The well-known short story writer Gabriel Jose Garcia Marquez was born on March 6, 1928, in Aracataca, Colombia. He had written a collection of short stories and “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” is a very famous one among them. It is considered a supernatural story with a realistic touch. The main character of this story is an old man. The peculiarity of this man is that he had wings. In a real-world one can see an old man but when he appeared with wings, people say he is not an ordinary man but an angel. Not only by the creation of this old man with wings one can say that this story is a magical realism but the other elements like the strange visions, the appearance of women spider, the crab etc make this story a fantastic one. In a real-life it seems to be an odd one but through this story the writer shows each and every element a realistic one and makes the reader believe it as a real one. In the story one can view that the young girl who goes against her parents being changed to a spider. It is accessible only in an unrealistic world and the old man appeared in this story as an angel who creates some marvelous situation in a family of Pelayo and Elisenda but at the end of the story they understood this old man. Here the writer brings the old man both as an ordinary man and at the same time as an angel. Here in this story the realistic and fantastic pictures are merged together and the readers have no doubt whether it is real or unreal.
Isaac Bashevis Singer’s “Gimpel the Fool” is a fantastic story. It is the story of an innocent baker, his disloyal wife, and the devil. The fool in this story is a means for revelation. Gimpel, the fool of Frampol, happens to be a forecaster, and his disloyal wife is distorted into a woman of knowledge. Gimpel is a fool but the writer presents him as an honest man. In real life, presence of God and devil are not there but here in this story writer creates all these backgrounds.
The old man in the story ‘A very old man with enormous wings is an aged decayed angel and his arrival, appearance and actions are somewhat dissimilar to the angel and it results from the unexpected response of the people to the angel. The story weaves in the religion and treats the religious authorities in a great way. The clergyman and priest consider the angel as a messenger of god and speak to him in the Latin language with the comment that Latin is the language of God. “The Parish priest had his first suspicion of an impostor when he saw that he did not understand the language of God or know how to greet His ministers.” (Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s book, p. 5). This shows the weak knowledge of priests and clergies about the Biblical studies as most of the original documents are written in Greek. Most often the readers think that religious heads are highly experts in spiritual and Biblical matters but in this story they have no deep knowledge about the biblical subjects, even the language of God. Thus the events and characters are highly controversial and it ridicules the religion in a strange way. The story even presents the current situation of family life, their attitudes to heavenly message through the two persons, namely, Pelayo and Elisenda. They have the Bible in their house but they do not pay any attention to its importance and they treat it as inconvenient or a useless thing. These situations in the story are highly controversial and thus the story treats the religion and the religious authorities in a bad way.
The story ‘Gimpel the fool’ presents a totally different situation from the first and the protagonist of the story tries to maintain his faith in God and life. Though Gimpel struggles a lot with the villagers and even from his wife he tries his level best to maintain his faith in God. He considers God will give a helping hand to solve his problems in life and thus continues to worship God. Here in this story, Gimpel is the living symbol of the people who bear all the sufferings and remain unaccompanied. Thus the event in the story treats the religion and the religious authorities in a better way so as to show the significance of faith in God and its benefits in life as Gimpel gets consolation and peace through his prayer.
Works Cited
Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s book ‘A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings.’1928. 5. (Provided by customer)