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A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings Magical Realism

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Kelsey Tamez
English 352 100
6 July 2015

Magical Realism as Social Critique in Beloved and A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings

Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Toni Morrison use magical realism in A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings and Beloved respectively to critique social structures in times of political turmoil. Marquez focuses on how politics and economics intersect with social behaviors while Morrison concentrates on how society interacts with psychology, particularly in African American communities after slavery. While magical realism is a technique popularized in Latin America, it is a global commodity frequently used in societies looking to reclaim or reestablish their culture because of a shift in government administration. The technique …show more content…

The story combines the humble details of Pelayo’s family’s life with the fantastic elements such as a flying man and a spider woman to create a tone that is part fairy tale and part regional tale. From the beginning of the story, Marquez’s style comes through his fable-like description of the pouring rain: “The sky had been sad since Tuesday.” There is a mixing of fantasy and ordinary in all the descriptions, including the swarms of crabs that overrun Pelayo’s home and the sand of the beach that looks like “powdered light” in the rain. In this dreamy setting, it’s strange that the old winged man appears and in dramatic contrast to the ethereal setting and his assumed status as a celestial being, is covered in lice and dressed in rags. A man who appears to be an angel arrives at the home of a normal family but rather than being in awe of and respectful of him, they are afraid but quick to figure out how to exploit him. The family’s treatment of him comments on capitalism and materialism. “Elisenda, her spine all twisted from sweeping up so much marketplace trash, then got the idea of fencing in the yard and charging five cents admission to see the angel.” They have been so corrupted by the desire for money that they have abandoned their humanity and rather than treat him well and fix him up, they keep him locked in a cage like an animal during the dead of winter. Marquez suggests that capitalism exists solely because there are people who can be exploited and an audience to

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