr. Iguarán attributes his death to the grief caused by the sale.

Dr. Dionisio Iguarán

The town doctor and Luisa Santiaga’s first cousin. He witnesses Bayardo’s negotiations with the widower Xius and recognizes the widower’s emotional suffering. He also attempts to treat Pedro’s gonorrhea.

General Petronio San Román

Bayardo’s father, a celebrated veteran of the civil wars and an important Conservative figure. His prestige strengthens Bayardo’s standing in the town. Luisa Santiaga refuses to greet him because of his responsibility for an act of political violence.

Alberta Simonds

Bayardo’s mother, a woman of mixed African and European ancestry from Curaçao who speaks Spanish influenced by Papiamento. Renowned for her beauty in her youth, she arrives with the family to establish Bayardo’s background.

Bayardo’s two sisters

Lively young women whose elaborate clothing attracts attention, particularly at the wedding. Their appearance reinforces the family’s wealth and taste for public display.

Magdalena Oliver

A passenger who travels on the boat with Bayardo when he first arrives. Her fascination with his appearance contributes to the early portrait of him as attractive, unusual, and difficult to understand.

Hortensia Baute

A resident who sees the twins carrying knives and mistakenly believes the blades are already bloody. She begins mourning Santiago before he has actually been killed, illustrating how rumor and expectation shape people’s perceptions.