In the two short stories, “The House of Asterion” by Jorge Luis Borges and “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings” by Gabriel Garcia, the authors both use gothic elements which include the setting (where the story takes place), characters ( the main people in the story), and plot point ( near death, the night, the escape, miraculous survival, etc). With characters being a gothic element, both stories share that. In “The House of Asterion” there aren’t that many characters but there is a mysterious character we the readers are trying to figure out. Asterion is a minotaur, which a supernatural creature, half-man, half-bull. In Garcia’s story, the mysterious character is the old man with enormous wings. With the old man, we the readers, and the characters in the story were trying to figure out what kind of person he was. It was weird seeing an old man who looked unwell and sick with huge palish wings.

The second gothic element used in these stories is settings. The setting for “The House of Asterion” is in a castle with no furniture where Asterion himself is a prisoner, but not really because the doors are unlocked. But he’s a prisoner because of society, because people are afraid of him and how he looks. In “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings” the setting is in a village that experiences really bad weather, rain.

The last gothic element used in these stories is the plot point. In “The House of Asterion” the major plot point is death. In the story, Asterion, who is also the narrator, says in the story that every nine years, nine people enter his castle but they do not make it out alive. He doesn’t do anything though. This is just something that the villagers do, a sacrifice. It’s a sacrifice because the villagers think that Asterion will attack them all if they don’t sacrifice. In “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings” the plot point is also death or near death. Pelayo and Elisenda’s newborn wasn’t doing so well before the mysterious creature, the old man with enormous wings, appeared in the back of their house. The old man himself appeared to be near death because of how he looked. But when Pelayo and his wife started to question if the old man was dying or not, the newborn started getting better and so did the old man. He got better and stretched his then damaged wings and flew off into the horizon like it was nothing.