History, Author
and Psychology
Hugo Rodriguez

Author's Life

• Born in Columbis on March 6, 1928
  • Violent naation
  • Roman Catholic country, orthodox
• Childhood
  • Did not live with parents, grandparents instead
  • Grandparents influenced thinking

• Novel based on a true story
  • Cayetano Gentile Chimento
• Journalism career
  • Explains lack of chronology
  • Narrator is a detective

Geography/Economics

• Based in Columbia
  • Strong religious influence
• Small village
  • Everyone knew, no one told
  • Most people were poor

Psychological Advances

• Psychoanalysis
  • Sigmund Freud, 1901
  • Interpretation of dreams
• Behaviorism
  • Environment shapes what we become
  • Leads to social psychology
    • Persuasion
    • Bystander effect

Easy/Difficult
Topics
Lorelei Setzer

Social Context and Issues

Easy to Understand

• Informational Social Influence
  • Clothilde Armenta tells her husband about Santiago's future death
  • Officer Leandro Pornoy tells Colonel Lazaro Aponte
    • "Officer Leandro Pornoy revealed the Vicatio brothers' intentions to him. He'd settled so many fights between friends the night before."
• Involvement
  • Margot tells her mother, Luisa Santiaga, who then warns Placida Linero (p. 23, 24)

Social Context and Issues

Difficult to Understand

• Informational Social Influence
  • Father Carmen is told about the Vicario brothers' plan of murder and forgets about it.
    • Busy thinking about the Bishop's arrival.
    • "When he'd crossed the square, he'd forgotten completely. 'You have to understand,' he told me, 'that the bishop was coming on that unfortunate day." (p. 70)

Cultural Context and Issues

Easy to Understand

• Symbolic Convergence Theory
  • ​Same value of honor throughout the town
  • Merged their thoughts and experiences of the death of Santiago Nasar for years after it happened
    • Narrator is still interviewing people 27 years later (p. 3)
  • Small town, not much else happens
  • Honor is a major part of the culture that murdering someone honorably was very important

Cultural Context and Issues

Difficult to Understand

• In-Group Bias
  • Pablo's fiancee, Prudencia Cotes, said that she would not have married him if he had not upheld his sister's honor by killing Santiago Nasar
    • "I knew what they were up to and I didn't only agree, I never would have married him if he hadn't done what a man should do." (p. 62)

Cultural
Comparison
Stella Khezri

Columbian Culture

Interactions: Close knit society

Institutions: Primarily religious society

Ideas: Collectivistic society

British Culture

Interactions: Spread out society, bound by culture

Institutions: Royal family and parliament rule

Ideas: Individualistic society

The Culture Cycle

The 4 I's cultural model was developed by Hazel Rose Markus and Alana Conner. The culture cycle consists of four layers of cultural influence that help to explain the interaction between self and culture

Columbian Culture

Cultural Orientation

British Culture

Cultural Psychology: the study of how psychological and behavioral tendencies are rooted in and embodied in culture.

• Collectivistic
  • Bystander effect seems to disprove this
  • Intertwining stories of witnesses proves otherwise

• Individualistic
  • Large group does not have much to unite about except culture
  • Follow individual paths, not one goal for the whole culture

Columbian Culture

Ethnocultural Empathy

British Culture

• Not empathetic
  • Do not accept foreigners well
  • Extremely unaccepting of Bayardo San Roman.
    • "A very strange man has come." (p. 26)

• Not empathetic
  • More  culturally empathetic than the Columbians in the novel
  • Isolated culture results in not being very accepting of foreigners

Interesting
Aspects
Angelo Molina-Rossi

Interesting Aspects of the Novel

• Imagery
  • Twins give information (p. 58-59)
    • Bystander effect
  • Detail of murder by people being interviewed
    • Flashbulb memory
• Symbolism
  • Color red (p. 83)
  • Colors in general (ex: gold, red, white) = (power, murder, innocence)
    • Embedding
  • Virginity in Colombian culture (p. 64)
    • Double Standard

Literary Techniques

Interesting Aspects of the Novel

• Foreshadowing
• Plot Style
  • Falling action precedes climax
• Magical Realism
  • Mother's 6th sense
    • Dream Analysis
• Journalistic Structure
  • Parts 1-5
  • Different views and interviews
    • Misinformation effect

Literary Techniques