Author: shontelle

While experiencing life each person will run into a string for situations that enable different reactions and emotions. Some situations will permit happiness, fear, anger, sadness and embarrassment just to name a few, when these emotions surface a person may react rationally or irrationally. 

In the stories we’ve read, the characters teach us about gothic limits, violence, death and return to normalcy. We learn and understand how each character’s situation enables them to have the response they do and may ultimately help show us how to engage or disengage from fearful situations. The stories “The Yellow WallPaper” by Gilman and “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” by Marquez both emphasize the idea and struggles of social issues. 

The Yellow Wallpaper by Gilman: short story published in 1892. The characters in this story the narrator and John. 

• John is a doctor and his patient is his wife whom he is ultimately destroying their relationship with his ignorance and blunt disregard to what confusion she is really in and how she feels by her own words. Not how he thinks she should or needs to feel. 

● John’s wife (the narrator) is struggling internally and cannot even confide in her husband, she turns to writing and hides it from him. The narrator disregards and attempts to avoid the full acknowledgment of her external situations and how that affects her drastically internally. She is a very imaginative woman who dreams of all of these things she wishes to do and could be. -In this story, the narrator has to lose herself in order to understand

herself and learn how her and the women trapped in the wallpaper are similar, both stuck in patterns of living that aren’t the way they want to live. 

• “I’ve got out at last, in spite of you and Jane.” represents her final detachment from reality. 
• Self expression and subordinate women in marriages (themes) 

A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings by Marquez is a short story published in 1955. The characters are the Old Man, Pelayo, and Elisenda. 

• Old man – Human body but unexpected wings, is human like but still surreal. Many villagers aren’t kind to the old man because he is different. 
• -Pelayo is another character who although isn’t a very charismatic or caring person, he allows the old man to stay with him but this was at a price. 
• Elisenda is Pelayos wife. She came up with the idea to charge admission to allow villagers to see the “Angel”. 
• is kindness vs meanness. cruelty vs compassion (themes) 

The couple was going to put the old man to sea on a raft with provisions for days (cruelty) but instead exploited him by showing a little compassion but still benefited from the situation. ● Examines human response to those who are weak, dependent and also unique. ● Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”