When reading stories by Márquez, it seemed to me like a child’s story that you were supposed to find the deeper meaning of the character’s actions and learn some lesson from them. In both “The Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” and “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World”, one’s fantasy of what is acceptable in society takes over. The citizens take one's appearance and turn it into what they have been brainwashed by the commonwealth to believe those attributes signify. For instance, the American society has a bountiful amount of jokes about blondes being dumb. This prejudice eventually leaves an impression on one that blondes are dumb. Being blonde, people in America automatically assume I am dumb, which I argue against of course.
The angel in the first story is bald and ugly with wings that are tattered and full of mites. He didn’t speak the “language of the gods” or perform helpful miracles. The villagers reject him as a holy being because he doesn’t fit the description handed down from the church. Instead the family who found him uses him as a sideshow to collect money. They house him in a chicken coop because, of course, since he and the chickens have wings, they must be near the same species… Then the spider girl came along and the money quit flowing in. The angel flew away in the end…I wasn’t sure about the metaphorical point of the story. I didn’t particularly like the “The Very Old Man with Enormous Wings”. I found it dull and, quite frankly, uninteresting. Most likely this is because of my lack of understanding.
The angel in the first story is bald and ugly with wings that are tattered and full of mites. He didn’t speak the “language of the gods” or perform helpful miracles. The villagers reject him as a holy being because he doesn’t fit the description handed down from the church. Instead the family who found him uses him as a sideshow to collect money. They house him in a chicken coop because, of course, since he and the chickens have wings, they must be near the same species… Then the spider girl came along and the money quit flowing in. The angel flew away in the end…I wasn’t sure about the metaphorical point of the story. I didn’t particularly like the “The Very Old Man with Enormous Wings”. I found it dull and, quite frankly, uninteresting. Most likely this is because of my lack of understanding.
The drowned man in the second story amused me greatly. I loved this story! The women fantasize about the dead man and who he must’ve been, how impressive his size was… everywhere… how inadequate their men now seem, and what his life must’ve been like. Their fables played in their heads as they loved, lost, and moved on in life. The fact that it was published in Playboy just made it even better. It shows that fantasy isn’t reality. None of these women knew Esteban, as they came to call him, yet the site of him set them on an emotional rollercoaster, just as the airbrushed, digitally-enhanced women in the magazine do to men in today’s world. Márquez is a genius for his punctuation in this story as well. The way the marks make you pause, continue, and expel so many lines in the same breath, mimics breathing during intimacy.
Great title for your posting! So is the Chipmunk you reading Marquez, or is it the handsomest Chipmunk in the world? So, in the "Very Old Man", the religious critique didn't make sense even after we discussed it? Alas, I was ineffective.....
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