Essay | Guilt and Confession in Pedro Páramo and Chronicle of a Death Foretold

Two authors who talk about the relationships between guilt and confession are Juan Rulfo (Pedro Páramo) and Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Chronicle of a Death Foretold). In Chronicle of a Death Foretold, a man whose guiltiness is unproven is killed in a town where almost everyone knew about the murder before hand, yet did nothing to prevent it. In Pedro Páramo, a man tries to keep his promise to his mother by comeing to a town on a quest for his father, but instead finds a town full of wandering sprits of the dead. Each work serves to demonstrate the relationship between guilt, understanding, and confession.

The guilt of the townspeople can be seen blatantly in Chronicle of a Death Foretold. They become obsessed with the death of Santiago Nasar and their role in the tragedy. "For years we couldn't talk about anything else. Our daily conduct, dominated...
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