Balthazar's Marvelous Afternoon

Early in the story, the narrative pauses its forward action to give a detailed description of the cage. When a literary work showcases the details of a visual art form, it is called ekphrasis. This type of description exists in literary works as old as Homer’s ancient Greek epic The Iliad, in which the filigree and figures on Achilles’s shield are described in elaborate detail. García Márquez’s description of the cage highlights the act of looking and evaluating, which the characters of the story constantly engage in as they determine who has wealth, status, and value in the community. It also emphasizes the unique beauty of the cage and the skill its creation required, heightening the stakes of Balthazar’s payment.

Information about the characters, their histories, and their actions reaches the reader through a third-person omniscient narrator. An omniscient narrator knows everything about the action and scenes of a story, and can impart information to the audience that the characters themselves do not know or cannot see. This technique was used in many 19th-century realist works, in which narration moralized the conflicts and drama of stories to impart the writer’s views.