Jackie: Garcia Marquez three stories

In Garcia’s first story called “Monologue of Isabel Watching It Rain in Macondo,” both the social system and religious system are criticized. The social system is criticized, because he makes the woman of the house, the stepmother, concerned only with things affecting the beauty of her home like her flowerpots being ruined by the rain. A typical man of an older age typically complains about his back or having trouble sleeping which is what Isabel’s father complains about in this story. Indians used to be treated like slaves and were second class citizens and in this story they were portrayed with this image exactly. The Indians didn’t even have names in this story and were just called the Guajiro Indians and they were the workers for this family. It was their job to drive the cow away and do some heavy lifting by moving the furniture while being shirtless. He made it seem like when it rains people can’t do anything that they would normally do, their mood changes, and all things come to an end, because something unexpected and wet has occurred. For example, the rain made Isabel’s stepmother upset and tense. All activity in Isabel’s house ceased. Also, Isabel assumed that since it was raining that the beggar woman can’t go out and beg, because of a little rain. Twins that are blind are lost and confused, because they can’t go out and sing, because of the rain. These twins that are blind can do other things other than sing and the fact that it is raining or that they are blind is not an excuse to keep them from doing something besides singing and if they can’t go out and sing, they can always sing indoors. He also made all pregnant women seem crazy and that they imagine things because they are pregnant. There is a smell of dead people everywhere and even though this smell is obvious when Isabel mentions it to Martin, he makes a statement that “Pregnant women are always imagining things.” The religious system is criticized in this story, because Garcia talks about praying and going to church, but the church is flooded, praying doesn’t do any good when you’re dead like Isabel and the streets are flooded with dead people so why would anyone be feeling the faith at time like this? Also, when Garcia talks about getting out of church and then it starts to rain, he is obviously making a negative connotation. Meaning, you go to church, praise the Lord and say all your prayers, but as soon as you leave the church, it is as if God no longer watches over you and everything that could go wrong does go wrong, people die and everything turns bad, but yet you still go to church every Sunday and praise God for all of the wonderful things he does for you. In the end of the story, he makes the invisible person seem like he or she is God and is smiling, because he is happy with the fact that Isabel has finally come to realize that she is dead. I think that maybe Garcia lost a love one and is mad at God for taking him or her away and thinks that God takes pleasure in watching people die.

In Garcia’s second story, called “A Vey Old Man with Enormous Wings,” both the social and religious systems were criticized again. One of the social systems that is applied here is that every time something new, unusual or abnormal appears it as treated like a circus animal and is put on display for everyone to look at until something or someone better comes along. For instance, there is this “Twilight Zone” episode, in which this man lands on Mars and since he is from another planet and is unique and different he is put on display in his Earthly habitat where everyone can look at him and see him in an exhibit. This fallen angel is put on display for everyone to look at and all of the people stop and stare at him until something better comes along like the human spider. Also, based on people’s mood or state of mind, they will react to a certain situation differently. When Pelayo and Elisenda were worried for their child’s life and discovered that the fallen angel was coming to take their child away, they locked the fallen angel in a chicken coop, but when the child recovered from his illness, the couple wanted to take the angel and put him on a raft and provide him with food. Another aspect of the social system is that in this society we prescribe food for everything and know what every being likes to eat. For example, even though reindeer do not exist we know they like to eat carrots and although fallen angels do not exist, they apparently like to eat mothballs. Humans like to act with physical contact rather than with words when it comes to finding out if someone is dead or not. We would rather poke someone, touch them or burn them like the people did in this story to the fallen angel to see if he was alive rather than simply ask him. We always take someone or some animal as being “motionless” for dead. Also, when people make a lot of money like Pelayo and Elisenda, their initial reaction is to spend as much as they can like on a new house or on fancy things for themselves. Furthermore, people tend to take things for granted and once they have the wealth and the money, the things or people that enable for this fortune to be possible are of little significance. Similarly, in the story, if it wasn’t for the fallen angel, this family would have never been rich or able to buy a new house and nice things, but they treat the fallen angel like nothing and are happy to see him go even after all that he has done for them. The religious aspects of the story that are criticized are numerous. The priest in the story is up day and night studying the fallen angel, but as soon as people start to lose interest in him, so does the priest. Garcia is trying to say that the priest only cares about someone or something if everybody else does and will not waste his time trying to help one small family. In the bible, people come from far and wide to seek Jesus and ask him to cure them of their sickness or blindness and in this story, people also come from far and wide to ask to be cured of their problems, but these problems don’t make any sense and are trivial matters that need not to be addressed especially to a fallen angel. I think Garcia was also trying to say that going to the fallen angel for help and guidance is irrelevant and meaningless just as seeking Jesus is. The most important religious aspect that should be addressed is the fact that the old man was a fallen angel. Fallen angels are thought to attempt to draw people away from the truth which is what the old man did. He was banished from Heaven and used people to think that he was some good angel that needed care and food and as soon as that was provided he would fly away and conduct some evil deeds. He corrupted the humans by separating them from God, because looking at the fallen angel was more important to them then God.

The third story that Garcia wrote in which we looked at is entitled “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World,” and this story like the last two stories incorporated religious and social aspects as well. Within this whole story, I saw only one religious aspect and that is that the women in this story violated the very first commandment of the Ten Commandments and that commandment says that “you shall have no other gods before me.” In this story, the women treated this dead man like a God and put him above everybody else and worshipped him. The women obsessed over this man and thought about marrying him, what his life was like, what his wife was like and what a village would be like with him in it. Also, they obsessed over dressing him, combing his hair, shaving him, cutting his nails, and placing a handkerchief over his eyes so he is not blinded by the light, but the man is dead. The social aspects that are apparent in this story are that women are attracted by a man’s huge size and beauty and that men feel uncomfortable being around a man with such power and attractiveness and want to get rid of him as soon as possible so that this dead man does not destroy their masculinity or take away their wives with his charm. People are obsessed with the outward beauty and the outside appearance that they forget about what people are like on the inside. Once the people in this story were able to see through this dead man’s appearance, they saw the man inside this godlike appearance and realized that he deserves to be treated like every other dead person and is just like the rest of them. People focus so much on outward beauty that they fail to see the person for who they are in the inside. This society judges people too quickly based on their appearance and usually these judgments are wrong and are unnecessary like in the dead man’s case in this story.