Violence, a great destructive force, or energy. Violence, a culture, or lifestyle. A natural trepidation of all man, something that can change the perspective of the world, and how one views their situation in it. The earth is no stranger to violence, no continent is immune to its destruction. No psyche is insusceptible to its effect. Violence is a subculture of religion, as well as a defense against differences that the human race shares. Love as well as solitude, can be results of violence, and aggression; exaggerated by human emotion and unclear expectations. Violence insidiously sneaks up on a nation, on a people, on a culture, and forever changes what is moral, and what is nefarious. One of the only ways for a memory of violence to be expressed comes from a narrative, a story (Arva 1). Gabriel Garcia Marquez is no stranger to violence, and expresses his opinion on the matter through his personal and magical narrative.
Engaged in the longest civil war in the western hemisphere, with an extensive history of violence, Colombia, is the inspiration, as well as the home for Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Brittain 57). Consider A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings , although violence is not the main focus of the story, it is evident that the community in which Marquez speaks has been plagued by it. Marquez grew up with “historical trauma”. The history of violence in Colombia is deep rooted, precolonial, and evident in everyday life (Sickels 20).Once Pelayo finds the man, he calls his wife, Elisenda, “ They look at him so long and so closely… soon overcame their surprise and in the end found him familiar” ( Marquez 217). This gives the impression that Pelayo and Elisenda have been victims of violence, the fact that they find this creature, w...
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...g, and express his desires, as well as his cultures desires, to be free from their memories, and express the pain that is often to painful to say out loud.
Works Cited
Arva, Eugene. "The Tramatic Imagination: Histories of Violence in Magical Realist Fiction." Cambria. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Jan. 2014.
Brittain, James, and James Sacouman. "Agrarian Transformation and Resistance in the Colombian Countryside." Labour, Capital & Society. 41.1 (2008): 56-83. Academic Search Premier. Web. 22 Jan. 2014.
Márquez, Gabriel García. Collected Stories. New York: Harper & Row, 1984. Print.
Sickels, Amy. "Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Cultural and Historical Contexts." Salem Press (n.d.): 19-33. Web. 26 Jan. 2014.
Von Der Walde, Erna, and Carmen Burbano. "Violence in Colombia: A Timeline." NACLA Report on the Americas 35.1 (2001): 24-29. Academic Search Premier. Web. 23 Jan. 2014.
The broad range of topographical elevations has encouraged agricultural expansion whose diverse production of food constitutes an important part of the Colombian economy. The agricultural sector contributed 14% of GDP, excluding coffee, with a production worth almost 11 billion US. In the hot lowlands of the Caribbean heartland, the inter-montages valleys, and the savannas of Orinoquia, there are immense plantations of bananas, sugar cane, rice, cotton, soybeans and sorghum, and large cattle farms that produce meat and dairy products. (Sited Dennis Hanratty)
McGuirk, Bernard and Richard Cardwell, edd. Gabriel Garcia Marquez: New Readings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987).
In the story “A Very Old Man With Wings”, Gabriel Garcia Marquez writes about the
Giants and Angels roam the pages of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s stories, “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings”, and “The Handsomest Drowned Man In The World”, creating the perfect scene for magical realism. Many of the elements within these stories coincide with each other; this has everything to do with the overall component of magical realism, which binds together similarities and sets apart differences. The theme of each story can be found within the other and can stand by itself to represent the story it belongs to, the settings are similar in location and the ability to change but different in their downsides and the writing style is so similar it is complicated to find any differences. Marquez is a master story-teller whose works of art can only be compared with each other.
In 1949, Dana Gioia reflected on the significance of Gabriel García Márquez’s narrative style when he accurately quoted, “[it] describes the matter-of-fact combination of the fantastic and everyday in Latin American literature” (Gioia). Today, García Márquez’s work is synonymous with magical realism. In “Un Señor Muy Viejo con Alas Enormes,” the tale begins with be dramatically bleak fairytale introduction:
Work Cited Garcia Marquez, Gabriel. Chronicle of a Death Foretold. New York: Vintage International, 2008.
McGuirk, Bernard and Richard Cardwell, edd. Gabriel Garcia Marquez: New Readings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987).
The Old Gringo is a fiction novel written by one of Latin America's most renowned and eloquent authors, Carlos Fuentes. Filled with war, adventure, love and more, this novel takes you back to the Mexican revolution fought in 1912. This contemporary fiction is based on many themes found and experienced by the main characters in this novel. The relationship between Mexico and the United States, the drive to find one's true self and the different ways two men need a woman are only a few themes contained in this story. The question: Is he Ambrose Bierce or just an old gringo, is one that I had to answer while reading this book. We all have different opinions, but it is a question that all ask themselves while reading The Old Gringo.
CENTRAL IDEA: The Colombian society has being plagued by its history of drug, violence, and corruption, although it is a beautiful country with many cultures, they sometimes can be overshadowed by this history.
Style: The typical Magical- Realistic story of García Márquez placed in a familiar environment where supernatural things take place as if they were everyday occurrences. Main use of long and simple sentences with quite a lot of detail. "There were only a few faded hairs left on his bald skull and very few teeth in his mouth, and his pitiful condition of a drenched great-grandfather took away and sense of grandeur he might have had" (589).
The nature of brutality is not something to be toyed with, the carnage it causes to individuals, families and institutions cannot be overestimated and Gabriel Garcia Marquez shows us that willfully ignoring it’s entry into our community is tantamount to destruction and when faced with the desecration of anything we place in high regard, we should always question the role of brutality and consider the alternative that emphasizes the importance of human life and due process.
Reports from Amnesty International (2013) highlight its association with internal conflict, violations of international humanitarian laws, internally displaced persons (IDPs), mass killings from bombing urban villages, sexual abuse, assassinations of government officials, and kidnapping/hostage situations. Colombia is associated for one of the highest kidnapping rates in the world (Restrepo, Spagat, Vargas, 2004). Ultimately, Colombia is a hostile and insecure environment for its civilians, with kidnappings, political conflicts, armed conflicts, and assaults (Watson, 1998; Theidon, 2007). A concerning topic is the human rights violations of Colombian citizens.
García, Márquez Gabriel. Chronicle of a Death Foretold. Gregory Rabassa New York: Knopf, 1983. Print.
The symbolism in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novella, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, emphasises the connection of the rural Colombian people and the Bible. The names, deaths, and spector activity as symbolism greatly affect the novella’s parallels to Christianity.
SPILLER, ELIZABETH A. "'Searching for the route of inventions': Retracing the Renaissance Discovery Narrative in Gabriel Garcia Marquez." CLIO, vol. 28, no. 4, 1999, p. 375. Literature Resource Center, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A58038276/GLS?u=avlr&sid=GLS&xid=dff64018. Accessed 3 Apr.