January 22nd, 2010

Flipping through the section called "Monsters and Heroes", I came across a story by an author I really enjoy: Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The story is called "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" and it is basically about a angel who has come to earth to take the very sick child from his parents. This "angel" is a withered old man with, obviously, enormous wings coming out of his back. The parents hear from their neighbor that she suspects he has come to take their child and the parents lock the old man in their chicken coop.

I'm not trying to give a complete retelling of the story, but there is a part that struck me as odd. The priest, Father Gonzaga, visits the old man with enormous wings and states that there is no way this man could possibly be an angel. "He reminded them that the devil had the bad habit of making use of carnival tricks in order to confuse the unwary" was stated and it sort of had me thinking: we really do have a pretty set-in-stone idea in our heads about how "godly" things should appear. There's the stereotypical version of an angel that we are all familiar with (the wings, white gown, halo, probably has the appearance of a younger individual, whatever, etc. etc.) but it is refreshing to see an author portray an angel as an old man that represents something that is flawed and all too human. I think it also represents how we tend to disbelieve anything that doesn't fit the description of how we would originally perceive it to be.

I'm really enjoying this section called Monsters and Heroes. While reading the stories, it is sometimes unclear who represents the supposed monster or hero, which gives me something to take a closer look at. It sorts of skews my perception of the classic fairytale heroes and monsters and makes me realize that characters rarely fit just one description. Just like Arnold Friend; he is not necessarily just a "monster" or the "devil" but rather a bunch of personality types meshed together which makes him even more real. In real life, people are not one-dimensional and the same goes for characters in stories. If you look a little closer, you can see that the best characters in literature are so memorable because they are so dynamic.

All for now
-Michelle