Both the stories “The House of Asterion” and “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” had similar Gothic Elements. Lets start with the main protagonist in “The House of Asterion”. The main character Mr.Asterion himself seems to be writing in what seems to be a journal maybe about his home. According to him his house is huge, to the point where he tries to say its endless or infinite. He as a character follows the Gothic character element by being a mysterious person. He says throughout the story weird things like he never goes outside or the fact that he hurts himself for his own amusement. These sort of things are not normal in any society making him a mysterious person. This story was also very short so in my opinion I believe that there was one big plot point that follows the Gothic element (the miraculous survival). This is the fact that he always says hes alone except where he briefly mentioned people come every nine years. But other than that he is always alone. How can a person who is always alone and doesnt go outside survive. He never mentions food or going outside to even get food. So how does he eat, how does he manage to stay alive. are we to assume the food is somewhere around or is he immune to starvation. It doesnt add up, thus making it a miraculous survival. The setting now, it doesnt say that the setting is in a castle, but by the way the main character explains it the house is to big to be any other estate. It has resemblance in size and it was stated theres a courtyard. those are normally in castles.
Now for our next story I believe the main character is the old man. Yes the make it seem as though Pelayo was the main character but the old man is the center piece of the story. The old man is similar to our last protagonist because he is also a mysterious person. No one knows where he comes from, he speaks a different language no one understands, and he has giant wings. How much more mysterious can you get. With the plot points it seems the old man goes through a near death experience. Before taken in by Pelayo he was looking sick and on the verge of death. Pelayo and his wife even said it in the story that they thought he would die soon. When they took him in it was out of kindness and the fact they believed he was an angel sent down for there son (there son healed from an illness),but it soon turned into a money scheme. The used him as a tourist attraction and made a lot of money off of him. At the end of the story the old man miraculously got healthy and flew away making the next plot point, his escape. Finally the setting of the story was an old house but you can argue a church might have been involved because the priest and was always around the old man. You can even say the chicken coupe was the settings since thats where the old man stayed. Its sad and gloomy to think of an old man in a chicken coupe.
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