Midterm Essay Draft

The Angel and the Minotaur

         For those who have read these stories, I believe there is no denying that “The House of Asterion” (THA), and “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” (AVOMEW) are completely different stories, however they are at the same time similar. It sounds contradictory does it not? What is truly similar is the two main characters as well as the gothic elements the two stories share. What similarities do these characters share, what gothic elements do these two very different stories share, and what element is used to help the reader feel sympathetic for these characters.  We will take a look at gothic elements such as Central gothic irony, Todorov’s theory of the fantastic, irony, redemption, and paradox. 

            THA is about Asterion (a minotaur) who is unaware that he is trapped within a maze. He is sent tributes for slaughter every nine years, but one of the tributes prophesized that his redeemer would come. The redeemer, which we were introduced to at the end of the story took the life of Asterion, whom did not put of much of a struggle because he himself wanted to be redeemed. AVOMEW is a story of an old man with wings whom is found on the shore by a woman named Elisenda and her husband. The couple had a sickly child and they were convinced that the old man was an angel that was here to take their child away. Due to the strange appearance of the old man, and the fact that they could not prove he was an angel; he was imprisoned within a cage, discriminated upon, and used for financial gain by Elisenda and her husband. After the townsfolks were bored with the old man, Elisenda with no further use for the old man was more than happy to let him go, because he served no purpose to her.

            In both stories we are introduced to main characters whom we cannot identify as human, but have humanlike features. Asterion (the minotaur) and the old man with wings (the angel) are both mythical creatures. Both main characters were discriminated upon by the humans since they themselves were not human. Both characters were imprisoned due to discrimination; one in a cage, and the other in a maze. Asterion does not seem to mind his situation and also does not seem to realize that he is a prisoner while the old man is not happy with his situation and is fully aware that he is a prisoner. At the end of THA, Asterion found freedom from his prison through death, which he himself was content with and dubbed his slayer as his redeemer. At the end of AVOMEW, the old man was also freed and took off into the sky, which could have signified the rising above the ignorance of the humans.

            Central gothic irony is the return to the way of living from before there was a conflict to be had. We will call this the return to normalcy. We’ve already seen some similarities that both characters and their stories shared, but did they desire the return to normalcy?

 Asterion did not desire the return to normalcy, or what he believed to be his normal way of living. Although Asterion was happy that every nine years, nine people were sent to him to be “delivered from evil,” it was but a phrase that one of the dying men said that made Asterion not want to live his repetitive life. One of the dying men prophesized that someday Asterion’s redeemer would come, which seemed to excite Asterion. “I hope he will take me to a place with fewer galleries fewer doors,” Asterion looked forward to his redemption at the hands of this mysterious man.

 The character Elisenda in story AVOMEW desired normalcy. It’s not clear what the old man himself wanted but we can tell that he was not thrilled with being the spectacle for others entertainment, nor was he thrilled by the abuse he suffered by the townsfolk. Elisenda was happy when the old man with wings left her town, because to her, he was nothing more than an “annoyance in her life.” The gothic element of irony can be noticed in that statement considering how much money she has made from the imprisonment and maltreatment of the old man. Some may even credit her sickly child becoming healthy to the old man with wings which would make Elisenda’s statement even more ironic.

Next we will take a look at Todorov’s theory of the fantastic in both stories. This theory hints that a story may go in the direction of the fantastic, the uncanny, or the marvelous. The fantastic is the questioning of the supernatural, the uncertainty of whether an event is indeed supernatural or if it can be explained by the laws of the world. The uncanny is the supernatural explained. The marvelous is the supernatural accepted as the supernatural.

            AVOMEW started out in the direction of the fantastic but then turned into the marvelous. AVOMEW had the minister (of god) who has tried to communicate with the angel but noticed that the angel did not speak their language nor did he match the majestic appearance in which they envisioned. The old man seemed far too human to be an angel, a human with disgusting wings (although they have never seen or met an angel before). It became a marvelous story when the spider with a maiden’s face was introduced and was wholly accepted by the townsfolks. 

THA seemed to be the uncanny when reading the beginning, but towards the end makes it apparent that it was the marvelous. THA seemed to explain the supernatural events, such as the townsfolks claiming that Asterion was a prisoner while Asterion himself claimed to not be a prisoner. Readers would assume that prisoners are locked up however, Asterion claimed that there were no locks to be found, thus Asterion can’t be a prisoner. This explains why Asterion believes he is not a prisoner. The paradox here is that Asterion was indeed a prisoner, but he was locked away in a maze, not behind a door, or in a cage. This explain why the townsfolks claimed Asterion to be a prisoner. At the end of the story, we come to find that supernatural creatures exist, and that Asterion himself is one of those creatures (which is why he was locked in the maze) which makes this the marvelous instead of the uncanny.

 Gothic elements were used to help the reader sympathize with the old man and Asterion.  In AVOMEW the townsfolks did not believe the old man to be Angel because he did not match THEIR EXPECTATIONS on what an angel should look like, which is a paradox. “Then he noticed that seen up close he was much too human: he has an unbearable smell of the outdoors, the back of his wings was strewn with parasites and his main feathers had been mistreated by terrestrial winds, and nothing about him measured up to the proud dignity of angels.” The townsfolks were selfish and only focused on what they believed the old man could do for them, but never have they once tried to see what they can do for the old man. The townsfolks had no sympathy whatsoever for the old man. The old man was even threatened with violence, made a circus act out of, and extorted, this made it very easy for me as a reader to sympathize greatly with the old man.            

            In THA, Asterion, whom was also the narrator for the vast majority of the story, made it clear that he was different from others within the town, and opened with the statement “I know they accuse me of arrogance, and perhaps misanthropy, and perhaps of madness. Such accusations (for which I shall exact punishment in due time) are derisory.” Asterion was isolated from others, but was given a tribute of nine humans every nine years, as if it’s a sacrifice to the gods to keep their town safe, or maybe, to keep Asterion from going into their town. It was not until the end of the story that we found out that Asterion was in fact a minotaur. I found it weird that although the townsfolks treat Asterion as nothing more than a monster, Borges humanizes Asterion throughout this short story. The fact that Borges made Asterion seem so human, helped me to sympathize with Asterion. This story used the gothic element of dramatic irony to showcase the fact that Asterion was a prisoner, but was not aware and did not believe himself to be a prisoner “Another ridiculous falsehood has it that I Asterion am a prisoner. Shall I repeat that there are no locked doors, shall I add that there are no locks?” My knowledge as a reader made me sympathize with him, for the fact that he is but a frog in the well.