what information does the first paragraph of the novel give you about the story that is going to unfold?

The first paragraph of Chronicle of a Death Foretold "foretells" many of the concerns that Garcia Marquez develops throughout the novel. For instance, he focuses on time-mentioning that Santiago woke at 5:30 a.m., that he was killed on a Monday and that the narrator is speaking from twenty-seven years in the future. Also, within the first paragraph, Garcia Marquez introduces the importance of his culture to the ensuing events-especially the role of extrasensory knowledge. Placida Linero is plainly announced to be an "interpreter" of dreams; such occult abilities are treated as commonplace throughout the narrative. Characters consistently respond in an intuitive way to the coming murder. For instance, Santiago's recoil at the sight of the butchered rabbits (a sight that he, a hunter, is well accustomed to and doesn't usually mind) anticipates his own evisceration at the novels end. This tendency to foretell the future also reinforces the treatment of time in the novel: time is not a linear thing, but rather cyclical-hence the spiraling structure of each chapters. Santiago's death is present before it happens and many signs point to it; the characters simply fail to read these signs before it is too late.