Dr. Mangum
March 3,
1997
Magic arises out of the two main
characters of D.H. Lawrence's "The Rocking-Horse Winner" and Gabriel Garcia
Marquez. Paul, in the first story, pulls
out higher forces to help him decide who the winner of the next horse race will
be. In the Marquez story, a nameless and
elderly angel lands on earth to experience first hand the human behavior he
strives to correct. The magic in the air
gives these stories a feeling of suspense.
They are horrifying, if not in the Stephen King horror genre. These tales encompass an undeniable amount
of magic, faith, greed, vindication and
misunderstanding.
Pelayo and Elisenda, in the Garcia Marquez
yarn, find the soul retriever on his way to take their child to heaven, or so
it is thought. The magical angel's
identity had to be discovered by a neighbor of the couple because they didn't
think that an angel could wind up on their land. Who would think of an angel landing? Meanwhile, Paul doesn't show when he
discovers the magical power of the rocking horse he received as a gift one
year. He does ride it often as Lawrence
describes. The stories are bound by the
fact that the magical things they discover are unbelievable at best. They often criticize Paul for his affection
for a horse he should have outgrown long ago.
No one would believe that the rocking-horse essentially talked to
him. Although the characters in "A Very
Old Man with Enormous Wings" believe that an angel is in their presence,
they have no idea what to do with him.
No one had ever dealt with a spirit on this level before.
As he rocked back and forth on his rocking
horse, Paul had faith in finding the winner of the next horse race. For some reason they could not explain,
Paul's uncle and Bassett had faith in him to pick it. They kept making money on the young boy with
faith. The boy, whose parents had no
luck, also had the faith that they did not have. Sadly, his faith killed him. He wanted so much to rid the house of the
voices he heard that he drove himself to death from the intense pressure he
placed upon himself. When he died, he
killed the voices as the spiritual world claimed the only member of the family
with luck.
"A Very Old Man with Enormous
Wings" shows that the people in this small fan can have some level of
faith without directly showing it.
Although Pelayo and Elisenda lock up the angel to display him, they still
believe he is an angel and cannot kill him when another offers this. They don't have the heart to club the old man
to death, though he may be an inconvenience at first. Father Gonzaga doesn't necessarily believe in
the angel, but the townspeople and tourists do. They wish for things even when
others before them don't have their miracles exactly met.
It is hinted in the Lawrence story that
Paul may have lived if he hadn't been so greedy. He wasn't full of greed like his parents, but
the mysterious voices of the house drove him to greed to rid the house of
them. To start with, Mother and Father
in this modern fairy tale are downright rapacious. Mother has an especially insatiable wallet. Although her husband makes good money, she
must have the finer things in life such as servants and the like. They pass on the ever present desire for more
materialistic items to Paul. He wants to
gain the love of his mother and decides that using his luck to earn money is
the way to do it.
It is the greed of Pelayo and Elisenda
that wind up saving the life of the elderly angel. They give him a chance to rest and start anew
by the couple putting him on display as a sort of circus freak. Sadly enough this translates over to modern
sitings of crucifix marked men. Many
religious fanatics have to travel wide and far to see proof of their faith just
like in the story. The fact that the
poor couple makes money off the angel could be a testament to him being their
guardian angel as opposed to the harbinger of death to their child. They continue to make money off this freak of
nature until another shows up. The
spider girl is just another form of greed in this story. The actual freak is probably just a costumed
human trying to make money off people's stupidity.
Flaws are obvious in the main characters
of each of these two stories. In
"The Rocking- Horse Winner" Paul has the flaw of emulating his
parents' footsteps. Because they set the
example always to want more money, taking on their greed flaws him. In Garcia Marquez's tale, the simple couple
have greed on their mind. When they are
unable to make money, off what should be a blessing, they find him an
annoyance. They share this greed in both
stories and this is an undeniable flaw.
Another characteristic that joins these
two stories is vindication. In the
Lawrence tale, Paul gets two sorts of vindication. First, he proves to his mother, the
nonbelieiver, that he is truly lucky.
The curse is not on every member of the family is the unspoken statement
he makes to his mother. This also makes
him think in his last few moments that he has also attained the obviously
missing love of his mother. Although
this is probably not true since his mother is such a greedy character,
seemingly incapable of love, at least Paul thinks that he has rectified a
horrible relationship between mother and son.
Secondly, they vindicate him in an ironic way. His death is part of his life's
justification. He escapes an unhappy
situation. As a blessing to his family,
he earns a ton of money for his uncle, Bassett and his family (whom the money
should go to upon his death). He helps
them out and then gets out of the bad situation of being stuck in such a
greedy, luckless family through death.
The angel also has a two-part
vindication. While entrapped by his own
disabilities in the chicken coop, he gets to poke fun at the naive people
desperately looking for miracles by granting "consolation miracles"
to his customers. These pranks
entertained him while he was stuck recovering in an animal's residence that was
like a miniature circus tent. After he
finally recovered with dawn of spring, he took to flight. He certainly wouldn't take the child with him
for fear of staying any longer. He
escaped the place that did nothing but use him to move on to provide miracles
to people who were worth it.
Lastly, intertwined in these two stories
is a misunderstanding of the respective phenomenons. The uncle and Basset are interested mostly in
winning money off the boy's talent. Uncle
Oscar does appear to have some concern for the boy having fun and appears to
find it engaging that the young boy is interested in a hobby of his. Bassett also seems to enjoy the boy's
company, but it certainly apparent after the first few wins that both are
mostly using Paul to earn money on his luck.
They don't understand the mostly self-inflicted need to be lucky that
Paul feels. He wants to be lucky to win
the love of not just his mother, but also Oscar, Bassett and the family in
general. He hides the fact that riding
his wooden rocking-horse is the key to his winning and so Oscar and Bassett
have little idea of what's going on.
Even at his final ride, the two who share in his lucky picks assume that
he got sick under normal circumstances.
They don't fathom to guess that he was trying to defeat the curse of
misfortune his family seemed to have an attraction to and the voices in the
house which constantly pointed this fact.
Of course, they thought he simply played to earn money and enjoy a
hobby.
From beginning to end, "A Very Old
Man with Enormous Wings" shows how ignorant the characters are of the
truth in the story. Even at first Pelayo
and Elisenda can't figure out that their discovery is an angel. It even took the main characters awhile to
discover that they could make much money off their find. By the end of the anecdote, the angel has
become such an inconvenience that Elisenda was overjoyed to seem him recover
and leave. Instead of realizing the
blessings the elderly angel brought (apparently saving the child's life and
creating an extra income for the couple for a couple weeks), she found him to
be a pest.
These fantastical stories have many
similar messages and characteristics although each of them is individual. They have the same goal of exploring the
misunderstood and magical. These
qualities affect the reader. The story
becomes engaging as the reader joins the characters in attempting to find out
the mysteries behind many of the actions.
The characters get involved in the unbelievable while they try to understand
things that some people simply cannot grasp in their minds. All of the characters in both tales are
ignorant and naive, but this is not to say that they are stupid. They tragically cannot understand what they
have with the little bit of evidence they are provided. Upon realizing that they cannot explain the
unexplainable, they attempt to come with answers where the are none.
Thus when magic, faith, greed, vindication
and misunderstanding come together they form two different stories. The narratives by two authors, D.H. Lawrence
and Gabriel Garcia Marquez of completely different backgrounds come through
with a common message. The spiritual and
magical world can help and hurt humans so always understand what it is one is
getting into. They continue to point out
that people should never let greed get the best of them because they will miss
the main point. "The Old Man with
Enormous Wings" and "The Rocking-Horse Winner" offer different
versions of the same idea. The reader
easily receives both of their messages and certain to be forgiving of their
main character's ignorance and naivety.
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