Critical Analysis of "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" And "The Shawl" Through The Deconstruction of Jacques Derrida

Paper Type:  Literature review
Pages:  8
Wordcount:  2086 Words
Date:  2022-10-19
Categories: 

Introduction

The reason for using Derrida's approach to deconstruction is mainly attributed to the fact that his focus is on substance. The thought processes that the story writers went through in order to reach a conclusion. Derrida is known to write about writing itself, deconstruction is important because what is written in literature is a societal mirror. Using Derrida's mode of deconstruction and analysis I will endeavor to scrutinize the two stories in depth. I will focus on the societal settings, gender, era that the stories were written and seek to understand the heart and mind of the writers.

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I will begin by analyzing A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Gabriel introduces two characters to the reader. A couple Pelayo the husband and Elisanda the wife. They are the main characters in the short story because all the events revolve around them. The story is about the couple finding an old man who is killing crabs in their back during a rainstorm, the queer thing about the old man was that he had wings.

The old man is oblivious of his surroundings and speaks in a foreign language that no one can understand, He is filthy, dirty and unkempt and does not seem to comprehend anything. Puzzled by the unfolding events Pelayo seeks counsel from the village priest one father Ganzonga. The priest is skeptical as to whether the old man is a fallen angel as the villagers believe. Rumors circulated around the village regarding the identity of the old man with wings. The church believed him to be a Norwegians of the townspeople a fallen angel, Pelayo's neighbor a supposedly wise bossy woman suggests that he is a crippled angel and that Pelayo should kill him before he kills Pelayo's sickly daughter.

The reader is also introduced to a spider woman, her arrival deviates the attention from the fallen angel to her. The spider woman has the body of a spider but the face of a young sad woman. She explains to the townspeople that her current state is as a result of disobeying her parents. Pelayo's wife, on the other hand, is exasperated by the angel. Her advice to Pelayo is to charge the townspeople who want to see the old man.

An analysis of the characters names reveals that they were Spanish speaking people. The story in its entirety is set up in Pelayo's courtyard. The origin of the author is instrumental in finding out the setup of the story. Gabriel Garcia is of Colombian descent and a look at his previous works create a probability that the story takes place in Colombia, in particular, the coast (Aldama, pp.150). The reason as to why I believe the events took place near a shore is because of references made about the sea and shellfish.

The town seems to be a small, dull, mythological and uneventful town where nothing major happens. The town has a strong sense of Catholicism, this reverts to the author. The main religion in Colombia is Catholicism. This is a great example of the native influence and how it affects authors and their works.

The story is written in a limited Omniscient style, the author seems to have the power to know what the characters are thinking and relay it to the readers. The genre of the story is for young adults. The grammar is not too easy or too complex to be understood. It satisfies all the ingredients of a young adult literature with extraordinary characters, there is a moral lesson to be learned and the story is not too lengthy. However, there seems to be a hidden meaning of the story about the character of humans. The author brings about a satirical element of human behavior in the presence of something extraordinary and special. I will like this to the discovery of oil and how states fight aimlessly to gain control. The old man with wings had he been a fallen angel would have helped not only the hosts but the whole town. The author explains how humans fail to grasp opportunities have when presented to them in a silver platter (Zwaan, pp.386). An issue of lack of unity is also revealed in the story, none of the characters knew how to deal with the old man.

The magical realism exhibited in the story is excellent. Magical realism has been attributed to mainly Latin American authors (Flores, pp.22). The fact that an old man with large wings would fall in a not so exciting town, in a simple man's courtyard exemplifies magical realism. The story ends with Elisenda watching the old man disappear, the author seems to read her mind that at that point is when she realized her blessing was flying away, literally. From Gabriel's upbringing, a person can speculate that it has influenced his writing style and the setup of the story. He was both in a small town in Arcata and raised with the grandfather, Could the old man with wings be the grandfather who was a blessing in disguise to the town people in Arcata who never realized? His hometown was between mountains and the Caribbean Sea. I believe these factors greatly affected his story.

The Shawl by Cynthia Ozick was first published in the New Yorker. Her work is described as Holocaust Literature. The story vividly describes the horrors of the Holocaust, it is a compression of experiences that were experienced during this tough time. The story creates a somber mood and is thought to invoke creating feelings of sadness and anguish. She has the effect of making the characters seem real, reading her story is like flashing back to a movie once watched while remembering every little detail. We are introduced to a young Jewish mother who has lost her child due to the barbaric acts on the Nazis. The author relies on short descriptive sentences that effortlessly paint the picture of horror for the victims. The beginning of the story is of a young woman named Rosa, hiding her fifteen-month-old baby between her breasts, Magda. We are also introduced to Stella, Rosas fourteen-year-old niece who is jealous of how Magda is comfortable.

The child on Rosas bosom sucks on a shawl because she lacks nourishment. The story, therefore, derives its title from this cowstall on one fateful day takes away Magda's shawl which acted as a pacifier, this made Magda cry out loudly for her mother. Rosa having heard the cry of her daughter runs to her aid, but her efforts are in vain. She returns to the yard and finds a guard carrying her child. The child is thrown into an electrified fence and loses her life. Out of sorrow and despair, Rosa uses the shawl to stifle cries by putting it in her mouth so that she is not killed. The story shows how unbearable the situation was but despite it, all life had to go on Rosa had to endure. The second story in her collection is of a much older Rosa who receives money from her niece Stella. Rosas life after the holocaust does not seem to be one of rest. There is a doctor who wants to study her to determine what the effects of the Holocaust were on her. Her clothes are being stolen and trying to escape from a past that is chasing her. Stella in the story acts as a reminder of the past that Rosa does not have the desire to remember.

The setup of the story was in World War II. The reason for saying this is because of the Holocaust. The story shows the level of inhumanity in a man of a soldier killing a child with not so much of a thought. Magda was a symbol of hope and her death resulted in a feeling of helplessness.

Analyzing the story, I believe the author was intentional in using a woman as the main character, more so, a woman with a young infant. She acts as a mother of the Jews. She embodies what the Jews lost in the Holocaust and what they are struggling to recover (Andrea, pp.11). The writing style of Cynthia suggests that she has a raw relation to the Holocaust. The author is known as a Holocaust Fictional writer with many short pieces on the issue, for instance, "The Pagan Rabbi''(Alkana, pp.970). After reading the shawl a person cannot look at a shawl the same way. Her Jewish background influenced her to pour out her heart when writing the story. She does not deny that she is motivated by her background in her writings using it as her threshold (Kauver). Her background can be attributed to the quality of her work.

The two authors clearly depict magical realism. The concept of magical realism first appeared when plastic arts were being criticized (Flores, pp.192). Magical realism can be identified by relying on the following characteristics, there must be a magical element, the two stories had magical elements that could not be explained in the natural world. A magical shawl that has the ability to sustain a child for three days and three nights. An old man who appears from nowhere with enormous wings. The reader is normally drawn to two realities and the two realities become one. An ordinary situation suddenly becomes magical and the final characteristic is time, history and space are challenged (Zamora, pp.386). The two stories satisfied the requirements.

From the two stories, the story that I liked the most was the shawl. The reasons as to why I chose the shawl of the two is because it invoked feelings in me that I did not know existed. The vivid description left me close to tears and I felt a heaviness in my heart. An example of a vivid description in the story is when Stella is being described as "Stella, cold, cold, the coldness of hell." (Ozick, pp.22). The phrase though ironical for hell is hot sets the pace for the whole story. The beginning is cold so is the body and the conclusion, the story is uniform. The author from the beginning sets the pace and mood for the poem and lives up to the standard. A reader is left with a lump in throat throughout the story, and not many authors have that effect.

The figurative language used by Ozick is one of the reasons that made me prefer the shawl to The Old Man With Enormous Wings. For instance, she recreates the Nazi horror and, in her story, not once is the word holocaust mentioned. The author does not tell us that the ladies were Jews but uses the star of David. The author uses the shawl symbolically throughout the whole story. At the beginning of the stories the shawl is used to sustain Magda, the shawl acts as a veil. As the story progresses the same shawl saves Rosa and leads to the damnation of baby Magda. The shawl is, therefore, a symbol of survival. To Rosa the shawl is mystical and magical, Stella even referring to it as an idol. The author can use magical realism without having to rely on facts and piercing information.

From the former story what appealed to me was how human beings can be oblivious and the latter Pelayo's good heart. From the shawl human resilience and will to survive stood out for me. What I found most troubling is the fact that an innocent child was killed effortlessly. Reading about bad experiences is hard because it is hard to believe that humans can stoop to such a low standard. Magical realism, therefore, plays an important role in ensuring the message is passed on without feeling guilty. Many people would rather read in parables than the plain truth.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the deconstruction by Derrida and magical realism opens up the reader's mind to look at a story in all dimensions. A reader can consider the setup of stories. The origin of the author and their influences. The cultural background of the authors and how it affects their work. It is freeing to think of how a writer had thought and to connect all strings of spider silk and make a fascinating web. Derrida's work gifts a reader with the ability to enter the author's mind.

Works Cited

Aldama, Frederick Luis. "Structural Configuration of Magic Realism in the Works of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Leslie Marmon Silko, Charles Johnson, and Julie Dash." Journal of Narrative and Life History 5.2 (1995): 147-1...

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Critical Analysis of "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" And "The Shawl" Through The Deconstruction of Jacques Derrida. (2022, Oct 19). Retrieved from https://midtermguru.com/essays/critical-analysis-of-a-very-old-man-with-enormous-wings-and-the-shawl-through-the-deconstruction-of-jacques-derrida

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