“A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings” is a short fiction story written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez in 1955. It has both characteristics of magical realism and of the modern sublime. Therefore, Magical Realism and the Sublime seem to be related in many ways depending on how a person looks at a story. From all of the research I have read, magical realism and the sublime help to explain the characteristics of one another.
This story definitely meets the criteria for magical realism and the sublime because of the many elements described. The very old man with wings, the unusual miracles, the woman spider, and the crab infestation, represent elements of the sublime and magical realism. Marquez makes these magical elements seem like the natural thing to occur. Angels, miracles, crabs, spiders, and money -making events are very real, but in this story he makes them sound so real and normal, whereas in real life they would be crazy and hard to believe.
I discovered that that this story is based on a spiritual subject rather than something that is just completely not able to be related to some certain thing or place.
Longinus talks about different authors stating that “the import of the sublime is clearly that it plumbs the depths of natural, visible reality to evoke an aesthetic and psychological experience of its hidden and invisible dimension of mystery, magic, and
spirituality”(461). Sublime, having spirituality as a characteristic, and magical realism, having magic as a characteristic, are mixed in the story. The very old man with wings is sublime and magical because of its spirituality and the magic he made as he lived in the town. It is a r…
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…all based on opinion. I know that there will be many people will place the two genres in different categories based on what they see. When a magical element is given, not everyone gets the same view out of it. I stand by my point, though; magical realism and the sublime are more alike than different.
Works Cited
Arensberg, Mary. The American Sublime. Ed. Mary Arensberg. Albany; N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1986. 1-5.
Faris, Wendy B. “Magical Realism : Post Expressionism. “Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community.” Ed. Lois Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B. Faris. Durham; N.C.: Duke UP, 1995: 163-190.
Longinus. On the Sublime. Cambridge. Harvard UP, 1995.
Shopenhauer, Arthur. The World as Will and Idea! Philosophies of Art and Beauty. Eds. Albert Hofstadter and Richard Kuhns. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976. 448-468.
Realistic and Magical Elements of A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings
Realistic and Magical Elements of A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings
“A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” is a renowned short story written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It was published in 1955. Gabriel Garcia Marquez was born and spent his childhood in Colombia but has lived in Paris and Mexico. As for the work that made him famous, “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” is considered by most an archetype of Magical Realism.
When reading “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings,” one comes across many elements of Magical Realism. A good specimen of Magical Realism is the old man with wings. An old man is normal and earthly. However, when wings are applied, what was once mundane becomes stereotype of Magical Realism. What is most important about they old man with wings is not actually the old man himself, but, more importantly, the fact that the characters interacting with the old man view him as just a old man with wings. Unlike the society that most live in, this society would never accept the old man as ordinary. The woman who was turned into a spider as a child for disobeying her parents is also a good model of Magical Realism. Things in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s works are classified as Magical Realism. The woman who knew of all things living and dead is a type of Magical Realism. How many people know everything? For that matter, how many people actually know anything? The point is that no one, no matter whom, is capable of knowing everything.
Realistic elements are tossed into the melting pot of Magical Realism just as fictional elements are so commonly done. Capitalism is a realistic element that is never forgotten. No matter what any writer creates, it will more then likely have at least some kind of capi…
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…hat it is a work of Magical Realism. Over all, “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings” is a perfect sample of Magical Realism.
Works Cited
Chanady, Amaryll. “Magical Realism in Spanish American Literature.” Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community. Ed.Louis Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B. Faris. Durham, N.C: UP, 1995: 125-144.
Garcia Marquez, Gabriel. “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings.” The Norton Introduction Literature. Ed. Jerome Beaty.N.Y. : W.W. Norton and Company, 1996.525-529.
Leal, Luis. “Magical Realism in Spanish American Literature.” Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community. Ed. Louis Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B. Faris.Durham, N.C: UP, 1995:119-124.
Roh, Franz. “Magical Realism in Spanish Literature.” Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community. Ed. Louis Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B. Faris. Durham, N.C: Duke UP, 1995: 15-31.