pedrovicario


 * **Character Name** || Pedro Vicario ||
 * **Role in Plot** || Pedro, along with his twin brother Pablo, is responsible for dealing the fatal blows that lead to Santiago Nasar's death. Although he is the younger brother by six minutes, he often assumes an "authoritarian" role in the twins' relationship, for he has "the habit of deciding for his brother" (60). He is also described as being "the more forceful of the [two]" (47). This could be the result of his military service at twenty years old; he served for "eleven months on police control" and during this period, he witnessed the maturation of his "tendency to command" (60). His murder of Santiago is perceived as another process of maturation by the townspeople; by "[wiping] his sister's honor clean" (110) he himself comes into manhood. From the moment the twins decide to kill Santiago, they make no mystery of their decision, announcing their plans to the townspeople who visit Clotilde's shop. As boys who were "brought up to be men" (30), murdering Santiago Nasar is "the horrible duty that's fallen on them" (57), and as such, they perceive it with a fatalistic attitude, exemplified by the way they promulgate their plans to the townspeople and their habit of describing Santiago's imminent death in the past tense, in statements such as "It's as if it had already happened" (62) and "Dead men can't shoot" (110). In announcing their plans to the townspeople, their hope is to "find someone who would do them the favor of stopping them" (57), since they themselves are helpless to change their own fate. Pedro displays a greater unwillingness to kill Santiago than Pablo; after the mayor confiscates the twins' knives, it is Pedro who "consider[s] his duty fulfilled" (61). However, his resolve is later reinstituted as they murder Santiago, for not only does Pedro deal the first few blows with his knife, but he does it with a "slaughterer's iron wrist" (119). After his incarceration, he reenlists in the armed forces and becomes a sergeant. However, he mysteriously disappears "one fine morning" after he accompanies his patrol into guerilla territory, and "[is] never heard of again" (84). ||
 * **Significance of Name in Work** || The first name "Pedro" is a Spanish and Portuguese derivation of the name "Peter", which in turn is derived from the Greek word for "stone." "Peter" is the name that was given to the apostle, Simon, by Jesus in the New Testament; Simon Peter was the most prominent of the apostles during Jesus' ministry and is widely considered the first pope. The last name "Vicario" is of Italian and Spanish origin, and was the name for an official who carried out duties on behalf of an absent office-holder. Ecclesiastically the word denoted a priest who carried out duties in a parish on behalf of a bishop. The saintly connotations of Pedro Vicario's name is in stark contrast with the brutality of his murder, but at the same time it is a reflection of the fatalistic attitude that Pedro adopts in order to carry out the murder, which he perceives, along with the rest of the townspeople, as a duty that he must fulfill. Like his namesake, the apostle Simon Peter, he carries out his duties unflinchingly and as steadily as a stone, with a "slaughterer's iron wrist" (119), on behalf of a higher power of being -- in this case, his family's honor. ||
 * **Student's Name** || Corrie Gao ||