Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Gabriel Garcia Marquez does a great job of showing us his forms of showing us great examples of magical realism in both of his short stories, "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings," and "The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World."  His sense of magical realism is much more subtle than that of Julio Cortazar who often leaves us with a gut-wrenching, I just found out my dog has cancer sort of a feeling.  Whereas, Marquez uses a much more subtle style of writing.  After reading these stories it seems to me that Marquez tries to make references to what he thinks should change in our society through subtle hints to the reader.  A good example of this was in "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings," Marquez seems to tell the reader indirectly that when you read a story, you should not just be reading the story for the ending.  In his subtle manner, Marquez relays this to the reader by simply ending the story without a "fun" ending.  The ending to this story seems to be Marquez's way of taking a stab at a problem with humanity as a whole.  I think he is trying to tell us as a people to enjoy the story, as well as the ending.  I very much enjoyed this story and thought that it provided an interesting change in point of view.  I felt like this was a refreshing change from the ordinary short story where all I typically look for is what is the ever important ending.  Marquez does a nice job of not letting this happen in his short story.  After discussing this story in class, I found it to be intriguing that Marquez pokes at humanity to get his point across. For me, this was a very effective way in which to get his point across.  I have always been a rather sarcastic person, and as I see this way in which to get your point across rather effective for myself in particular.  By mocking humanity for their simple needs, like being satisfied by the ending of a short story, he seems to show how much he actually cares about us as a whole.

I found the story "The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World" to be very different from the first story we read by Marquez.  The most interesting part of this story to me was the publication in which it was printed.  Being that this famous short story was meant for Playboy, this changed how I read and understood this short story.  Because Playboy is meant for men in the 60 plus region, I thought that this story had quite an interesting message, as subtle as it may have seemed.  From what I gathered Marquez wanted the message of this short story to mock the way in which older gentlemen who read Playboy think.  Marquez subtly wants these gentlemen to realize that what they are seeking is unobtainable.  That in "real life" there are not women who look like Playmates.  In "real life" people do not have perfectly airbrushed faces and bodies, do not walk around scantily clad, waiting for the next snapshot to take place, and return to their perfect dream world's.  No, not in any world does this happen, and that is what Marquez relays to us through his short story.  He wants to let the reader know that when they set these ridiculous expectations for women in their lives, they will always fall short, as Playmates do not exist in "real life."  The irony of this story being put into one of the most popular smut magazines of all time must be seen as very amusing by a man like Gabriel Garcia Marquez.