preview

Very Old Man With Enormous Wings, And The Handsomest Drowned Man

Decent Essays

Magic Realism is a complex and ambiguous genre that dabbles in the imaginative, the fantastic and the oddities. It is a combination of elements of the unknown or the obscure with a recognizable reality, which produces a somewhat vague yet familiar distorted reality. These aspects of magic realism can be found in the stories of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, particularly in his works: “The Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” and “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World.” Elements such as characters, and setting found in these two stories clearly depict the different characteristics and defining qualities of the magic realism genre. Though often confused with surrealism; Arnason, the author of “History of Modern Art”, explains that surrealism differs …show more content…

As shown in Garcia Marquez’s “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings”, the old man who seems to be an angel – like creature, but doesn’t seem like an angel at all because of his actions and appearance. Here we find an angel, a symbol of goodness and light, to be the opposite of all our stereotypes; this can cause the ambiguity of the intention or purpose of this angel. Based on the two stories, we find the magical aspect comes from the characters; both expressing strange and slightly inhuman qualities: like wings or height, that lead us to question the reality of the character. These magical qualities are emphasized by superlatives such as “very” and “Handsomest”, which also imply the awe and wonder that the “human” characters feel when faced with the strange creatures. Meanwhile the realistic aspect comes from the setting, as well as the supporting characters who express a very humanistic nature that we all understand and can relate to. But because of these two drastically different concepts converging into one, magic realism allows us the opportunity to experience and immerse ourselves into the story, instead of being able to fully understand and predict the narration as done in other

Get Access