"Kiss of a Spider Woman'

While the “Kiss of a Spider Woman,” as other magic realist compositions attempts to convey a moral message to the viewer, as compared with other magical realism works Puig doesn’t not blur or distort the boundaries of many binaries lacking the characteristics of a true magical realism piece. “Kiss of a Spider Woman” implores not only the message that love is unstoppable, even by the government’s power, but also that one may love whoever he wishes and often has no control over who or what he loves. Puig conveys his views on homosexuality through Molina’s struggle. Molina’s love and emotions are unaffected by any of the governments actions or any laws put in place. Puig attempts to explain that emotions are uncontrollable and more powerful than any other force, and love, the most powerful emotion, is more powerful still. Puig’s underlying message is that while love is unrelenting, one alo cannot control who he loves, regardless of whether it is in the ‘norm,” and is something so powerful it is worth dying for.

Maria: Kiss of the Spiderwoman

In the movie Kiss of The Spiderwoman, Puig puts an emphasis on the power of love versus the power of social norms and government laws imposed on society. He uses the “Spiderwoman” as a symbol; being something that one gets caught up in. I believe that government and society are represented by the Spiderwoman while Puig is represented through the character, Molina and his emotions. Being a homosexual, Molina (and Puig) knows the feeling of being exiled and ridiculed, but to him, those things do not matter nearly as much as one’s inner happiness. To him, the emotions that drive love and sexuality, regardless of whether others see them as being ‘right’ or ‘wrong,’ are stronger than any other force. Both in Molina’s story and in the story he tells we see love conquering all other things. For example, the woman in his story falls in love with a soldier; something that is not accepted in her world. But, she explains that one cannot help who one falls in love with and says, “love doesn’t’ have a country.” Similarly, Molina shows that he is willing to die for Valentine, the man he loves, because without being able to love there is nothing worth living for. Puig shows that the government can impose as much power as they want through different actions, such as putting people in jail over and over again, but the power of one’s emotions will still prevail. In this movie, I see Valentine as a representation of the typical stereotype of a man in society during the time and place that this film takes place, while Molina represents something different. Puig shows how we need to embrace the differences found within one another rather than judge them; only then will we be headed toward a more peaceful world.

The Kiss of the Spider Woman

In “The Kiss of the Spiderwoman”, Manuel Puig uses characteristics of magical realism to deliver the underlying message behind the film. There are obvious binaries between hetero and homo sexuality, and reality versus fiction. While in prison, Molina and Valentin escape their harsh reality by listening to Molina’s dictation of old movies. The movie is a classical Nazi propaganda love story. Whenever Molina and Valentin are experiencing especially bad moments like food poisoning, insomnia, or depression; Molina describes the movie to create an oasis that allows them to mentally escape their pain. Though they have different sources of pain – Valentin’s is his political angst and his love for Marta, Molina’s is his mother and his societal oppression for being homosexual – they both take refuge in this dreamy state. Puig is trying to expose the negative aspects of society and how they affect everyone as a whole. Molina and Valentin are completely different types of people, yet they are both oppressed and restricted by societal problems. Just like the tale of the spider woman that Molina describes, the relationship between him and Valentin grows from within and is mysterious, forbidden, and confused all at once. This passionate interaction and emotion destroys the boundaries that exist between hetero/ homo sexuality and reality versus fiction.

Dasha: Kiss of the spider woman

Kiss of the Spider woman is a very impressive movie. It shows struggles of two completely different men who are in prison for unlike reasons. They both find escape from ordinary life through different approaches. Political prisoner Valentin is ready to go through anything it takes to preserve the secrets of opposition. He survives tortures, poisoning and just plain intimidation. He shows how important it is to be persistent and loyal to your beliefs, keep fighting for freedom and rights. Molina finds an escape through imagining movies and pretending to be a gorgeous woman. He can’t stand the brutality of men. He sees the world differently through his sensitivity that allows him to get closer to Valentin. Despite the plan of Warden to find out information from Valentin through Molina, the story shows how important and powerful true friendship can be. It can change the world. The idea of this imaginary perfect woman spices up the storyline and brings the element of magic realism. Everybody is looking for something great and perfect, but most of the times the ideals only exist in our imagination, and we are left to face the cruelty of the world unprotected. Another aspect of magic realism is a very thin boundary between the storyline of the movie that Molina tells to Valentin and what is going on in their lives. It seems that connections are very precise, and you almost feel that this modern story is a repeat of this old movie.

Mona

“Mona” by Reinaldo Arenas attempts to expose the reader’s common held stereotypes by blurring the boundaries between male and female, reality and fantasy, and living or dead.
Elisa, the protagonist of the story, becomes Fernandez’s infatuation. At the beginning of the novella the reader is lead to believe that “Mona” is a romance story, however, as the story progresses Elisa begins to exhibit abnormal features more closely resembling male attributes, thus blurring between male and female making what was once perceived to be a romance novella more closely resemble a parable.
As the story progresses Elisa’s features are portrayed to be more and more masculine. She is portrayed as having “an almost” masculine voice as having animal like characteristics. Each proceeding description only further adds to her portrayal of a masculine character, she “[drinks] the water…so naturally that anyone would have thought drinking from a vase was a normal thing to do,” this act is very unusual and certainly would have been considered “lady like.” Thus further stripping Elisa of her femininity. The narrator then proceeds to describe that as he was kissing Elisa he “felt the underlip of some animal,” furthermore Elisa is characterized as having knowledge of motors and machines, a skill normally more attributed to men.
This novella not only forces the reader to reexamine the previous assumptions he had made regarding women, but also touches upon the idea the homosexuality. At the end of the story it becomes clear to the reader that Elisa is Leonardo Da Vinci himself. One can interpret Fernandez’s infatuation with Elisa as a gay romantic attraction, Fernandez must obviously be aware of Elisa’s attributes being uncannily resembling masculine traits, yet he dismisses them and once more attempts to focus on Elisa’s female attributes, appearing hesitant to admit his homosexuality. Another aspect of the novella that leads the reader to believe that homosexuality was a factor is the author’s choice of Da Vinci as the artist, for many historians believe that Leonardo was gay.
Arenas employs magic realism in order to both force the reader to reexamine the stereotypes he has made about women and surface the struggle of homosexuality.

"Kiss of a Spiderwoman" Heidy

In “Kiss of a Spiderwoman” Puig is drawing a line between an idealism and reality. Molina passes the time by telling Valentin the stories of his favorite movies in great detail. Valentin a Marxist revolutionary tends to criticize Molina’s melodramatic tales of romance. However, Valentin would listen as it would calm him down. It is not until the end when Valentin and Molina share a romance together that we realize that the tales Molina originally told where about them. The story about Benny and Vernin were indeed the love story of them. What made it magical realism between fallacy and reality is that Molina told the story exactly how it happened in real life, before it even occurred. This movie ended with Molina dying to help the love of his life. (reality) It also ended with Marta sailing away with Valentin, in which he said, “this dream is short but happy” (fantasy). This ending sums up the binary of reality and fantasy illustrated in this movie.

Beverley Yuen: Kiss of the Spider Woman

Kiss of the Spider Woman is Puig’s attempt to convey his simple message of not to make judgments or assumptions as things are not always as they appear to be. In short, it essentially exemplifies the old saying “don’t judge a book by its cover.” In the book, people create friendships or fall in love with people that are initially unheard of. Valentin, a realistic and rebellious political activist, is initially irritated by the homosexual and fantasy driven Molina, but they soon become close friends that trust one another. In Molina’s story, created as an exit to the harsh world of reality that would distract Valentine and Molina, the setting is in France in the midst of World War II. The French star of a club, Leni, is infatuated by a high ranking German soldier, Werner, who returns her feelings. Despite being from warring, enemy countries, the two fall in love and protect one another. Leni takes back the map from the Frenchmen in order to protect Werner, and Werner shoots one of the Frenchmen before he kills Leni (the first attempt). Leni’s friend, Michelle, also falls in love with a German soldier and is carrying his child. Michelle is working undercover for the French, but betrays her country for this man, who genuinely returns the feelings as well. In both instances, the women trust the men despite being from enemy countries and then are betrayed and killed by people from their own country. At first glance, all of these relationships seem strange, unacceptable, or perhaps, taboo. One would usually believe that these relationships could not occur, but these examples show how people should not quickly make judgments or assumptions about people without getting to know them properly as they might just surprise them. In accordance with this idea, it is important to note that the people who one would think would be trustworthy are the exact opposite. One would think that Leni and Michelle would be in danger by being romantically involved with the Germans, or at least would be used in some way for military purposes, but it actually was the French, their own people, who killed them, while the “enemies” proved to be their allies; their saviors. While this is the main idea that Puig seemed to communicate through this film, there are a couple other messages suggested as well. In his attempt to juxtapose reality and fantasy by placing Valentin and Molina together, Puig manages to demonstrate how people often enter a world of fantasy in order to retreat; to avoid reality. When the conversation became awkward or serious or when either of the two was physically ill, then Molina’s fantasy WWII story would continue. They did not want to deal with conflict or pain of reality, so they would retreat into fantasy, reflecting how people often to the same; they retreat into books, fantasies, or television in order to avoid the troubles of life. The other message is about treating homosexuals normally, like equals. At first, Valentin treats Molina like a freak, but eventually he speaks to and treats Molina normally, like an everyday occurrence, which it was to him. Valentin is an example or a representation of how people should act towards homosexuals.

Jackie: Kiss of the Spiderwoman

I think what Puig is trying to say is that life is unpredictable and can end at any moment, so we should seize the moment, love, share and care for one another as much as we can, because the journey of life is more important than the destination. Life is short, so if we spend more time loving than fighting, less time stereotyping and judging one another, and more time accepting each other equally and for who they are inside. I think he is also talking about sacrifice. We need to understand who is really important to us, and to stay true to that person, because if we put that person above ourselves, we are bound to learn something in the process and lead a happy life. Staying in prison with a person we love is a better life and a happier life to lead than living a life in freedom and alone. Like a movie, we need to write our own lives and follow are dreams, because that is the only way to achieve true happiness and to die a happy man or woman.

Kiss of the Spider Woman- John Hicks

“Kiss of the Spider Woman” gives binaries between fantasy and reality. What Valentine sees as reality is not actually what is happening. Paulina makes up stories and makes comments to put Valentine in a vulnerable place. He begins telling the story with Lenny and Vernon. In this story Vernon, the liberator, represents Valentine who is a political liberator. Lenny represents Valentine’s wife, who he misses dearly. When Lenny dies in the story it represents the when Valentine lost his wife (Marta) earlier in his life, which causes him to become vulnerable and reveal answers about the revolution.. After Paulina tells the story of the spider women, it is believed the spider woman is a beautiful female creature. Once Paulina and Valentine kiss, it is known that Paulina is the spider woman. This develops the binary between reality and fantasy. When Paulina is telling the story, the film is in black and white portraying the spider woman as a female, but when reality strikes back in, Paulina becomes be the spider woman. It seems Paulina actually saved Valentine with the kiss they had. Every time Paulina would tell a story it would show the story on the film in black and white (fantasy) and when he was done telling the story the film would be in color and in the jail cell (reality). The film ends in black and white which gives the impression that it is fantasy and not reality. Valentine gets back together with his wife, and they sale off into the sunset. Valentine claimed every time when he was about to give up Marta would come into his head and save him, except this time her saving him was more of a dream than reality.

Kiss of the Spider Woman

(No blog on Before Night Falls.) Only write a paragraph, explaining what Puig is trying to say in Kiss. . . . You don't have to take notes of quotations. If you give an example, simply paraphrase. I'm only wanting you to conceptualize the point(s) so that you have thought about the film (based on Puig's book) before you take the exam. SHORT blog.

Beverley Yuen: Mona

Reinaldo Arenas manages to turn one of the world’s most renowned pieces of art, Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa,” into the centripetal force of this story. The protagonist, Ramon Fernandez, is captivated by this mysterious, young woman, Elisa, who seems to exhibit unique and unusual characteristics; characteristics not normally suited for a normal woman. Consumed with a great love and passion for this woman, Fernandez vows to “find out who this woman really was,” (p. 45) but to his complete surprise, he gets more than what he bargained for. He discovered that Elisa was really Leonardo da Vinci’s painting “Mona Lisa” come to life, but here is the magical twist: Elisa is also Leonard da Vinci himself. His purpose was to have “have the woman he painted [to have] the ability to become the painter himself and to outlive him” (p. 57). This truly enormous revelation illustrates the magical realist binaries of male/female, reality/fantasy, and day/night. As the story unravels, Arenas incorporates subtle indications about societal opinions and treatment toward homosexuality, pointing out the horrible attitudes, dangers, and stereotypes that accompany being homosexual, which he had to experience throughout his life.

There is no doubt that Mona employs magical realism, especially through the male/female binary. Fernandez’s testimony quickly begins the story implying that he is in jail on purpose; he “wanted them to lock [him] up and have someone watch over [him] day and night” (p. 35). In describing the person who he wants protection from; the person who is seeking to take his life, Fernandez does not quite know which pronoun to use. He says, “I am saying she, and perhaps I should say he, though I don’t know what to call that thing, (p. 35) which essentially blurs the distinction between genders of his enemy, Elisa/Leonardo. Elisa/Leonardo is neither truly male nor female. Gradually throughout the story, Elisa demonstrates attributes and skills traditionally belonging to males, which further exemplifies how the line and distinctions between males and females are distorted. From Fernandez’s perspective, Elisa initially “[possesses] not only the imagination of a real pleasure seeker and the skills of a woman of the world but also a kind of motherly charm mixed with youthful mischief and the airs of a grand lady, which made her irresistible” (p. 38). She is portrayed as the perfect and ideal woman; she is a true woman. The love blinders of infatuation eventually begin to wear off and Fernandez notices odd phenomenon with Elisa. “She would begin a word in a very soft, feminine tone and end it in a heavy voice, almost masculine” (p. 38). Her voice is blending feminine and masculine tones together, creating one unisex voice. When having dinner in a fancy restaurant, the waiter lagged in bringing the couple water, so “Elisa grabbed the vase adorning [the] table, removed the flowers, and drank the water” (p. 39). This abrupt and rude act would appall many for it is not very “lady-like.” Women are not to act in this manner, so Elisa’s action was pretty unexpected; however, it might have been less surprising if Fernandez, a male, had done it. After Fernandez’s motorcycle had given out, Elisa quickly examines the motor herself and assures him that “[she] knows about these things” (p. 40). Fernandez, with a sexist mind set, “mistrust[s] her mechanical skills” (p. 40), but Elisa proves him wrong and fixes the motor. The gender roles have somewhat reversed as the female Elisa exercised mechanical skills to fix their mode of transportation, while the male Fernandez just sat and idly watched. Traditionally, males have the mechanical skills and fix engines or motors; however, Elisa is the one who dutiful fulfills this role in this story. While driving on the motorcycle, Fernandez watches Elisa’s elegant face in the rearview mirror but “once, instead of her face, [he] thought [he] saw the face of a horrible old man, but [he] this to our speed, which distorted images” (p. 41). Most of the story contains situations in which Elisa exhibits masculine attributes in terms of personality and mannerisms, but this is the first time in which her physical appearance is distorted, solidifying this magical realist confusion between male and female. Eventually, Elisa fully morphs into Leonardo, who is in an extreme moment of passion with Fernandez. Both lust after Fernandez and other men, so does that mean both identify as females? Elisa has displayed male qualities, does this make her male? Gender and societal norms are blended and distorted so much that one cannot identify this one entity, which contains both Elisa and Leonardo, as male or female.

Like many magical realism literary works, “Mona” focuses on twisting reality and fantasy; however, unlike the other stories, it also incorporates the day/night binary to accentuate the former binary. The concept of day/night is significantly connected to reality/fantasy because night is often associated with danger and evil or mythical creatures that emerge from the darkness, but most importantly it is often used with nonexistence, and all of this alludes to the idea of fantasy. While truth and reality is exposed by the day’s sunshine, fantastical creatures, such as Elisa, are able to walk freely, shrouded by the darkness and mystery of nighttime. Throughout the story, most of the instances in which Elisa’s existence is questioned are during the night. While resting peacefully at a hotel one night, Elisa had closed her eyes and fallen asleep, but “suddenly [Fernandez] saw them disappear. [He] screamed in order to wake [himself] up – [he] had to have been dreaming – and immediately [he] could see her eyes, looking at [him] intently” (p. 43). Quickly, not believing this incident to be real, he passed it off as a nightmare. He questions whether or not what he saw was real or magic; fantasy? He blames it on a nightmare, showing how fantasy has greater strength at night. At night, people are often disoriented or confused with less control over their senses, most importantly sight, so they naively ignore or attempt to rationalize strange instances that occur. It is important to note that Elisa’s existence is fading slowly as well, exemplifying how night is associated with nonexistence. In a similar instance, Fernandez was touching Elisa and “saw that Elisa had no breasts. [He] jumped to the edge of the bed, wondering where this woman was driving [him] insane. As if sensing [his] anguish, she immediately pulled [him] over with her arms to her beautiful breasts” (p. 49). This is another example in which Elisa’s existence fades in the night. First, she has no breasts, and then suddenly they appear. Fernandez does not believe anything magical or odd is happening, blaming himself to becoming “insane.” This scene occurs at dawn in which the fantasy or nonexistence of Elisa with no breasts quickly fades as the sun rises and her breasts return, conforming to reality. Readers soon learn that Elisa is actually Mona Lisa emerging from her two dimensional realm into the real world; reality.

To Be Continued…

Mona by Maria

Arenas employs magic realism by using a series of different binaries to tell the story of Mona. The two most obvious binaries are between men/women and past/present; all the while making it difficult to distinguish what is real from what is imaginary –the essential characteristic of magic realism. From the beginning it is brought to our attention that this story is being told from the perspective of the story teller, Ramon Fernandez, and therefore we know that we are about to read a tale based on what he believes is real. This one-sided perspective is an automatic indicator that this story may have magical realistic components.
Ramon’s descriptions of Elisa are misleading because he goes back and forth between describing her as having very feminine features and then having masculine features; therefore introducing the binary of female/male. Throughout the story he even makes the reader question his gender identity. When he first lays eyes on her he describes her as being absolutely fascinating and extraordinary. Then, he points out that when she speaks she goes from speaking like a lady to speaking more like a man: “…she would being a word in a very soft, feminine tone and end it in a heave voice, almost masculine” (pg 38.) Then, she exemplified behaviors that are often associated with men such as having superior mechanical skills compared to Ramon (pg 40) and how knowledgeable she was regarding architecture and history (pg 42). Every now and then Arenas makes it a point to emphasize her feminine traits as if the author is trying to remind us that Elisa is, indeed a female. For example when he compares her to other women in bed saying that she “was hard to please…(what woman isn’t!)” (pg 43). This alludes to the Arenas’ homosexuality, because through this statement, and others like it, one can infer that he is insecure about his attraction to men. It almost seems as though a lot of why he is attracted to Elisa are due to her more masculine traits but he tries to convince us that he really does like women since that is the norm and what is ‘politically correct.’
The binary between reality and fantasy is present throughout the story and is intertwined with the binary of past and present. Throughout this novella one cannot help but wonder whether Elisa is actually present or if she is just a figure of Ramon’s imagination. He describes her as being extraordinary which leads one to think that perhaps she is just a dream. He follows her one day to see where she goes after they sleep together at night: he sees her go into the Metropolitan Museum and then literally he claims that, “in front of my eyes, she disappeared” (pg 47). In reality people cannot just disappear. Here, Arenas employs magic realism by taking a realistic figure, Elisa, and putting her in an unrealistic situation. In fact, he even goes on to say that “there was a relationship between Elisa and that building” (pg 49) which is unrealistic – how can a human being be in any sort of relationship with a lifeless object? After much investigation he realizes that she disappears into a painting. Here, Arenas blends past and present. The painting that she becomes a part of was a product of Leonardo da Vinci, painted in 1505. Here Arenas attempts to link a product of the past, which seems perfectly beautiful, to the twisted reality of his present. One might interpret this as his frustration with his homosexuality coming though. He has to keep his sex life with Elisa a secret otherwise it wouldn’t be accepted or believed by anyone much like in reality he had to keep his homosexuality a secret since it was not acceptable within the society in which he lived in. He looks at her in the painting and everything seems perfect, timeless, and indestructible; I would imagine this is how he felt about his lovers and loved ones. However, the truth about Elisa and about his sexuality was shunned by others who could not see the beauty nor feel the passion that he saw and felt for both.
Elisa and Ramon continue their secret love affair as the story goes on during which Arenas continues to point out manly features of Elisa’s attitude, such as pointing out her “ravenous appetite” (pg 54.) Finally, the truth comes out and Elisa’s identity is revealed, although, it is an identity that is confused by gender. Arenas discusses the motives behind Leonardo da Vinci’s famous ‘Mona Lisa.’ History tells us that da Vinci’s Mona Lisa was actually a self portrait which da Vinci painted of how he saw himself. This is a controversial idea considering that da Vinci was a man, but portrayed himself as a woman. Through da Vinci’s story Arenas attempts to tell his own. It is possible that he chooses Leonardo da Vinci to help him tell his tale because da Vinci was a man who was, and still is, admired and respected by so many. His’ Mona Lisa’ painting, whether there be controversial meaning behind it or not, still is one of the most famous and iconic paintings of all time. Perhaps Arenas is trying to ask for recognition from his people. He wants to be accepted and remembered, like da Vinci, regardless of his sexual orientation. Through blending the border between male and female Arenas makes a strong statement that gender should not matter; similarly, neither should one’s sexual preference.
At the very end of the story is when Arenas’ sexuality is most apparent when he describes having sexual intercourse with Elisa. However, at this point Elisa is no longer ‘Elisa’ but is now existent in the form of an older man. Ramon says that now is when he was most determined to pleasure his sex partner, more so than he had been at any earlier point in the story. So now is when we see his true sexuality come out in the way he describes the passion behind his sexual encounter with this male partner: “…in spite of my revulsion, tried to give him as much pleasure as I could, hoping he would be so exhausted he would let me go” (pg59). Ramon also explains that he tries to keep the illusion of Elisa while having sex with this ugly old man. In this context, one might interpret Elisa’s character as representing all women in society: he thinks they’re beautiful even though is not sexually attracted to them and he sometimes feels like he has to conform to society by fantasying about women, even though, his reality makes him feel differently: his reality makes him feel intimately attracted to men.

"Mona" by: Heidy Tejeda

“Mona” by Reinaldo Arenas takes us into what seems to be a love story between Ramon Fernandez and Elisa. However, as we are drawn into the story we are presented with unrealistic situations in a realistic setting. In the magical realism booklet it states, “Magical realism often facilitates the fusion, or coexistence, of possible worlds, spaces, systems that would be irreconcilable in other modes of fiction.” (pg. 6) In this novella Reinaldo Arenas uses the binaries of time and place, real and fallacy to undermine people’s perceptions on Cuba and Castro. He uses magical realism as means to channel the message.

“Mona” and Elisa represent time and place in this novella. Elisa’s character within the novella is illustrated to have an endless wealth of knowledge. She knows the best restaurants, places, art, architecture, and have the ability and experience to fix things. However, towards the end Reinaldo makes the distinction that Elisa is in reality “Mona Lisa” the infamous painting by Leonardo DaVinci in 1505.

Reinaldo first describes Elisa to be this perfect “masterpiece” of a woman. However, many times within the novellas Reinaldo questions the appearance of this woman; blurring the line between reality and fallacy. On pg. 49, the author describes a situation with Mona, he states, “At dawn her naked body I saw that Elisa had no breasts.” Often Reinaldo would see and no see parts of Elisa, questioning its mere existence.

In my opinion Arenas lived a life of hardships and struggles as he rebelled against the Cuban government. In this novella “Mona Lisa” signifies Cuba in the way that Castro wanted it to be. Castro banned homosexuality and in his eyes it wasn’t acceptable in Cuba. He painted this portrait of the way Cuba should be, perfect like the masterpiece “Mona Lisa”. However, Arenas describes the Mona Lisa to be this horrible creature who attempts to kill him; which would then explain Castro feelings towards Arenas and his writings about homosexuality. At the of the novella, arenas writes, “Not only was Elisa the woman in the painting, but the woman in the painting was also the painter, who had don’t his self-portrait as he wished to be (the way he was in his mind): a lusty, fascinating woman.” (Pg. 57) Leonardo DaVinci the creator of the painting of Mona Lisa was indeed a portrayal of Castro and his views of life. However, as illustrated in the novellas his ways were not as clear and well intended as they appeared to be.

This novella showed the harsh reality that Arenas was living. Cuba was trapped in this painting by Castro. In his attempt to knife the portrait he meant to save Cuba. However, he failed miserably. He writes to inspire another, to challenge Castro and save Cuba. He uses magical realism as a way to convey the message by leaving it to the reader to find the way.

Mona

Mona by Reinaldo Arenas disguises the deeper meaning of the story through magical realism. Arenas addresses and - of course - destroys many binaries that are commonly accepted like male and female or reality and fiction. Following the distinctive qualities of magical realism, Arenas also blurs the sense of time so that all the events are cyclical. Time is blended together with no true chronological order, and past and present occur simultaneously.

Males and females are generally thought of as two completely separate categories. In Mona, Arenas erases some of this border between the two, giving a less concrete definition to either. Within the first few sentences of the story on page 35, Arenas says, “I am saying she, and perhaps I should say he, though I don’t know what to call that thing.” Sexuality is an enormous topic of discussion throughout the story. Masculine and feminine stereotypes are definitely blurred and almost reversed in some instances. For example, on page 38, he states “For instance, she would begin a word in a very soft, feminine tone and end it in a heavy voice, almost masculine.” This takes a beautiful, charming character and attributes heavy, strong qualities with it. It erodes common assumptions about what a male or female should behave like according to our society. Also, on page 40, gender roles are definitely reversed. When the motorcycle breaks down, the male character seems helpless and gives up on repairing it. Elisa, on the other hand, knows about engines and is able to repair the motorcycle in no time at all.

Arenas is trying to erase these common, rigid lines that supposedly define each gender in our society. Especially as a homosexual male, Arenas is simply saying that not all men are macho just as not all women are homemakers. Ramon had strikingly feminine qualities: he was infatuated with her, emotionally attached, and forgiving. In this scenario, the man is being used while the woman is empowered. This seeming role reversal was attempting to show the audience that what is commonly accepted as being traditional male or female behavior is not always true. Arenas accomplishes his goal of showing this quite easily.

True to the magical realism form, the story forces the reader to challenge what is accepted as normal. While reading, everything at first seems believable and ordinary. Suddenly, Arenas blends fantastic, unique events that spark the reader’s attention. These events are quite unusual, but they are accepted as real to the audience because they are portrayed as such. This blending of reality and fiction is consistent throughout Mona. These situations begin as strange to the narrator as they are to the audience. For example, on page 39, “Elisa grabbed the vase adorning our table, removed the flowers, and drank the water. She did this so naturally that one would have through that [it] was a normal thing to do.” This clearly has both real and fantasy elements, but they are perceived in their respective manners. Later, the magical events begin to be accepted as normal by the narrator. This is seen on page 47, “I watched her go into one of those large galleries, and right there, in front of my eyes, she disappeared.” Mona is undoubtedly magical realism because the story is clearly based on a fantasy, but takes place in a real time setting.

Even then the audience begins to doubt the validity of the narrator’s words. On page 44, he is definitely displayed as an insane person: “This morning I was again shouting that I didn’t want to be left alone. By noon, the prison psychiatrist was sent to see me.” In this case, his view point on the entire story could, or could not, be skewed. Also, on page 37, he states “But with Elisa – let’s keep calling her Elisa…” This quote too portrays the story as fictional and made up, with no basis in reality. The Mona Lisa painting is obviously real, though Arenas puts it in New York to accommodate the story. Though the context is ordinary, the events are not. Once again, the reader is left in a grey area, unsure of reality and fiction. Another magical element of the story is the credible sources that accompany the story. Arenas invents an editor’s page, footnotes, and fake sources of information to give his story some background history. With this, his ideas and message seems more scholarly. Arenas is trying to make his message be conveyed as something reliable and of power.

Arenas breaks up the narrator’s tale by interrupting it with flashbacks to the present state of time. The story is a recollection of past events that are being told by the narrator in his current place in jail. By switching back and forth constantly between the past and present, the story jumps back and forth between being believable and being only fantasy. Just as the tale is approaching a climactic event, the narrator reflects back to the fact that he is currently in prison. While reading the recollection, it seems amazing, real, and is accepted. Once he snaps back to the present, the entire Elisa situation and all the fantastic elements seem fake again.

Jeff : Mona

Mona begins as a story of a man, Ramon Fernandez, who left Cuba in his late twenties to live a prosperous life in the United States. Ramon, a security guard at a Wendy’s in New York City, works the lively night shift and often looks to pick up women. Usually his lovers are “nameless women” whom he never sees again, however, one night he comes across a “truly extraordinary female specimen (pg. 37).” Ramon falls madly in love with this woman, Elisa, and cannot stop thinking about her. He becomes suspicious of her after she mysteriously leaves his house early in the morning on a regular basis. Ramon follows her one morning and ends up in a museum, where he notices that a picture on the wall, the Mona Lisa by Leonardo Da Vinci, is a portrait of Elisa. He believes that Elisa is a rich model whom loves him and can fulfill his dream of owning a Wendy’s. However, she ends up maliciously luring him to a small medieval town in upstate New York where she threatens to kill him with a dagger. As the two make love, Elisha transforms into Leonardo. Ramon finds himself with “a very old, bald man, toothless and foul-smelling (pg. 59).”

Arenas uses Elisa as a means of conveying his sexual obsessions. As Ramon is about to die at the swamp, he says, “It was not my family in Cuba that I remembered at that moment but the enormous salad bar at Wendy’s. To me it was like a vision of my life these last few years… before Elisa came into it (pg. 58).” This possibly relates to Reinaldo’s life pre and post-AIDS.

He also displays his fear of death through Elisa. Elisa, who is really the woman in Leonardo’s painting, was “in the museum, fulfilling its destiny as a work of art and at the mercy of whomever dared to destroy it (pg. 66).” After Ramon’s attempt at destroying it, he was arrested and placed in jail. While in jail, he wished he too could have a steel curtain that could drop from the ceiling to cover and protect him completely (pg. 66).

Similar to that of a painting, Elisa stays as young as the Leonardo intended yet exists until it is destroyed. “She possessed not only the imagination of a real pleasure-seeker and the skills of a woman of the world but also a kind of motherly charm mixed with youthful mischief and the airs of a grand lady (pg. 38).”

Arenas also confronts his issues with Cuba. He makes one ask the question: Which is more desirable: being unable to leave the one you love or not being able to ever return to it? Fernandez constantly struggled between his perfectly content life at Wendy’s and his fantasy with Elisa. The situation that Fernandez dealt with Elisa is very similar to that of Arenas and his homeland of Cuba. Reinaldo’s openly gay lifestyle clashed greatly with the communist government and he was often punished for his writings and publications. This is eventually what led Arenas to his exile to the US, and ultimately, his death (suicide) in jail.

“Mona” by Reinaldo Arenas begins as a simple love story between Ramon Fernandez and Elisa but as the story progresses on, unrealistic happenings begin got occur in the realistic setting. Unrealistic events in a realistic setting is the basis of Magical Realism. Elisa is a mysterious woman who sleeps with Fernandez after his nightly shifts as a police officer. He speaks of her very highly of her because she is the only relationship he has to hold onto. He says on page 38, “She possessed not only the imagination of a real pleasure seeker and the skills of a woman of the world but also a kind of motherly charm mixed with youthful mischief and the airs of a grand lady, which made her irresistible.” This shows how Elisa is young and old at the same time. She has a young attitude about her but has a loving compassion of an older woman.

There were several occurrences when Fernandez was with Elisa and he suddenly saw peculiar differences in her body. On page 41 he says, “Once, instead of her ace, I thought I saw the face of a horrible old man, but I attributed this to our speed, which distorted imaged.” This is when he is riding on the motorcycle and that is the first time the reader understand something is odd about Elisa and that she may not be who she is claiming. One night he noticed her eyes disappeared. On Page 43 he says, “She had fallen asleep, but her eyes did not remain closed for long. Suddenly I saw them disappear.” Again this brings up the binary between imagination and reality. Is he actually seeing this or is this just a figment of his imagination.

When Fernandez follows Elisa into the Metropolitan Museum of Art he vanishes right in front of his eyes. On page 47 it says, “I watched her go into one of those large galleries, and right there, in front of my eyes, she disappeared.” Elisa now seems like a ghost or some type of imaginary person. Her body is seems real but her soul is trapped by something in the Museum. On page 48 Fernandez says, “Once out of the labyrinth, I found myself in a temple of the time of the Ptolemies seemingly floating in a pool.” This is ironic because you are supposed to be trapped in a Labyrinth. Before he says this he was looking at the painting of Mona Lisa who strongly resembles Elisa. The labyrinth could possibly be referring to him being trapped in the situation with Elisa. The only reason he is able to get out of the labyrinth is because Elisa knows he is spying and she knows she has to kill him.

On page 49 he says, “Evidently there was a relationship between Elisa and that building.” He finally begins to realize there is something strange about her and the MET. It is like inside that building is her other life. On page 51 he says, “My eyes then met Elisa’s intense gaze in the painting. I held her gaze and discovered that Elisa’s eyes had no eyelashes; she had the eyes of a serpent.” He beings to realize Elisa is part of this painting. When he says she had the eyes of a serpent that portrays the binary between Heaven and Hell. He viewed her as this beautiful and amazing Goddess, but she is actually tainted with evilness.

On Page 56 Elisa says, “There is no difference between what you saw in the painting at the museum and me. We are one and the same thing.” The painting and Elisa is actually the same person. She lives through the painting and leaves when she can. “And now, after almost five hundred years, I sometimes lose the perfection of my physical attributes or even one of my parts, as you on several occasions were astonished to see but could not believe.” She has begin to disappear partially over the years and that was of the disfigurement in her body Fernandez had been seeing. Before Elisa tries to kill Fernandez she becomes someone out of herself. She becomes a man. This is another binary that occurs in the story. Elisa is actually a Leonardo da Vinci. Leonardo put some much emotion and energy into his painting that his soul would live on forever through Mona Lisa aka Elisa. So really Elisa is Mona Lisa who is Leonardo. On page 59 it says, “Suddenly her luscious hair dropped from her head, and I found myself in the arms of a very old, bald man, toothless and foul- smelling… Quickly he sat on it, riding it as if he were a true demon.” To end the madness of this “demon” he tried to slice the face of Mona Lisa. He wanted the fantasy creature to die because if he/she was to live, he would never be safe.

Dasha: Mona

At the first look, Mona by Reinaldo Arenas seems like an average fantasy story. Elisa, a mystical woman, ends up being a creation by a famous artist Leonardo Da Vinci. When he created the portrait he put so much personal feelings and energy that I allowed him to live through this painting for the next four centuries. It seems very plain and simple; there are no aspects of magic realism. But through deeper analysis one can see that it’s not the story that is full of magic realism, it is the essence of events and objects in this story.

There are some obvious binaries in this story, and one of them is binary between past and present. When Elisa was first introduced in the story I got a suspicious feeling that she will be somehow related to the famous portrait. Her description is very similar to the way Mona Lisa is portrayed: ”Long reddish hair, ample forehead, perfect nose, fine lips, and honey-colored eyes that looked me over openly (a bit shamelessly) through long false eyelashes (37).” In the end readers find out that she is the woman from portrait, she keeps living as long as the painting exist. The boundary between present and past becomes very vague.

Another binary in this story is between masculinity and femininity, which is the most important binary considering the sexual orientation of Arenas. Elisa is not really a woman; she is a manifestation of a man’s feelings, emotions and attitudes. It takes her a lot of energy to sustain the pretty appearance: “…she apparently was losing the concentration and energy, as she said, enabled her to become a real woman (59).” She fails numerous times when Ramon notices that she is missing some parts of the body. This moments can be considered as part of magic realism because they blend reality and fantasy: “the strange sensation of having close to my lips the thick under lip of some animal (39)”,”I saw the face of a horrible old man (41)”, “Except that perfect body had no head (44).” Later in the story when Ramon is having sex with Elisa for the last time, she turns into Leonardo Da Vinci or to better explain what happened to Da Vinci after four hundred years. There are no more boundaries between sexes; it feels all the same to main character as he tries to find a way to save his life.

Arenas showed a lot of aspects of his life in this story. In some degree Ramon is Arenas, who also came to New York through Mariel Boat Lift, and probably at first was hiding his sexuality. Gay people always try to hide their true interests and sometimes even pretend to be straight. Readers can see this in the story, where Elisa is only a woman on the outside; she is really just a man inside. So Ramon is technically homosexual, but unconsciously covering it up with having sex with random women. It is very peculiar how Arenas chose Leonardo Da Vinci. A lot of rumors have been floating around since his death doubting his sexual orientation, but until this time there is no concrete evidence. Mona Lisa is portrayed as a perfect and complete woman, maybe it symbolizes the striving for perfection, but never reaching it.

According to various sources Arenas was sick with Aids, and was afraid of death, getting old and just dirt in general. There are a lot of proves of those facts in this story. According to Arenas Leonardo Da Vinci in this story didn’t want to die so he put his essence in the portrait so he can live through it. He also wanted to be always beautiful and young and that’s why the portrait is beautiful young woman. Arenas showing his own feelings and fears of getting old or dying from Aides through famous artist because he probably also feels connection to him through sexuality issues. Mona Lisa is shown with a very unusual background – the swamp. That’s where Elisa kills her lovers, who find out her true identity. This can be very symbolic, because Arenas doesn’t want to die, and especially he doesn’t want it to happen in the dirty place, and swamps are the biggest dirt pools. For Arenas the best years of his life were spent in New-York, he is sick with Aides and probably doesn’t have much time left, and he reflects it through the thoughts of terrified Ramon who thinks he is about to die: “I remembered at that moment but the enormous salad bar at Wendy’s. To me it was like a vision of my life these last few years (fresh, pleasant, surrounded by people, and problem-free) (58).”

Marquez Stories

In the three stories Marques uses magic realism to criticize social norms and religious aspects of people’s lives. While Borges focused on blurring the boundary between reality and fantasy, Marques concentrates on the binary life and death. Marques’s stories, which are “children stories," attempt to expose to the reader the flaws of humanity. In the “Monologue of Isabel Watching It Rain in Macondo” Marquez uses magic realism to depict the flaws associated with one’s complete dependence upon religion.
The story opens with the scene of Isabel, the narrator, returning home with her family in a mass. During their journey home they were caught in a rainstorm. From this scene forward rain plays an important role, symbolizing religion. The rain engulfed Isabel and had a negative impact in her life. The rain “paralyzed, and drugged” her life, she became emotionless, and lifeless. Isabel lost sense of time and emotions, appearing mummified. Just as people are submersed into a religion the rain surrounded Isabel, eventually destroying the town and collapsing the church. The rain ultimately crippled and paralyzed Isabel, symbolic of her religion draining the life out her by its inescapable presence.
The story “Handsomest Drowned Man in the World” focused more on criticizing human’s social structures. Marquez uses magical realism in the story to not only blur the binary of life and death but also criticize the shallowness of society, and how they value one’s appearance above all else. In the story a drowned man washes ashore a small town on the coast. Once he is discovered and cleaned, the women begin to slave over his beauty and glamour. They become obsessed with his appearance, even redesigning their own town in his memory. In the story Marquez uses magic realism to exaggerate the superhuman qualities of he drowned man, describing him as so big and developed that “his house would have had the widest doors, the highest ceiling, and the strongest floor.” While the binary of life and death was blurred during the story, the drowned man was dead yet was worshiped as if he was alive, the main focus of this story is to expose the reader to the modern problem of societies obsession with outer appearance and beauty. The people in this village were so obsessed with looks that the wives agreed that they would leave their husbands for Esteban, a lifeless corpse.
Marquez blends binaries, and exaggerates certain traits in order to criticize and expose the reader to the flaws with society, mainly forcing the reader to make revelations about social and religious structures.

Jackie: Mona

Magical realism can be seen in this story through binaries such as male and female, real and imaginary, timelessness or infinity and through the proximity if the object as spiritual creation.

The connection that Ramon makes between Elisa and the painting of the Mona Lisa has to do with magical realism and the proximity of an object as spiritual creation. Roh states from the magical realism packet, “Painting now seems to feel the reality of the object and of space, not like copies of nature but like another creation” on page 23. Elisa is another creation of the Mona Lisa. On page 50, Ramon draws the comparison between the Mona Lisa painting and Elisa in this quote, “That woman, with her straight, dark reddish hair and perfect features, with one hand placed delicately over the other wrist, was smiling almost impudently, against a background that seemed to be a road leading to a misty lake.” On page 56 and 57 Ramon declares that Elisa and the Mona Lisa painting are the same thing and need each other in order for the other to exist. This painting of the Mona Lisa has a background that appears timeless, and infinite with atmospheric light that gives the impression of being changeable. Like the Mona Lisa, Elisa is changeable, because she is a man and a woman, a real person and a figment of his imagination, and she is timeless and infinite (these are two key words of magical realism). On page 43, Ramon writes, “I…watched her vanish in the glow of the morning mist, following a yellow path that disappeared among trees.” If you look at a picture of the Mona Lisa, you will see the glow of her face giving her an almost magical quality like that of the face of Elisa and in the Mona Lisa, you will see a yellow path in the background which disappears among the trees like the scene that Ramon describes with Elisa. Elisa also resembles the painting of the Mona Lisa, because like the beautiful and perfect picture of the Mona Lisa, Elisa is also beautiful and perfect. On page 37, Ramon writes about Elisa’s beautiful long hair like that of the Mona Lisa and talks about her perfect features such as her nose like that of a painting. On page 44, Ramon states, “Her bottom, her back, her shoulders, her neck, everything was perfect.” Elisa has perfect features like that of a painting. Not only does Elisa resemble the object of a painting, but she possesses this spirituality of an animal as well. She is a person, a painting and an animal all in one. On page 39, Ramon mistakes Elisa to be an animal which can be seen in this quote, “I remember one point a strange sensation of having close to my lips the thick underlip of some animal.”

Timelessness and infinity is an important part of magical realism and this can be seen in this story. Elisa has infinite knowledge of architecture and knowledge and she knows how to fix motorcycles and can do it in the blink of an eye. On page 35 Ramon states, “She knows where I am and any moment now will come to destroy me.” This statement makes Elisa seems immortal, infinite and timeless as if she knows everything and is always there. On page 36 Ramon states, “I am saying she, and perhaps I should say he, though I do not know what to call that thing.” Elisa is infinite in being. She is human in both male and female form and she is nonhuman as well for she is an object and an animal. She is every being in one body. On page 64, Ramon states, “But she was everywhere.” This represents timelessness and infinity, because Elisa is all around him all of the time.

The binary of real and imaginary can be seen in this story as well. On page 43, Ramon states, “She had fallen asleep, but her eyes did not remain closed for long. Suddenly I saw them disappear.” Elisa’s eyes disappeared from her face which makes you think if this really happened or if this is just Ramon’s imagination. On page 39 Ramon thinks he sees “an intense glow radiating from the tallest buildings,” but is eleven o’clock in the morning when there are no lights, only sunlight. Is there really a glow of light from the buildings or is Ramon just imagining it? On page 44 Ramon states, “Except that her body had no head.” How can a body have no head? On page 51, Ramon states, “I held her gaze and discovered that Elisa’s eyes had no eyelashes; she had the eyes of a serpent.” No human being has snake eyes so this must not be real. In the bible, the serpent tempted Eve, so Ramon might be comparing Elisa’s eyes to that of the serpent in the bible, because Elisa has tempted Ramon.

The binary of male and female is apparent in this story and on account of this binary, the reader can draw a comparison with his persecution for homosexuality in Cuba. Ramon likes men and is attracted to them so this makes the reader second guess whether or not Elisa is a male or a female. On page 40 Ramon states, “One of her shoulders seemed to bulge out sharply, as if the bone were out of joint and in the shape of a hook.” This description of Elisa by Ramon makes her seem like she has the body built of a man. On page 38, Ramon states, “She would begin a word in a very soft, feminine tone and end it in a heavy voice, almost masculine.” This quote contributes to the idea that Elisa is both a man and a woman. On page 49, Ramon states, “At dawn, when I again started an attack, sliding over her naked body, I saw that Elisa had no breasts.” At this moment, Elisa is like a man, because she has no breasts. Ramon discovers that Elisa is both a man and a woman on page 57. On page 41, Ramon writes, “Once, instead of her face, I thought I saw the face of a horrible old man.” I think that Ramon was insecure with his homosexuality and although he wanted to see the face of a handsome man in Elisa, he made the image instead be an unappealing and ugly man. He did this, because he knows deep down inside of him that it is wrong to be attracted to the same sex, so he makes this man that he sees in Elisa to be unappealing in order to convince himself that men are unattractive and are not beautiful. On page 62, Daniel is sucking his dick and to me it seems like the sexual encounter was mutual, but Ramon makes it seem like he was appalled by the situation even though I think he secretly enjoyed it.

Mona

Consider whether or not Mona employs magic realism. Explain your reasons for or against. In other words, what is Arenas saying subtextually through this novella? Remember that he was persecuted in Cuba for homosexuality.

Beverley Yuen: Marquez Stories

In all three stories, Garcia Marquez manages to intertwine the binaries of magical realism as well as a few subtle, underlying revelations about religious and social attitudes or structures, ultimately pointing out the truths and flaws of humanity. While Borges’ short stories revolved heavily around the binary of reality and fantasy, Marquez’s stories predominately focus on the binary of life and death; however, this is not to say that he does not manage to graze the former binary because all of the stories contain fantastical, unreal situations or characters. In terms of religion, Marquez exposes how people have become so invested in religion and God that they easily follow His word or the word of his representatives, such as priests, without thinking or making judgments for themselves. He makes apparent how religion or an ideal figure, such as God, is of utmost importance to many people; it is their mental savior, giving them peace of mind when anything bad or different is thrust upon their lives. Additionally in all of the stories, there is a patterned social structure, in which the males are dominate over the females and those who are different are interpreted as inferior, while those deemed good looking are superior, treated as if more than a mere man. He enlightens readers by illustrating the socially fickle, apathetic, and unappreciative attitudes that humanity has unfortunately developed.

Starting with “Monologue of Isabel Watching It Rain in Macondo,” the two binaries mentioned previously are used together in that the reader does not know if the characters are genuinely alive in the real world, or dead, living as ghosts in a fantasy world that they believe to be the real world. While sitting and watching the rain, Isabel is suddenly joined by her husband Martin. “Without turning to look, [she] recognized Martin’s voice,” but “when [she] looked toward the voice [she] found only the empty chair” (p. 91). Was Martin really there? Is he real or a fantasy? Is he alive or a ghost? Another binary of time and timeless or linear and nonlinear appears that emphasizes the idea of reality and fantasy. Isabel cannot distinguish days any longer, believing it to be Friday when it is Thursday. Time was at a standstill for her. Time is being twisted and so is the legitimacy of her world. The rest of the story mostly involves life and death. There is a situation with a cow that perfectly symbolizes this binary. A cow who is stuck in the mud “stood motionless for half an hour, as if she were already dead but could not fall down because the habit of being alive prevented her,” (p. 92) as if the cow is in a state of purgatory, which represents the entire story. Isabel seems to be in a state of purgatory, battling between life and death. From her perspective, she is alive, while others seem like ghosts, such as the vanishing Martin, but in the end she has the revelation that she is dead. Is she alive or dead? Perhaps Isabel is not dead, but the monotony of the rain has allowed her to enter a figurative state of purgatory, where her perceptions are skewed and the world is timeless.

In this particular story, the implications about religion are slyly made throughout the story. As Isabel and her family are coming out of church, the insufferable rain begins. This could be a bad omen in itself, showing that the church is evil, as it is being associated with such a horrendous rain that will eventually create a flood and destroy everyone and everything. It was later revealed that the church was flooded and had collapsed, signifying that the church, and in turn religion, is not as powerful as everyone believes it to be. Marquez is trying to show how fragile religion can be and how it will not always be there for you, so people should not always rely on it. He portrays Isabel’s stepmom sitting with a rosary in her hand saying, “Now we have to pray,” in the midst of the dangerous flood to reflect the constant, meaningless prayer of people that is completely unnecessary as the time and efforts put towards prayer could be better used in escaping the natural disaster or physically helping others. Marquez might have also used the rain and flood to allude to the religious story of Noah’s Ark, in which God flooded and cleansed the Earth of man’s wickedness, killing many lives in the process. He wanted to show that God may be all-powerful, but not all of his actions have good results. His power should not be rejoiced but perhaps feared for he has the power to destroy everyone with a single flood.

For social structure, there are two instances that exemplify the male/female dynamic mentioned before as well as the inferiority idea. Despite possibly being a figment of imagination, Martin exacts dominance over Isabel. While lying in bed with Martin, Isabel notices a horrible smell coming from outside. Terrified, she dutifully alerts her husband of this odd phenomenon, but he just turns to the wall and says, “That’s something you made up. Pregnant women are always imagining things,” which demonstrate how the male Martin can simply dismiss the female Isabel’s claims, passing off her false assertion as a side effect of pregnancy, an attribute only carried by females. It gives the sexist impression that the observations or opinions of women are irrelevant and should be ignored. In both scenes that involve Martin, Isabel never actually sees his face; in the first scene, he vanishes before she is able to get a glimpse of him and in the second scene, he turns to the wall before revealing his face. Does this somehow imply that she is not worthy of viewing his face? The other social structure idea involves the Guajiro Indians, who are portrayed as faceless, nameless servants for Isabel and her family. The first instance in which they are seen is when they attempt to disperse a cow that has wondered into Isabel’s family’s garden. “The Indians tried to drive it away with stick and stones,” (p. 91) giving the illusion that they are barbaric, unsophisticated cavemen. Isabel further detailed the situation by saying, “The Indians harassed [the cow] until my father’s patient tolerance came to its defense,” (p. 92) The word “harassed” has a negative connotation that leads the readers to believe that the Indians are unskilled and useless, only making the situation at hand worse, while Isabel’s father is described with positive connotation through the words “patient,” “tolerance,” and “defense.” In the end, the Indians look inferior in comparison to Isabel’s father as he is portrayed as the benevolent and powerful one. The next scene shows “the Guajiro Indians, shirtless and barefoot, with their pants rolled up to their knees,” (p. 93) moving furniture for Isabel’s family. Performing all these tasks for the family as servants creates an obvious inferiority for the Indians. Even Isabel notices “the cruelty of their frustrated rebellion, of their necessary and humiliating inferiority in the rain,” but she seems to attribute their inferior job to the rain with her use of “necessary.” Is there anything that makes inferiority necessary? She does not realize that her and her family could move the furniture themselves but choose not to. Her thought process and assumption just prove her superior status and state of mind. The Guajiro Indians are not given individual, specific names or really physically described; they are a faceless and nameless bunch. They are bluntly called “Indians” or “Guajiros,” degradingly recognized only as a set of people from a certain ethnicity and not as individual human beings.

As briefly mentioned before, some of the social attitudes that are present in this story are fickleness and apathy. When the rain initially begins, Isabel and her stepmother perceive it as a beneficial and wondrous occurrence. They were “happy that the rain would revive the thirsty rosemary and nard in the flowerpots after seven months of intense summer and scorching dust,” (p. 90) but eventually their happiness withered away like their flowers and turned into an “overwhelming sadness” (p. 91). How quickly their opinions of the rain changed when the situation became harder, reflecting that when things get tough, humans tend to easily change their minds and opinions out of fear; people no longer have strong convictions. In relation to social apathy, Isabel and her family had noticed that the rain was getting worse and the flood was starting and yet “[they] were paralyzed, drugged by the rain, given over to the collapse of nature with a peaceful and resigned attitude” (p. 92). They just idly sat by and watched while the rain flooded their home. They physically did nothing to secure their own safety; they just prayed to God and watched the Indians work. This shows how humans, succumbing to fear or faith in religion, do nothing truly productive when the time comes, instead opting to wait for destiny to determine their fate.

In “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings,” the binary of fantasy and reality is briefly touched by the fact that this supernatural creature, an angel, appears and yet is treated horribly as if he were a common person. The readers are baffled by whether or not this story is real. Is the poor treatment of this heavenly creature real or so improbable that it must be a fantasy? His presence seems real as everyone treats it as relatively normal, but is it fantasy because there is no way that an angel could be treated so cruelly? The authenticity of this angel is further questioned by Father Gonzaga, who deemed him “an imposter” (p. 205) because “he did not understand the language of God or know how to greet His ministers” (p. 205). The angel seemed too human: “he had an unbearable smell of the outdoors, the backside of his wings was strewn with parasites and his main feathers had been mistreated by terrestrial winds, and nothing about him measured up to the proud dignity of angels” (p. 205). The circumstances and characteristics of this creature blurred the distinction between reality and fantasy. The other binary of life and death is very important in this story as well. The main couple of the story, Pelayo and Elisenda, have a sick child and it was implied by an old neighborhood woman that the angel “must have been coming for the child, but the poor fellow is so old that the rain knocked him down” (p. 204). The angel was unable to fulfill his goal and was captured by the couple. He, an old angel, is trapped in a small chicken coop with horrible living conditions and barely enough food. Both he and his initial target, the sick child, are suffering in this purgatory state between life and death, like the previous story. They are trapped in this mortal realm, unable to move on into the divine heaven. The sick child eventually becomes healthy and starts school, thus choosing life over death; however, the angel’s life wavered quite a bit. He was so ill that a doctor thought “it seemed impossible for him to be alive” (p. 209). There is a constant bouncing between life and death with the angel. Is he deemed alive by human standards but dead by angel standards by not being in heaven? Is he already deemed permanently dead since he is an angel?

Seeing as how the story revolves around one of God’s heavenly creatures, religion played a significant role in this story. Angels are messengers of God, but the angel in this story is not treated as “a supernatural creature but [as] a circus animal” (p. 205). With the captivity of such a sacred creature, an angel, Marquez exposes the hypocrisy of people with religion. People are so devoted to religion that they faithfully listened to the announcement of Father Gonzaga, a representative of God, who deemed the angel a fraud. As a result, they treated the angel like an animal. Some people would have acted upon sympathy and developed a guilty conscience to help the poor creature, but nobody did this, for their minds were focused only on what the Father said. These people are hypocrites as they believe in God, praying for their own safety and good health, and yet can easily choose to harm God’s creature, mirroring how humanity can poorly treat one another or animals in real life. Not only does Marquez question the followers of God, but he questions the authority of God himself. In deciding what to do with the angel, the couple decided “against the judgment of the wise neighbor woman, for whom angels in those times were the fugitive survivors of a celestial conspiracy, [as] they did not have the heart to club him to death” (p. 204). Marquez makes an interesting point to include that historical allusion to the celestial battle in which the now fallen angels, led by the angel Lucifer, rebelled against God. Even God’s own messengers turned against him, so is he as powerful and trustworthy as he seems? Bringing up this incident makes transparent the fallibilities of God. The last recurring religious notch made revolves around the angels once again. Angels are usually portrayed as magnificent, heavenly creatures dressed in white and glowing with a halo; they look pure and innocent. The angel depicted in this story was “dressed like a ragpicker” with “huge buzzard wings, dirty and half-plucked” (p. 204). He is more of an annoyance than a respected holy representative. Elisenda, seeing the angel everywhere in her house, said, “It was awful living in that hell full of angels,” (p. 209) which is a distinct contradiction or oxymoron in itself; the idea of a “hell full of angels” is so obscure as one is a representation of pure evil and one of pure good. A binary of good and evil is used within this quote to blur the distinction of good and evil within angels. When the angel finally leaves his imprisonment, he begins to fly but with a “risky flapping of a senile vulture” (p. 210), and Elisenda is extremely happy with his departure for “he was no longer an annoyance in her life but an imaginary dot on the horizon of the sea” (p. 210). Here, the angel is compared not to a graceful swan but a “senile vulture” and no one is even remotely amazed by his sudden flight, just happy and content to be rid of him. The poor illustration and treatment of an angel, an extension of God, shows how religious figures do not need to be constantly worshipped or treated specially; they do not always have to be held to such a high regard.

Social structure in this story revolves heavily more around the idea that people who are different are “freaks” and not suitable for treatment equivalent to that of a “normal” person. It is obvious that Father Gonzaga has the power and say in this story, so he would be placed at the top of the social structure, along with other religious figures. The next level would comprise of the common people, such as Pelayo and Elisenda. The bottom level would contain the different, the unknown, such as the angel or the girl who was transformed into a tarantula. Despite their humanistic characteristics, both the angel and the tarantula girl are treated inhumanely, subjected to poor nourishment and exploitation by the others for entertainment or making profits. The basic moral of this story is that humans generally treat those who look different, who do not conform or fit societal norms of the rest, should be treated in continuance with that manner; since they are different, they should be treated differently. This concept of treating others differently alludes to the social attitude of treating people horribly out of fear; fear the unknown. People may not know much about a person and become paranoid and scared of him/her, so perhaps treating him/her badly is a defense mechanism. They have some semblance of power and mental security in knowing that they can exert superiority over the mysterious, unknown person. The socially apathetic attitude was apparent in this story as well. When the angel first arrived, no one really care that a true angel had graced their presence. Pelayo and Elisenda saw him as a burden and a possible threat to their child, so they did not care about the fate of the angel. Marquez is illustrating how people are not very gracious as to help others if it does not benefit them. For example, people might not help a starving homeless man on the street. They would just pass by him, thinking that the homeless man could possibly harm them or helping the homeless man does nothing to help them. People have become too afraid or materialistic that they will not even help those in need; they will not take the time and/or risk to help others, unless it directly benefits them, epitomizing the true meaning of selfishness. For people, if someone could possibly harm them or does nothing to help them, then they will ignore it despite it needing help itself. Only when the idea of “charging five cents admission to see the angel” (p. 206) was established did their apathy fickly change, which exemplifies another social attitude. Apathy can disappear and social fickleness can occur when greed and money are involved. Marquez is trying to show how even the simplest of people, a couple with a sick child perhaps, can be easily subdued to the lust and greed for money. People constantly change their opinions and actions for a chance to make a quick buck. The last social attitude exhibited was the idea of being unappreciative. Pelayo and Elisenda took advantage of and exploited the angel. Before, they just feared for their child’s life and hoped and possibly prayed for a miracle. They received that miracle in the form of the angel. The angel might have been sent from God to help the child regain his health or be a symbol of good faith. Ultimately, the angel’s exploitation helped the couple gain a lot of money that dramatically increased their quality of life as well as the health of the child. With more money, the child probably had better nourishment and, as shown in the story, had access to a doctor. Despite this beneficial effect, the couple, especially Elisenda, still treated the angel horribly as if he was a useless burden upon their lives; as mentioned before, Elisenda was extremely happy to see him off. This entire scenario displays how humans do not appreciate what they have. People often pray and hope for a miracle, and when the miracle occurs, they take advantage of it and not stop to appreciate and thank whoever is responsible.

In “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World,” the binary of life and death is used to blur the definitions of life and death. The handsome drowned man found ashore the tiny village is clearly dead, but everyone fantasizes about the perfect dead man making it seem as if he is still alive. He brings so much life and excitement into the village that there is no way that this man could be dead. Objectively by worldly standards, the man is dead, but to the village, he is very much alive. They do not view him as truly dead “for he did not have the lonely look of other drowned men who came out of the sea or that haggard, needy look of men who drowned in rivers” (p. 231). There was something different, something better about him. The village women fawned over him and named him as if he were a new pet or baby, indefinitely securing his emotional connection to the women and village. Even the men, astonished by the drowned man’s “sincerity,” (p. 235) took a liking to him. When Esteban, the drowned man’s given name, was given a proper funeral and sent off the cliff into the ocean, “[the village people] let him go without an anchor so that he could come back if he wished and whenever he wished” (p. 236). In this sense, Esteban is seen as alive, like he is sailing out into the ocean and will one day return home. After Esteban departs, the village knew that “everything would be different from then on, that their houses would have wider doors, higher ceilings, and stronger floors so that Esteban’s memory could go everywhere without bumping into beams and so that no one in the future would dare whisper the big boob finally died, too bad, the handsome fool has finally died, because they were going to paint their house fronts gay colors to make Esteban’s memory eternal and they were going to break their backs digging for springs among the stones and planting flowers on the cliffs so that in future years at dawn the passengers on great liners would awaken, suffocated by the smell of gardens on the high seas, and the captain would have to come down from the bridge in his dress uniform, with his astrolabe, his pole star, and his row of war medals and, pointing to the to the promontory of roses on the horizon, he would say in fourteen languages, look there, where the wind is so peaceful now that it’s gone to sleep beneath the beds, over there, where the sun’s so bright that the sunflowers don’t know which way to turn, yes, over there, that’s Esteban’s village” (p. 236). This very long quote is extremely relevant because the entire quote is one sentence, representing the seemingly never ending and everlasting life that Esteban has bestowed upon the village. The village has become lively, excited, and energetic over the changes, showing how Esteban is still making an impact even when not there. They are changing their entire village in accordance to Esteban’s physicality and contrived personality. They have such high regards for him that they want to their village to be referred to as “Esteban’s village.” How could a dead man make such an impact on a village?

In comparison to the last story, the significance of religion is not as great in this story. There are only two possible relations to any religious or biblical details. First, the village’s high regards towards Esteban and the perfect appearance he emits is close to that of a god. When first described, it was said that “not only was he the tallest, strongest, most virile, and best built man they had ever seen, but even though they were looking at him there was no room for him in their imagination” (p. 231). Esteban is portrayed as the epitome of manliness, with human characteristics pushed to the utmost potential of humanity, making him seem “more than a man but less than a god.” He is viewed and treated like a God; he is mourned by everyone in the village and his funeral is held to be of greater importance than even other men who for years belonged to and lived in the village. Again, the village is later restructured entirely in Esteban’s memory. The second relation is when the villagers let Esteban go off the cliff into the ocean without an anchor so that he could come back. Esteban has already been established as a God in this village, bringing life into the world, so this possible return is similar to that of the resurrection or second coming of God, better known as Easter. They hope for his return in which he will refresh the life of the village once again. Both relations show how people find comfort or peace of mind in worshipping or idolizing a figure; they vicariously live by focusing their efforts and hope onto someone or something. They need someone or something to believe in, in order to live on with their lives. It reflects how people in the world spend much time in their lives, like the villagers, worshipping and waiting for God.

The main social structure characteristic shown in the male/female dynamic spoken about before, in which the males exert an aura of dominance and control over the females. When the females are cleaning and pining over Esteban’s body, the males angrily say, or more like order, “get away from there, woman, stay out of the way, look, you almost made me fall on top of the dead man” and “since when has there ever been such a fuss over a drifting corpse, a drowned nobody, a piece of cold Wednesday meat” (p. 234). The men order the females around, blame them for anything that goes wrong, or believes their actions to be frivolous. It was true that “the men thought the fuss was only womanish frivolity” (p. 234). There is an obvious male superiority attitude in this village. It should also be noted that the more attractive people are treated better than anyone else, as learned by Esteban’s presence. This can also be considered a social attitude: attractive, good looking people are treated in a better manner than common people. The women of the village saw Esteban as the ideal man, attending to his needs better than their own husbands, who were “the weakest, meanest, and most useless creatures on earth” (p. 232). Marquez saw this as true in the world; that people who are better looking have it easier in the world. There is a strong emphasis on looks and vanity that turns into obsession in some people of the world. Before cleaning Esteban off and revealing his appearance, the villagers treated him like a normal drowned man washed ashore. They had an apathetic attitude for the man who did not belong to any of the villages. Why should they care for a stranger? Their attitudes again fickly changed when Esteban was recognized as good looking. The story’s social attitude towards beauty and appearance in the world is Marquez’s way of telling the world to not be over concerned with looks. People are apathetic towards average looking people and quickly change their attitudes for beautiful people, creating a narcissistic and shallow world.

Three stories by Marquez, Dasha

In all three stories Gabriel Marquez is trying to show the Colombian society from the perspective of the oppressed poor. There is a lot of symbolism and concepts from magic realism that helps to portray the real face of low ranks of public. The idea of mystic and unusual things happening to ordinary people can be found throughout every story.

In A very Old Man with Enormous Wings Marquez tries to show the desperate society through a miracle that nobody takes serious. Readers are introduced to a lower class family who are trying to clean the house from crabs that are filling the house due to the vast rain. Everything seems normal until Pelayo finds a very old man lying in the mud of their yard and comes up with conclusion that he just found an angel because this man has huge wings on his back. Family decides to put him in the chicken coop and show off to everybody. I think there are multiple ways to interpret this. Lower class people are so depressed that even a sign from above or angel does not give them hope. When pilgrims come to see him they treat him as a circus animal, not as a miracle. Angel looks very human, he acquires earthly smells as he keeps spending time in the coop: “he had an unbearable smell of the outdoors, the back side of his wings was strewn with parasites…” (205). It seems that this people are so exploited by the corrupt government and surrounding environment that they gave up on religion. Also the wife starts to charge people for entrance. I would interpret it as unavoidable effects of bribery in the society. People are willing to do anything to improve their quality of life even if it includes giving up your beliefs, values, and ethics. This poor family steps over their religious beliefs and uses the angel as a path to better life. One can also see an angel as a symbol for Colombian people themselves. They are tired, sick and can barely survive during these hard times, and they feel trapped (Marquez shows it through the chicken coop). In the end there is still some hope that they will get better, that they will recover, just like angel eventually heels and takes his first flight after the coop breaks down:”stiff feathers began to grow on his wings” (210). It can be symbol for societal requirement s and boundaries that eventually loosen up and poor people get their chance to step up out of misery. There are other elements of magic realism such as people with mystical problems like a girl who was turned into a spider – this just enforces the power of human desperation in the hard political times.

In the story Monologue of Isabel Watching it Rain in Macondo magic realism’s binary between present, past and future is used to show that the lowest levels of society are stuck and can’t break through the oppression of corrupt government. They are stuck in this society just like characters in his story are caught in this non stopping rain and they can do nothing about it: “doesn’t look as if it will ever clear (91).” For Isabel all days feel the same nothing changes, the time sits still: “It wouldn’t surprise me now if they were coming to call me to go to last Sunday’s Mass (96).” People are stuck in this miserable state that it almost seems like they are dead: “a perfect state which must have been very much like death (96).” The idea that dead people are floating in the street create even more dreadful feeling and readers realize how terrible the living conditions of poor population are. This is introduced to us through a very mystic way, which enforced the influence of magic realism in this story. Again, the concept of labyrinth is shown. No matter where you go you will end up in the dead end. People lose the sense of what real and what is fantasy, their “senses had been filled with rain (90).”

In the story The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World Marquez is trying to show how the drowned man changes the face of the small village cut off the rest of the world. Marquez himself grew up in a small village next to the cost, so there is a lot of personal experience reflected in this story. This village is very poor and nobody knows what goes outside of their small little world. The children are so poor that they find playing with a dead man very entertaining. The villages get so excited that finally somebody else showed up in their lives that they start changing their ways of life. Magic realism comes into play when people try to create personality for this dead man. He seems so alive after they treat him. Just like in the second story, there seem to be no respect for religion. They are so desperate to meet somebody else from the outside world they don’t even care that he is dead. In a regular situation dead will be treated differently.

The collected stories by:Heidy Tejeda

Garcia Marquez employs magic realism primarily as a means of criticizing social and religious forms throughout her stories. In the collected stories, Marques uses binaries such as reality and fallacy as a way to illustrate people’s attitudes on religion and social issues. This imaginative style combines realistic, everyday details with elements of fantasy, blurring the reader's usual distinctions between reality and magic. In the “Monologue of Isabel watching it rain in Moncado” the pregnant narrator, Isabel and her family encounters a rain storm after attending Mass on Sunday morning. On page 91, Isabel described it as, “I saw my father sitting in a rocker, his painful vertebrae resting on a pillow and his eyes lost in the labyrinth of the rain.”
Marquez uses the rain to signify the power religion holds on people. The rain storm started right after attending church on Sunday. This supernatural Rain had Godlike powers. No one knew where it came from but it was present. On page 90 it stated, “But without noticing it, the rain was penetrating too deeply into our senses.” It was a like a tree above all other trees. Rain is thought out to be good for crops and the environment. However, too much rain can destroy a city as we are experiencing in Peru. In my opinion, the rain depicted the bad implications religion have on people. How we depend on it.
· “It doesn’t look as if it will ever clear, and when I looked toward the voice I found only the empty chair.” I almost feel like it has a sense of Godlike features, how he’s not visible but present. “Never clear”, probably means I’ll always be here.
· “ We were paralyzed, drugged by the rain, given over to collapse of nature with a peaceful and resigned attitude.” (pg. 92) Is the way we feel about religion, we no longer try and understand why God let things happen we simply let it happen and we believe that everything happens for a reason.
· “In the men’s expression, in the very diligence with which they were working, one could see the cruelty of their frustrated rebellion, of their necessary and humiliating inferiority to the rain.”(pg.93) Social issues such as men and their ego’s. “Man of the house” is an expression that is commonly known to be used to describe the perceptions and expectations held by men in society.
· Martin responded to his wife’s comment as, “That’s something you made up. Pregnant women are always imagining things” (pg. 95) blame it on the pregnancy, typical men move. Shows the lack of understanding women.
“A very old man with enormous wings” As an allegory, Marquez's story certainly has both literal and symbolic levels. On the literal level, there is the narrative of a desperate family whose illness and poverty are resolved by the appearance of what they call an angel. On a symbolic level the Marquez uses the binary natural and supernatural to illustrate how diverse people embrace difference in this case “supernatural” occurrences. Angels are viewed to be beautiful, young, and with lovely wings. However, in this case he was an old man with missing teeth. In addition, when the spider woman was presented, people were fascinated with her story and accepted it. They did not accept the old man because the old man does not tell us anything about himself and the people do not like that. They assume many different types of things about the old man and leave it at that.
“The sea of lost time” focused more on criticizing social and political structures. Marquez uses the binary of time and space throughout this story. Esteban (the drowned man) symbolizes inspiration and change. It is the same inspiration that drives one person to change his life; the inspiration that motivates people to connect to others; the inspiration that brings ones curiosity, and makes one a better person as a result of it. Esteban represents a moment in our existence when we are mysteriously touched by a sense of change and want, belonging, love, and inspiration that makes us want to change.

Jeff Wright: Garcia Marquez

Garcia Marquez displays magic realism through blending the fantasy with reality. He integrates these ideas throughout his short stories with social and political issues. In "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings", an angel falls from the sky due to a heavy rainstorm. When he is found, the people of the village are shocked to see an angel, yet they never question his existence.

The angel that fell to Earth saved the desperately poor family. Prior to encountering the angel, the family’s child was deathly ill, had a high fever, and was unable to eat. Shortly after Elisenda and Pelayo, the mother and father, locked up the angel, their child “woke up without a fever and with a desire to eat (pg.204).” In addition to bringing health to the family, the angel brought great wealth to the poor family. The next morning, Elisenda and Pelayo found a large gathering outside their chicken coop. They took this opportunity to charge an admission to see the angel.

At the beginning of the story, the “wise” neighbor insists that the angel be killed because “angels in those times were the fugitive survivors of a celestial conspiracy (pg.204).” However, the family “did not have the heart to club him to death.” Towards the end of the story, after the family had received all they needed from the angel (a two-story mansion, netting to keep out the crabs, bars on the windows to keep angels out), the family became fed up with the angels presence. That following winter, the angel becomes very ill and the townspeople try to decide what to do with a dead angel. However, as spring approaches, the angel becomes healthy again and flies away. It is possible that the angel represents a miracle descending onto Earth, yet he is not portrayed that way in the story. He is an old, unsightly man who is unknown to everyone. The village people know as much about him when he arrives as they do when he leaves.

The “Monologue of Isabel Watching It Rain in Macondo” is a story of how a town is destroyed by a long period of rain. Marquez compares the supernatural rain to a labyrinth. The towns people are slowly overcome and destroy the townspeople’s lives. In this story, Marquez uses the binary of space and time. Although the destruction is happening right in front of their eyes, Isabel, her father, and the rest of the townspeople accept the fact that nothing can be done and almost live in an undead state. The rain changes the townspeople’s perception of time and makes the events seem much more profound and devastating. At one point, Isabel says she was experiencing “a state which must have been very much like death (pg.96).”

Garcia Marques makes use of social forces that control a society and the inexistence (or suppression) of time to create magical yet believable stories.

Garcia Marquez by Maria

Garcia Marquez uses magical realism to criticize how religion controls society in “Monologue of Isabel Watching It Rain in Macondo.” First of all, this story begins and ends with Sunday mass – a labyrinth there in itself. Isabel, the main character from whose point of view this story is told, clearly feels that she is trapped within this never ending religious cycle that begins and ends with mass. Rain also is a labyrinth in that the story begins and ends in rain. Isabel describes the rain as being paralyzing- causing her to be in an endless, somewhat emotionless, uneasy state of mind. Part of being paralyzed is not being able to experience all the senses and losing sense of time. For example, Isabel says, “…we lost track of meals…actually we hadn’t eaten since sunset on Monday and I think that from then on we stopped thinking” (page 92). Clearly, her senses are skewed by the rain when she describes the atmosphere as being, “colorless, odorless, and without any temperature” (page 95).
Water is usually affiliated with religion, especially Catholicism, as being something sacred and pure, like the holy water. I believe that rain symbolizes religion or a Godlike figure in a negative way. Usually, rain is thought of as being healthy and good for our environment. Here, rain represents a corrupt religion – one in which people are tricked into thinking it is good, but in actuality it forms a shadow above everyone, making them feel depressed under its power. The rain causes Isabel to feel motionless and frozen – in other words, the overwhelming presence and power of her religion that is inescapable sucks the life out of her. In fact, she describes being submerged in rain as being “covered by a thick surface of viscous, dead water” (page 93).
The difference between genders is also demonstrated in this short story. One can infer that during the time this was written women and men were not thought of as equals in society. Anytime Isabel goes to her husband or her father for words of wisdom or comfort they make it seem like what she feels and says is irrelevant and crazy. For example, Isabel, clearly disturbed and bothered by what she smells, asks her husband if he too notices a distinct smell of corpses floating in the rain. His response: “”That’s something you made up. Pregnant women are always imagining things.” A lower class is definitely also hinted at throughout this story – a class of workers that follow the order of Isabel and her family. These workers are not identified with names, but rather are referred to as “Indians” implying that they are barbaric individuals whose sole purpose is to obey their masters. Even these savages surrender to the rain, because like Isabel – the rain controls their emotions and their feelings: “….in the very diligence with which they were working, one could see the cruelty of their frustrated rebellion, of their necessary and humiliating inferiority in the rain” (page 93).
In A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings, Marquez talks about human society and how we react to things we cannot explain. The man with wings who appears in this story has human characteristics but is clearly an angel. However, no one believes in him, because his existence is too incredible to be true. Although Pelayo and Elisenda, the couple whose courtyard the angel appeared in, had no problem using this man to generate money, security and new found fame for themselves they still could not understand what or who exactly this ‘angel’ was. He was too much of a mixture between something real and something imaginable that his existence was unexplainable and therefore incomprehensible for them. The angel was tortured, “especially during the first days, when the hens pecked at him…the cripples pulled out feathers…even the most merciful threw stones at him” (page 207). Supernaturally, the angel sat through all of this torture, exercising patience rather than frustration– something no pure human would be able to do. This story hints at the idea that patience itself is only present in its purest form within divine beings, because no human is perfect enough to practice pure patience. From a religious standpoint, this story parallels many biblical tales that portray the allusion of angels being afflicted with things that are out of their control – all of which they patiently sustain. It also illustrates that human nature instinctively forces us to be untrusting in things we cannot comprehend and unwilling to believe things to be true even when they are literally standing right in front of us.
This story also demonstrates how jealousy is one of our worst qualities as humans and how being jealous often overrides other emotions we have. In this case, Pelayo and others, like the doctor and Father Gonzaga, were jealous of the attention that the angel was getting and therefore did everything in their power to disprove his supernatural identity.
The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World focuses on the importance that the human race places on outward appearances and physicality. The main man that this story revolves around is named, by the villages, Esteban. The name Esteban has Spanish origin which literally translates into the word crown. Of course, a crown is something we assume to be worn by distinct, dominant leaders, like kings. We may also think of a crown as being the top or highest part of anything, like a mountain, or in this case, a community of people. Esteban is a complete stranger to the villagers who find him; these women have no ties to him whatsoever, and they know nothing about him besides his exterior appearance. He is dead, and therefore they cannot judge him by his personality, only by his looks. Still, they are obsessed with his glamour; his mere existence “…left them breathless” (page 230). This story suggests that women are shallow when it comes to choosing men. In fact, they are willing to trade their current husbands for this man solely because of his outward beauty.
There is an emphasis on the size and strength of Esteban, which may illustrate how men are obsessed with developing a strong, built body because society leads them to believe that that is what attracts women: “…he was the tallest, strongest, most virile and best built man they had ever seen…” (page 231). This incredible size and appearance of Esteban may resemble a God-like figure (which may also explain why they named him after the word ‘crown’ – because the women see him as their king/their savior/their God). God is often described as being more magnificent than any human, being ‘above all’ and greater than all in every aspect of life. Marquez describes what Esteban’s house would have been like if he lived in this village and emphasizes that it would be greater than any commoners’ house: “…his house would have had the widest doors, the highest ceiling, and the strongest floor” (page 232).
Mainly, the essence of this story is the message it sends across to its readers about our culture’s obsession with glamour and how sometimes our eyes fool us into believing that what we consider to be glamorous is in fact magnificent and god-like even if in someone’s else’s eyes it may just seem ordinary, or even lifeless.