Marquez blog

Luke Frederick

Dr. Benander

World Lit

25 January 26, 2011

Stories within Stories

“A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” and “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World” were two beautiful and well told stories.  At first glance they are odd and quirky but when the reader digs deeper they soon see the true brilliance of these stories.  Both stories describe men who just come out of nowhere and turn the town upside down, but for very different reasons.  Just by looking at the titles of the stories that is clear.  These men are just about exact opposites, a little frail old angel and one of the largest, handsomest men that ever lived.  One ironic thing between the two is that the Angel was still alive and was treated horribly while Esteban was given respect, admiration, and even life by the women of the town.

Marquez uses these men and these stories to get his points across.  The true point of these tales is under the surface; there’s is almost a story with in a story.  In “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” this angel is abused because people think he is too ugly to be a real angel, so he is kept outside with the chickens and is poked, prodded, burned, and ridiculed by an admission paying audience that includes a Catholic Bishop.  Even this bishop does not treat this poor angel any better than the rest of the crowd.  The couple who literally kept this angel cooped up made enough to buy themselves a large house from the money they’ve hustled using their angel.  The point that Marquez is getting across is that we must accept God as he comes, not as we expect him to come.  We can only guess or speculate what the true God is like; therefore we cannot try to expect him to be how we or someone else imagines him.  The other criticism he was making in this story is the cruelty of some people who call themselves Christians.  I mean the story is about a couple getting rich off of enslaving an angel and letting fellow Christians torture it and speculate about the angel so long as they of course pay admission.

In “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World” the criticism is more on a personal level rather than attacking a large institution like the Church.   The story within the story here is our own perceptions in the real and fantasy world.  Esteban is a washed up corpse so is seen almost like a Brad Pitt or something by the women in the village where he washes ashore.  All they do is imagine what it would be like if he were alive, even though these women have husbands of their own.  This fantasy grows so out of control that parts of it start to affect how they live and think in the real world.  That Is the main criticism he has in this story; keep fantasies as just that, fantasies.  Making these fantasies too real or immersing one’s self in them is dangerous because certain ideas or actions from the fantasy world will start to bust into real life.  Of course to the normal person, the aberrations from the fantasy will look totally absurd.

Cortazar

Julio Cortazar is an ingenious author.  I found it impressive how he uses language to make the his stories what they are.  With many authors  they gain fame by what they say, whereas with Cortazar its how he says what he says that makes his stories special.  His use of language and how it affects the story probably is more obvious in Spanish than English, however it is equally clever in both instances.  His verb usage turns a boring story into one where the reader is on the edge of his chair wondering where the next twist or turn will be.  Its the tense of the verbs he uses that puts the reader in something like the Twilight Zone.  The best example we have read is " The Continuity of Parks", where the reader goes from watching a man read a story, to being with the murderous posse from the book that shows up at the readers house.  That sentence was crazy, imagine the story!  The most ingenious story was by far "Axolotl" because not only does Cortazar come up with a trippy story but also makes a strong social commentary.  On the surface its just a story about a boy going to the zoo to look at an ugly little lizard.  Of course like most of his other stories the real meaning is much deeper than that.  That's what else makes him above average, he not only writes great stories but they have true meaning to their readers, and that's what makes them so valuable not his tricky language.