Summary
A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings is a fantasy story written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez about a person found abandoned in a farm backyard. Pelayo and Elisenda decide to take and offer him shelter. His unique appearance attracts villagers and a priest. Later, he becomes an object of admiration and people think that he can perform miracles. However, they realize that he is incapable of helping them to solve their problems.
The villagers are attracted to a traveling freak show that was spreading the story of a spider woman that had been transformed because of disobeying her parents. One night, the old man regained his health and flew away, but Pelayo and his wife had benefited a lot from charging fees to anyone interested in seeing him.
Dragon World is a story written by Zhang Xinxin and it describes a scene where people have been transformed into dragons. They devour all buildings and anything made from concrete and soon a whole town is converted into a land filled with fine sand. This author shows the similarities between peoples’ greed for wealth and dragons’ appetite for food.
Themes
These two stories explore various themes that make people behave in different ways. The authors use fantasy to amplify the behavior of people and explain how they are unable to control their appetites for wealth and power. The first story by Marquez explains how Pelayo and his wife are desperate and want to make money through all means available to them. They use the old man’s unique appearance to collect money from people that want to see him. The local community believes in witchcraft and hopes that the old man will solve their problems. This makes them pay a lot of money to Pelayo so that their problems could be solved by the perceived magician.
Secondly, this story explores the theme of superstition and explains that most people believe that the old man is an angel but others think that he is evil because angels are supposed to be neat and presentable. In addition, the church is torn between superstition and religion and Father Gonzaga is unable to make a decision without seeking advice from the church. The theme of superstition is used to explain why the ‘Spider Girl’ was converted into a tarantula for failing to respect her parents.
The second story explores the theme of greed and desire for material wealth. The author describes a Chinese society that has concentrated on generating money and spending it on material things. She explains that modern Chinese society has forgotten the values that guided it and has embraced western practices that focus on capitalism. In addition, the story portrays the theme of desperation that has influenced the conduct of people and made them forget their cultural practices that promote ethical behavior in society.
The Absence of Fantasy
It is necessary to explain that the use of various stylistic techniques makes literature interesting (Eynat-Confino 56). Therefore, audiences become glued to pieces of art that use fantasy to explain themes and describe the personalities of the characters used in a story. These authors would not have explained to their audiences the dangers of greed, superstition, and desire for material wealth if they had not used fantasies in their stories. The use of fantasy makes it easy for these authors to make their stories simple yet meaningful to their audiences. It is important to explain that these authors have succeeded in ensuring that they entertain and educate the audiences in unique ways by using fantastical characters. The use of fantasies in these stories breaks the monotony of narration; therefore, it makes these works interesting.
Use of Fantasy
These authors have used fantasy, in the same way, to make their stories interesting. In addition, they have used fantasy in a way that differs from ordinary stories about magic events and characters. The use of a man with enormous wings and dragons devouring a city makes these stories interesting and ensures audiences are attracted to them. These authors use this form of creativity to attract the attention of people that may not be interested in reading stories about the need for changes in how people behave.
Marquez and Xinxin have managed to ensure their audiences focus on the storyline and at the same time understand what they want to portray to them. Secondly, the use of fantasy enables authors to describe and show how people have problems they believe cannot be solved by science, but through magic (Eynat-Confino 63). The authors’ tones do not change as they move from the real to the fantastical world to enable the audience to follow the story without getting confused along the way.
Similarities
The main similarities between these two stories include how the authors present and explain the themes of greed, desperation, and desire for material wealth. In addition, these stories use imaginary creatures that amplify the behavior of people in society. These similarities make these stories present themes in simple yet descriptive ways. Therefore, the audience can recognize the similarities in terms of the themes and plots of these stories and this makes them unique.
Works Cited
Eynat-Confino, Irene. On the Uses of the Fantastic in Modern Theatre: Cocteau, Oedipus, and the Monster (Palgrave Studies in Theatre and Performance History). Basingstoke: Palgrave McMillan, 2008. Print.