Gabriel García Márquez's "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings: A Tale for Children"

In this short story, Márquez portrays how people respond to the weak and unusual with awe and often with cruelty using incredibly ironic situations. In the first paragraph alone, an angel, normally portrayed as strong, magnificent creatures, has fallen from heaven during a storm and pathetically “couldn’t get up, impeded by his enormous wings” which would normally allow him to fly high above the miseries on earth and give him great power; instead, he is a decrepit, old man too weak to stand and covered in parasites. After a family imprisons him in a dung covered chicken coop and charge spectators five cents to see the creature, people flock to the sight. At first, the crowd is fascinated by him and hopes he can restore their faith; they leave so many oil lamps and sacramental candles that he becomes uncomfortable because of “the hellish heat” (par. 8). However, they soon grow impatient, poking him in the side with an iron branding because he will not stand and leaving him for a spider-woman who tells a sad tale they can relate to after they discover that he can perform only small “consolation miracles” like in the case of “the leper whose sores sprouted sunflowers” (par. 10). The woman who housed him is glad that he grows new wings and flies off in the end “because then he was no longer an annoyance in her life,” despite the fact that she and her husband raised enough money to build a two-story mansion by cooping him with their chickens in inhumane conditions. All these points lead readers to question why the story would be subtitled “A Tale for Children“ in the first place.

about the author

Raymond Carver's "Cathedral"

NOTE: I wrote this a few days ago and just realized yesterday that I had not analyzed the right piece for the assignment, but I figured I might as well put it up.

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To summarize Carver’s “Cathedral” in one sentence, it is a touching minimalistic piece of fiction about a blind man learning to see. Yes, a man depicts a grand church to a man who has never been able to see by drawing it together with their hands clasped as one over the pen; but the real miracle in this story is that this blind man was able to show a sarcastic asshole how to see outside himself and empathize with the people around him.

Right away, it is evident that the narrator is biased and not to be trusted to provide readers with the full picture. In the first three words alone, he makes it clear that he is not fond of “this blind man” Robert, or anyone else for that matter. He talks about people as if they are merely objects of little importance. Throughout the story, he never bothers to name anyone or give them a description. His wife crafted a poem about a touching moment she shared with the blind man describing how he ran his hands over her face to understand what she looked like. The narrator, however, who is blessed with sight, never reveals any details of her physical appearance. He seems to have no concept of love, even talking of her suicide attempt nonchalantly.

The narrator also judges people based on stereotypes that are not always consistent with reality. For instance, before he meets Robert, he assumes that blind people lived the way they were portrayed on television and “moved slowly and never laughed” (par. 1), almost like the walking dead. Robert, however, is full of life—despite the recent death of his wife—and perhaps even more so than the narrator. He jokes around and is friendly with his hosts, eats food like any other person would, and even smokes a joint with such expertise that “it was like he’d been doing it since he was nine years old” (par. 76).  He shows the narrator the light by telling him to close his eyes and draw, and the narrator finally sees what it is like. When Robert tells him to open his eyes again and “take a look” at the drawing they created together, he decides he ought to “keep them [shut] that way for a little longer” (par. 133-4). He has an epiphany, feeling something significant inside himself “like nothing else in my life up to now” yet “didn’t feel like he was inside anything” (par. 131, 135). For the first time in his life,  he is blinded by truth and can finally see.

a short film based on "Cathedral"

Carver's backstory

Edgar Allan Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado"

Anyone familiar with Poe’s works knows to expect some pretty dark characters and situations in “The Cask of Amontillado.” From the get go, the narrator Montresor is out for revenge against his enemy, ironically named Fortunato. As the story moves along, it starts to become evident that the storyteller is not to be trusted.

In order to “not only punish [Fortunato] but punish [him] with impunity,” Montresor lures him into his wine cellar, which eerily doubles as a crypt for his perished ancestors and the soon to be dead Fortunato, on the night of a festival when loud music would envelope any screams and the townspeople would be drunk to even notice. Montresor enticed the man, “who prided himself upon the connoisseurship in wine,” to inspect a rare drink, Amontillado. The poor fool could not help himself.

By the end Poe makes it blatantly obvious that the narrator is insane: he chains his victim to a granite wall and seals building stones with mortar around him, enclosing him in a dark, damp hell until he slowly runs out of breathable air and dies. The reader never even knows what led Montresor to such an unusually cruel act; as far as anyone can tell, the worst act Fortunato committed was that he approached the narrator “with excessive warmth” because he was drunk. Fortunato died dressed the part for his end, the little bells of his jester hat jingling when his head dropped lifeless to his chest as if they were tolls from the church’s tower at his funeral.