23 pages • 46 minutes read
Gabriel García MárquezBalthazar's Marvelous Afternoon
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1983A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
Balthazar
García Márquez names Balthazar for one of the biblical New Testament’s trio of wise kings, who are guided by a star to deliver gifts of frankincense, myrrh, and gold to Christ at the site of his birth. However, García Márquez complicates the story’s religious pattern in that Balthazar does not intend to simply bring a gift to a child; initially, he intends to receive recompense for his labor. In another modern change, the recipients of Balthazar’s gift are not holy or even pleasant—José Montiel is penny-pinching and harsh, and his son Pepe appears to be both abused and spoiled. These twists set the trajectory for Balthazar’s character arc, setting the stage for the major gesture of Balthazar’s story, a dramatic turn of fortune followed quickly by the reversal of that fortune and a fall.
Throughout the story, Balthazar is a morally incorruptible figure, set apart from the villainous Montiel by his generosity and even temperament. The omniscient narrator praises Balthazar for his forthrightness and notes that he wears white for the procession to the home of the Montiels. Ursula also likens Balthazar to a monk when she advises him, “You have to shave [...] [y]ou look like a Capuchin” (148). At the Montiels’ home, Balthazar achieves a moral victory by sacrificing his work and gifting the cage to Pepe. It is not until the story’s climax has passed that we see a marked change in Balthazar’s dramatic choices, when he begins to act for his own self-aggrandizement instead of humbly.
As Balthazar exits the Montiels’s home, his thoughts change to reflect the energy of the crowd outside: “[...] he thought that he had made a better cage than ever before, that he’d had to give it to the son of José Montiel so he wouldn’t keep crying, and that none of these things was particularly important. But then he realized that all of this had a certain importance for many people, and he felt a little excited” (156). Balthazar’s tragic fall exists in the gulf between these two thoughts. His even temper and unassuming attitude become infected with the sudden want for favor and attention, especially for a type of attention he does not often experience. When the crowd asks Balthazar how much the Montiels paid him, Balthazar lies to validate this feeling of excitement and the townspeople’s spite for Montiel. From that point, Balthazar’s fall gains inertia. He pawns his watch, buys beers for the pool hall (although normally he does not drink) and, in the end, gives up most of his possessions to keep the favor he has experienced for a single afternoon.
José Montiel
The name Montiel indicates high status and an imposing nature, associating this character with the Spanish aristocracy of previous centuries and conjuring the image of a mountain (monte means hill). His penchant for rage, so dangerous to his own health that his doctor forbids it, likens Montiel to an animal unable to control his emotions. Montiel first appears as “obese and hairy,” and when disciplining his son handles Pepe abusively: “Grabbing him by the hair, José Montiel forced Pepe to look him in the eye” (154). In another short story centered around Montiel’s wife, Adelaide, titled “Montiel’s Widow,” García Márquez confirms that eventually, Montiel succumbs to his anger.
As Balthazar’s primary antagonist, José Montiel serves as the catalyst for both Balthazar’s “marvelous afternoon” and his fall. Montiel has a reputation for ruthless control, while Balthazar acts in the service of others. While Balthazar has few material goods and is generous with what he has, Montiel’s home is so filled with items that he sleeps with no fan on in order to listen to the sounds of his house. It is ironic that Balthazar defeats Montiel’s authority not by being more controlling than Montiel, but through an act of generosity toward Montiel’s son. Vigilant in keeping tight control over his home and family, Montiel’s nightmare of losing control becomes real when Balthazar, whom Montiel has deemed “some nobody” (155), is able to delight his son with the cage. Montiel’s resulting rage reveals insecurity in his relationship with his son.
Montiel signals the economic disparity that characterizes the story’s setting and the system of pride and illusion that divides the townspeople from the upper class—even from those who, like Montiel, aspire to appear wealthier than they are. At the end of the story, the townspeople’s celebration is not fully a reaction to Balthazar or his cage. Rather, it emerges from their spite for Montiel, and from their delight in the belief that Balthazar has extracted as much money from Montiel as anyone has ever managed. By creating the illusion of his financial superiority (just as Balthazar eventually does), Montiel makes himself an enemy of the townspeople. The exuberant pool hall celebration is then proportional to the townspeople’s dislike for Montiel.
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By Gabriel García Márquez
