Isiah Ellison

Midterm Essay, ENG 2001

Professor: Sean Scanlan

Oct 25th, 2020

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? Both Asterion and the old man share many similarities with how they are treated, especially since they were treated in a way that just makes you feel sorry for them. How do the authors of these two very different stories help the reader to sympathize with Asterion, and the old man with wings? We will take a look at how discrimination, and gothic elements such as Central gothic irony, irony, redemption, and paradox were utilized to help the reader feel sympathy for the two main characters. 

            THA is about Asterion (a minotaur) who is unaware that he is a prisoner 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 up 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 the author’s used discrimination in similar ways, and the main characters in a way parallel each other. Both are 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 at first does not seem to mind his situation and also does not seem to realize that he is a prisoner; while the old man with wings is not happy with his situation, and is fully aware that he is a prisoner. At the end of THA the author used the gothic element of redemption to free Asterion from his prison by being redeemed 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 from his prison and he 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 that both stories paralleled each other in terms of the discrimination suffered by the main characters, 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. Asterion was feared by the people “The people prayed, fled, prostrated themselves; some climbed onto the stylobate of the temple of the axes, others gathered stones. One of them, I believe, hid himself beneath the sea” (Borges, 1964). Although Asterion was at first 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” (Borges, 1964). Asterion looked forward to his redemption at the hands of this mysterious man. Redemption was carried out through the death of Asterion; thus, normalcy was not achieved for Asterion which is what he wanted.

            The person who desired normalcy in the story AVOMEW was not the old man with wings himself, but another character, Elisenda. 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 “The angel was the only one who took no part in his own act” (Marquez, 1972), nor was he thrilled by the abuse he suffered by the townsfolk “the cripples pulled out feathers to touch their defective parts with, and even the most merciful threw stones at him, trying to get him to rise so they could see him standing. The only time they succeeded in arousing him was when they burned his side with an iron for branding steers, for he had been motionless for so many hours that they thought he was dead. He awoke with a start, ranting in his hermetic language and with tears in his eyes, and he flapped his wings a couple of times, which brought on a whirlwind of chicken dung and lunar dust and a gale of panic that did not seem to be of this world” (Marquez, 1972). Elisenda was happy when the old man with wings left her town; this is how normalcy was achieved. “She kept watching him even when she was through cutting the onions and she kept on watching until it was no longer possible for her to see him, because then he was no longer an annoyance in her life but an imaginary dot on the horizon of the sea.” (Marquez, 1972). The author used the gothic element of irony to help the reader sympathize with the angel which is displayed with the statement mentioned above as well as the knowledge that Elisenda made money 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 feelings towards the old man even more ironic, thus making the reader feel even more sympathetic for the old man considering that he has indirectly helped Elisenda while she directly was the cause for his pain and suffering.

The author in AVOMEW used the gothic elements of abject and paradox to help us sympathize with the old man. 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 (note that the townsfolk have never met, nor seen an angel before), which is the 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” (Marquez, 1972). 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, abused, made a circus act out of, and extorted; this was the abject, and this made it very easy for me as a reader to sympathize greatly with the old man.        

            The author in THA used the gothic elements of dramatic irony, and paradox to help the reader sympathize with Asterion. 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; he claimed to be the son of a queen, 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” (Borges, 1964). 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 not a human but a minotaur. The dramatic irony was that although the townsfolks treat Asterion as nothing more than a monster, Borges humanizes Asterion throughout this short story. The paradox was 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?” 

(Borges, 1964). My knowledge as a reader made me sympathize with him for the fact that he was simply a frog in the well.

References

Márquez, G. G. (1972). A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings: A Tale for Children.

Borges, J. L. (1964). The House of Asterion. In Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other 

Writings, ed. Donald A. Yates and James E. Irby, London: Penguin. pp. 170-172