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Gabriel García MárquezA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Aurelio Escovar is the protagonist of the story and the only named character. He is a dentist with no formal degree or certification. Gabriel García Márquez’s own father, Gabriel Elijio García, was a self-trained homeopathic pharmacist for a time. The fact that Aurelio lacks a degree underscores that he is a working-class, uneducated man who hasn’t had the privilege or opportunity for further study. His poverty is also apparent in his plain clothing—“a collarless striped shirt, closed at the neck with a golden stud, and pants held up by suspenders” (73)—and the fact that he is “skinny” and perhaps malnourished. Aurelio is a man of controlled habit: He wakes early each morning, opens his business early, keeps his instruments in a particular order, meticulously completes his tasks, and maintains a cool and composed demeanor when confronted with conflict.
In some ways, Aurelio is out of step with his society’s social order. He is described in the opening paragraph as having “a look that rarely corresponded to the situation” (73). His lack of an emotional response to the conflict with the Mayor also seems unusual, a mystery deepened by his later pronouncement, “Now you’ll pay for our twenty dead men” (75), which reveals that Aurelio has good reasons to feel viscerally angry with the Mayor.
By Gabriel García Márquez
A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings
A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings
Gabriel García Márquez
Balthazar's Marvelous Afternoon
Balthazar's Marvelous Afternoon
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Chronicle of a Death Foretold
Chronicle of a Death Foretold
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Death Constant Beyond Love
Death Constant Beyond Love
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Eyes of a Blue Dog
Eyes of a Blue Dog
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In Evil Hour
In Evil Hour
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Innocent Erendira
Innocent Erendira
Gabriel García Márquez
Leaf Storm
Leaf Storm
Gabriel García Márquez
Love in the Time of Cholera
Love in the Time of Cholera
Gabriel García Márquez
Memories of My Melancholy Whores
Memories of My Melancholy Whores
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News of a Kidnapping
News of a Kidnapping
Gabriel García Márquez
No One Writes To The Colonel
No One Writes To The Colonel
Gabriel García Márquez
Of Love And Other Demons
Of Love And Other Demons
Gabriel García Márquez
One Hundred Years of Solitude
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Gabriel García Márquez
Strange Pilgrims
Strange Pilgrims
Gabriel García Márquez
The Autumn of the Patriarch
The Autumn of the Patriarch
Gabriel García Márquez, Transl. Gregory Rabassa
The General in His Labyrinth
The General in His Labyrinth
Gabriel García Márquez
The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World
The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World
Gabriel García Márquez
The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor
The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor
Gabriel García Márquez