In the stories “House of Asterion” by Jorge Luis Borges and “ A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, both stories include gothic elements such as mysterious characters, plot points and settings. In “House of Asterion”, the character we will be discussing is the narrator who is described as being arrogant and having a dislike for humankind which he claims to be false. At the end of the story he reveals that he is a bull with a man’s face called Minotaur. In the story “ A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings”, the character is the old man who has a human body and wings. He was bald, had very few teeth in his mouth and was in very bad condition. The angel speaks in a dialect which makes it difficult for the locals to communicate with him. He was treated like a circus animal while he was being held captive by Pelayo and his wife. Father Gonzaga had a suspicion that the angel was an impostor because he didn’t fit the description of what an angel should have been like, all because he was much too human, did not understand the language of God and had parasites. One outstanding characteristic of the angel is that he had enormous patience, despite the horrible treatment he received , he managed to never lash out of anyone. At the end, he gets enough rest and strength to be able to fly away. 

In “House of Asterion” and “ A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings” the point plot is death/near death. In the first story, the narrator reveals that every nine years , nine people enter his house but do not leave, they end up dying. One of those nine people who entered into his home revealed that his redeemer would come. In the second story, near death is experienced when we find out that the angels’ purpose on earth was to take Pelayo’s sick child to heaven. The angel also experienced near death because while he was captured, the people would throw stones at him and try to pluck out his feathers. The old man is kept in a chicken coop for a couple of years and just when Pelayo and Elisanda think he is experiencing near death, the angel regains his strength and takes off. 

The gothic setting of the story “The house of Asterion” is described as a house with no doors or furniture and whoever steps a foot in there will find peace and solitude. He also adds that there’s no locked doors as well as no locks on the doors. He goes on to describe that his house is repeated many times and that “any place is another place”. In “ A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings”, the story first takes place Pelayo’s courtyard which is where he discovers the old man who turns out to be the angel.