A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings

   It was not until I had reached the middle of A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings that it reminded me of a book I had when I was a child. My grandfather gave me a book of Aesop's most popular fables for a birthday of mine.

   This book was filled with fables that all told a story that would have some useful life meaning behind it. Whether it was crystal clear or I had to have my mother explain it to me, there was some sort of lesson. To me, this is one of those times where I had to look a little deeper into the meaning behind the story.

Aesop's fables - link to a page full of them!

  The moral of the story is not one that is simply put. 

   The family in the story, to me, is portrayed as one without many funds and isn't living the ideal life. Which I found to be very ironic that they would try to make money off of the poor man's misfortunes. In the beginning of the story, the old woman is very sure that the man is an angel but has been roughed up. But as the story goes on, it says how they pluck his wings and is left to burrow in the mud looking no more majestic than a bat. This poor man is stripped of what could have been a beautiful set of wings had the villagers taken care of them and was then left to be roomies with the chickens.

    As the story goes on, Marquez tells us that the man becomes very ill and was not expected to live much longer. However, he survived through the winter and to my surprise, started to grow strong and beautiful feathers. 

     

     And this is where it all came together for me. Even though this man (who we think is sent from heaven) is put through a living hell and is stripped of his dignity, was able to persevere and take flight. Not only did he have perseverance and patience, he sacrificed himself for a family who had nothing to their name, sold his pride, and were never thankful for the money they were "given" even though if it weren't for him, they would be worse off. 

 I guess you could call them morals, but to me, this is what I felt the story was trying to portray. 

     1. You never know when or how you will be blessed, but when you are, be thankful. 

     2. Don't let others try and determine your fate. ( plucking his feathers and leaving him to die)

     3. How quick are you to benefit off of someone's misfortunes? 

In search of images to put up here, I found a trailer for a production of the tale on youtube. 

  

    

   

Open Your Ears: Sonny's Blues

    I chose to write this blog post on Sonny's Blues because I found it very captivating and thought it was a very touching story. While reading I found that there were many recurring themes throughout the whole story, but the one thing I thought was very dominate and felt that it impacted the whole story was "listening". In the beginning it mentions that the Narrator listens to the boy laughing outside of his window and how it captivates him and brings him back to a much later time when him and his brother were children. I found this to be a key factor which would later play another role in the story. 

    As I continued to read, there were numerous occasions where listening played the role of different senses and feelings, which I believed to be very powerful and added depth to his story. For example, when the Narrator is talking about how his wife knew something was wrong with their daughter when she heard the daughter fall but heard no tears. Fear was immediately was invoked in her and she rushed to her child to find that she was in desperate need of help. At the very end when Sonny invites the Narrator to come and finally listen to him play his music, the Narrator sees his parents as well as his little girl who had died.

     Even though the Sonny and the Narrator were constantly butting heads, its when the Narrator listened to his brothers music that he was able to see who he really was and understand his suffering as well as accept his own.