This is the first installment of a series of blog posts I will be posting about the gothic genre in terms of different cultures. I will be looking at the work of the Latin American author Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, Chicano author Rudolfo Anaya, and American author Edgar Allan Poe. My goal is to explore elements of the gothic in the work of each of these authors. I will particularly be looking at how their culture defines their writing. In my final post I will compare and contrast the three authors in term of their respective cultural lenses.
I will discuss the work of Gabriel Garcia-Marquez first. Marquez was born in Aracataca, Colombia. He grew up listening to stories that his grandparents would tell him. He has said that these tales have influenced his writing. The stories he was told where “freely mixed with the observable and hidden realities” and often “drew on Indian myths for their substance” (Boyle 331). His work is usually associated with magical realism. Magical Realism is “a literary or artistic genre in which realistic narrative and naturalistic technique are combined with surreal elements of dream or fantasy” (oxford dictionary). The story that I want to look at is entitled “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings.” This story involves an old man with huge “buzzard” wings who is found in the courtyard of a couple by the names of Pelayo and Elisenda. Their neighbor tells them it is an angel. Instead of killing it, they lock him in the chicken coop. Tons of people come to view the spectacle, often throwing food and stones at the old man. When the priest comes, he warns that it is the work of the devil. Regardless of the warning, Pelayo and Elisenda begin charging for admission to see the old man. The hype over the old man dies out when there is news of a woman who was turned into a spider after defying her parents. For a fee, she will tell her horrifying story. Pelayo and Elisenda, however, have already made a fortune and they build themselves a new mansion. The old man seems to be dying but when December comes he grows new feathers and eventually flies away disappearing forever.
Although this story is labeled as magical realism, I believe that it does contain many gothic elements. These include supernatural elements. For example some believe that the old man is an angel, while others warn that he is a product of the devil. This also involves the doubting of religion, which can be seen as gothic. The cruel treatment of the old man is also a Gothic element. He is thrown into a chicken coop and displayed for entertainment. Another gothic element is the rainy and humid landscape of the story and the poverty that is evident throughout.There are also some very gothic characters in this story including the neighbor, who seems to have other worldly knowledge. The “spider-woman” is also a very gothic character. She supposedly turned into a spider after disobeying her parents. Of course, the old man is a very gothic character as well. It is never explicitly stated what the old man truly is but if he is an angel, he is definitely not a conventional one. For one, he is very old and angels are usually perceived as youthful. He is also dirty and has buzzard wings instead of the magnificent wings that angels often have.
It is evident that Garcia-Marquez’s culture highly influenced this story. For example, this story mixes reality and the unexpected, in that strange things are happening but nobody seems to notice. These strange things are simply a reality to them. This could be a result of the types of stories Garcia-Marquez was told as a child. The subplot of the story involving the women who turned into a spider could have also been influenced by his culture. It is a cautionary tale meant to scare young children into obeying their parents. Garcia-Marquez would have been very familiar with similar tales as a young child growing up in Colombia. The portrayal of a corrupt priest may have also been influenced by Garcia-Marquez’s culture. His parents were very skeptical of the Catholic institution. This skepticism caused them to delay the baptism of Gabriel until he was three years old. These ideas about the church would have been around Gabriel as he was growing up. I believe that the landscape was also inspired or at least influenced by Garcia-Marquez’s hometown of Aracataca. This area was very humid and often had unpredictable tropical storms. In the story there is constant rain causing crabs to litter the couple’s courtyard. There was also a lot of poverty in his hometown; which may have inspired Pelayo and Elisenda’s desperation to make money. As you can see, many factors from Garcia-Marquez’s culture affected his writing making it unique to the gothic genre.
Works Cited:
“Gabriel García Márquez.” Bio.com. 2014. Web. Mar 22 2014. http://www.biography.com/people/gabriel-garc%C3%ADa-márquez-189132
Oxforddictionaries.com. Oxford University Press. 2014. Web. Mar 22 2014. http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/magic-realism
Stavans, Ilan. Gabriel García Márquez: The Early Years. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. Print.
Boyle, Coraghessan. Doubletakes. Boston: Wadsworth, 2004. Print.
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I was hoping that someone would bring up this story, but I couldn’t recall the name of it. I think that while it is popularly categorized as magical realism, I agree that there are several gothic elements: the uncanny, the abjection of the elderly,and the revulsion and fear with which people regard the old man. There is also the grotesque element of the man having buzzard wings. These are not majestic, beautiful wings-rather they are half plucked and soiled with mud.
I agree that the sense of suspicion and uncertainty of good vs. evil in regarding the old man as either an angel or a devil is a hallmark of gothic tropes. Though the spider woman and the old man are supposed to be the gothic figures, I argue that it is really the townspeople who are grotesque. The couple keep the man in a cage in the yard and once they hear of something even more uncanny-the spider woman, they leave him behind in search of something more grotesque.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez is such a wonderful writer. His style is magical-realism having many gothic elements. For example the couple using the dying old man for profit until he dies is very gothic in many ways. Also, the spider woman is no exception to the gothic-ness presented in the story. I also really liked how you linked his upbringing to his works, which no doubt leads us to his larger than life imagination. We are given a link to the larger themes that he is questioning through his works as a writer and what he has seen in his surroundings since he was a child with climate, poverty and the extent of religiousness.
I’ve been a fan of Marquez’s work for a long time now. He was one of the main reasons why I developed a love for literature and decided to pursue this discipline in my academic career. I think that there are a lot of elements of the gothic in his stories, although as you mentioned, his work is often categorized as magical realism. I think this term is accurate because it describes the tranquility with which people in his stories experience supernatural events; the locals embrace them as a part of their world and don’t seem to question them much. But leaving out the idiosyncrasy of the locals, I can clearly distinguish gothicness in all of his work. The way he deals with sexuality and old age is something quite dark and gothic, he approaches this themes with an uncanny descriptiveness which fits in with this literary style. Thank you for sharing this story, I was not familiar with it but after reading, my understanding of Marquez hsa defenitely been expanded.