Marquez using the binaries of dream vs reality in this story as one of the main binaries to criticize religion in Latin American culture. We have the imaginary and reality living in the same setting. This fallen man in their yard is said to be an angel. They pay no attention to him, except to make money off him by having people pay to come see him as if he is a member of the circus. On page 203 is says that “the light was so weak at noon that when Pelayo was coming back to the house after throwing away the crabs, it was hard for him to see what is was that was moving and groaning in the rear of the courtyard.” This sense of darkness contradicts what we would normally associate with an angel. When I think of angels I think of bright lights. But here we have a fallen angel associated with the weak light. I see criticism of religion first when keep this angel, who is supposedly to be one of gods messengers, in a chicken coop, and charge people to come see him “as if he weren’t a supernatural creature but a circus animal.”(205) We see greed and selfishness here, they are mistreating this supernatural being for some money. Then I see criticism of the church when the Father Gonzaga comes to the chicken coop. Because the angel does not understand Latin , the priest’s “first suspicion of an impostor when he saw he did not understand the language of God” (205) , he also says that the angel looks to much human, he smelt and his feathers had been mistreated. The priest then “warned the curious against the risks of being ingenuous. He reminded them that eh devil had the bad habit of making use of carnival tricks in order to confuse the unwary.” (206) As a priest the father should have seen this angle as a sign from god, as supernatural figure, but instead he doubts the angles existence as an angel. Everyone was a nonbeliever, but in the end they are all proven wrong. They were all so focused on his appearance they did not recognize that he “seemed to be in so many places at the same time that they grew to think that he’d been duplicated, that he was reproducing himself all through the house”(209) or his strength to survive the “worst winter”. They had all doubted this religious being, their biggest worry was that they did not know what to do with him if he died, and in the end when he regains strength and flies away everyone was proven wrong and all have lost the opportunity to appreciate somewhat of a miracle, something that they will never be able to see again. No one followed had faith in their religion and truly believed his existence as an angel, not even the priest.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez uses the binaries of dream vs reality in this story as one of the main binaries to criticize religion in Latin American culture. We also have the real and imaginary living in the same setting. This fallen man in their yard is said to be an angel. However, they pay no attention to him, except to make money off him by having people pay to come see him as if he is a member of the circus. On page 203 is says that “the light was so weak at noon that when Pelayo was coming back to the house after throwing away the crabs, it was hard for him to see what is was that was moving and groaning in the rear of the courtyard.” This sense of darkness contradicts what we would normally associate with an angel, when I think of angels I think of bright lights. But here we have a fallen angel associated with the weak light. I see criticism of religion first when keep this angel, who is supposedly to be one of God’s messengers, in a chicken coop, and they charge people to come see him “as if he weren’t a supernatural creature but a circus animal”(205). We see greed and selfishness here, they are mistreating this supernatural being simply for money. Then there is the criticism of the church when the Father Gonzaga comes to the chicken coop. Since the angel does not understand Latin , the priest’s “first suspicion of an impostor when he saw he did not understand the language of God” (205) , he also says that the angel looks too much human, he smelt and his feathers had been mistreated. But who is to say what an angel looks like? How does the priest know angels don’t look like humans? He does not believe. The priest then “warned the curious against the risks of being ingenuous. He reminded them that the devil had the bad habit of making use of carnival tricks in order to confuse the unwary” (206). As a priest the father should have seen this angle as a sign from God, as supernatural figure, but instead he doubts the angles existence as an angel. Everyone was a nonbeliever, but in the end they are all proven wrong. They were all so focused on his appearance they did not recognize that he “seemed to be in so many places at the same time that they grew to think that he’d been duplicated, that he was reproducing himself all through the house” (209) or his strength to survive the “worst winter”. They had all doubted this religious being, their biggest worry was that they did not know what to do with him if he died. But in the end when he regains strength and flies away everyone was proven wrong and all have lost the opportunity to appreciate somewhat of a miracle. Something that they will never be able to see again. No one had faith in their religion and truly believed his existence as an angel, not even the priest.
ReplyDelete