Virtual Coffeehouse#2

“A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” and “The house of Asterion” they both have similar gothic elements mysterious character. In the story “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” has a mysterious character show up at the sea coast village where Pelayo finds an old man with wings and his neighbor believes it’s an angle seeking to take his sick son. Father Gonzaga has its doubt that the man is an angle because he doesn’t speak Latin and looks human like. In the story “The house of Asterion” the mysterious character is Asterion because at first we learn that Asterion the son of the queen and then we learned that some people believe that he’s a prisoner but the doors are unlocked. Then learned that he once went to the streets, but people feared him. Finally, we learned at the end that Asterion is a minotaur.

Another gothic element is plot point in this case death/near death. In the story “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” Pelayo child is very sick before the old man arrives and a day after he arrives the child recovers from his/her illness. The old man can be either be death himself or an actually angel because if he was death by him collapsing outside and not getting to the child, the child was able to recover or he was an angel and by his presence being there helped recover the child. In the story “The house of Asterion” it talks about nine men entering the castle where the minotaur is at so that he may deliver them from evil. They talks about them falling and remaining there basically saying that they died by Asterion.    

The other gothic element is setting in the story “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” the setting takes place in a sea coast village where it rains constantly causing damages to Pelayo and Elisenda home. The setting in “The house of Asterion” takes place in Labyrinths in a castle were the minotaur is kept and its described as being unlocked and with no furniture.