Revised Intro Paragraph and outline

Gabriel Marquez's voice and expressive word choices in "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" emphasize the extent of human shallowness and the capacity of people to abandon compassion and act cruelly in order to reap personal benefits. The tone of the work expresses a dreary setting in which the people with their extreme stereotypes and expectations represent a microcosm of our culture today, and the tone also illuminates the excessively poor condition of the unfortunate angel. The increasing cruelty and artificiality of the people toward the angel, which are expressed in Marquez's voice, suggest that human nature never allows for satisfaction or fulfillment regarding a situation. Marquez points out through his tone and word choices that individuals have unrealistic expectations and an insatiable desire for tangible results that can only culminate in disappointment, resentment, and blindness to the reality of given circumstances.

I. Initially in "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings," a gloomy setting is introduced, and the people who inhabit it impractically expect stereotypical ideals.
a. "The world [has] been sad since Tuesday. Sea and sky [are] a ash-gray thing and the sands of the beach... have become a stew of mud and rotten shellfish" (327).
b. "No one [pays] any attention to [the angel] because his wings [are] not those of an angel but, rather, those of a sidereal bat" (329).

II. From the very beginning of the work, Marquez makes the pitiful condition of the very old man with enormous wings clear, emphasizing his imperfections and his features that contrast those of a stereotypical angel.
a. There were only a few faded hairs left on his bald skull and very few teeth in his mouth. His huge buzzard wings, dirty and half-plucked, were forever entangled in the mud" (328).
b. [Father Gonzaga] argued that if wings were not the essential element in determining the difference between a hawk and an airplane, they were even less so in the recognition of angels" (329).

III. Ultimately, Marquez effectively conveys the ability of people to exchange moral standards compassion for personal gain and the tendency of human nature to always want more and never achieve satisfaction.
a. "Even the most merciful threw stones at [the angel], trying to get him to rise so they could see him standing. The only time they succeeded in arousing him was when they burned his side with an iron for branding steers" (330).
b. "A spectacle like that , full of so much human truth and with such a fearful lesson, was bound to defeat without even trying that of a haughty angel who scarcely deigned to look at mortals" (331).

Short Works Process Essay Intro Draft

In "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings," Gabriel Garcia Marquez utilizes symbols to convey a message about human nature. Throughout his work, symbols serve to suggest the severity of human shallowness and artificiality. In addition, they show the extent of the human capacity to strategically use cruelty as a tool to obtain personal satisfaction. Marquez uses the symbol of a very old man with enormous wings in a setting where the people question, abuse, and treat him expendably for personal gain to symbolize the tendency of individuals to abandon compassion and act cruelly in order to potentially extract miracles or money from a situation.

Born too Late?

E.A. Robinson presents us with “Miniver Cheevy” to send a message regarding resentment.

In subtle ways, Robinson makes it clear that Miniver Cheevy’s real life contrasts the life of honor and excitement that he romanticizes. While, “Miniver love[s] the old when swords were bright and steeds were prancing,” he, “sigh[s] for what [is] not, and dream[s].” Toward the end of the poem,”Miniver scorn[s] the gold he [seeks], but sore annoyed [is] he without it,” suggesting that he lives in a constant state of longing and never finds his life to be satisfactory.

Miniver believes himself to be an anachronism and blames fate for his misfortune, so I think readers should make him out to be indolent and without gratitude for the life that he was dealt. Robinson characterizes Miniver as such by not providing the character with a positive resolution. In the very end, Miniver calls his misfortune, “fate, and [keeps] on drinking.”

At one point, Miniver, “[weeps] that he was ever born,” which highlights his incapacity to actively improve his perception of life. Perhaps Robinson means to convey with Miniver’s lifelong commitment to misery that resentment ultimately leads to unhappiness and depression, as exhibited with Miniver when he, “[keeps] on drinking.”

Isn't It Ironic?

In the Oatmeal's take on irony and in the given definition, three types of irony -- verbal, dramatic, and situational/cosmic -- are addressed.

In "Once Upon a Time," Nadine Gordimer uses situational/cosmic irony to convey the necessity of a balance between extremes. The short story begins with the narrator introducing, "a man and a wife who [love] each other very much and [are] living happily ever after. They [have] a little boy, and they [love] him very much." Conflict is introduced when the possibility of dangerous riots upsets the wife. To maintain the peace-of-mind that is required in a happily-ever-after atmosphere, the husband installs burglar bars and an alarm system. The degree of the ferociousness of the security system increases as the family requires more and more home-defense mechanisms to maintain their peace-of-mind.

Finally, at the very end of the story when the family is living "happily-ever-after" amid serrated metal and jagged blades and flesh-tearing fangs, the little boy plays a game and accidentally becomes tangled in the system, and, "the man and wife burst wildly into the garden... [while] the alarm set up wail[s] against the screams [and] the bleeding mass of the little boy [is] hacked out of the security coil with saws, wire-cutters, [and] choppers." The ultimate doom of the little boy presents situational/cosmic irony because the security system that the man and wife set up to protect their family from any sort of harm results in the tragic and very graphic death of their son.

Gordimer most likely uses irony as opposed to direct narration in the short story to emphasize the tragedy of the situation and better convey the big picture. If the little boy had died in any other fashion, the message that resorting to extremes may not have been expressed. It is the parents' struggle to obtain absolute peace-of-mind that eventually kills their son, and this suggests that had the parents not obtained the most ferocious and threatening alarm system available, their son would still be alive. In conclusion, the irony optimally conveys that taking extreme measures is more likely to result in tragedy than in the intended outcome.

Welcome and My favorite Summer Reading Text

Welcome. I'm Kristin and this is my blog Kristinguistics (all kinds of Kristyntax), which will address literary matters and deliver my opinions on relevant literary topics.

For my first post, I'll have you know that my favorite text from the summer is "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" by Ursula Le Guin. Initially in the short story, the author describes a utopian city called Omelas and the people who happily inhabit it with bright and cheerful imagery. As the story progresses, however, it becomes clear that the citizens of Omelas are imperfect and complex.

The story becomes very compelling to me when the speaker notes that, "[the people of Omelas] have a bad habit... of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting." Continuing with a similar idea, the speaker also states that, "the joy built upon successful slaughter is not the right kind of joy; it will not do; it is fearful and it is trivial."

Evidence of the citizens' off-putting derivation of contentedness is provided when the speaker describes the delicate situation of Omelas where the well-being and the joyousness of the entire city depend on the absolute misery of a single child. What is most striking about this predicament, in my opinion, is the fact that the population of Omelas as a whole is able to collectively justify and essentially condone the complete neglect of an innocent and helpless being.

Even more compelling is that those who actually walk away from Omelas choose to walk away, but they never make a formal decision. They are presented with the options of helping the child or living with the knowledge of his or her miserable existence, and the citizens of Omelas either choose the latter or avoid the decision entirely.

I found "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" to be incredibly thought-provoking because the radical rationalization of condemning a child to a lifetime of suffering and the citizens' avoidance of liberating him or her beg the questions: does human nature allow justification to supersede compassion, and could human compassion ever be enough to bring an end to suffering?