Marquez’s and Byatt’s Short Stories Comparison

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Table of Contents

Angel: Why People do not Receive Blessings
The Thing in the Woods: What Fear Means
Angel and the Thing: Lessons in Morality
References

Angel: Why People do not Receive Blessings

The essence of God’s messengers, the angels, has long been asked by philosophers and theologians. Marquez reveals the angel’s identity through a man with white wings, but I believe there is more human than divine in him. The lethargy suffering characterizes the angel, and fading often accompanies a man weary of worldly burdens. The family locks him in the henhouse because his appearance does not resemble an angel: “he dressed like ragpicker”; and these people are too used to trusting their eyes (Marquez, 341). Sometimes it is one’s inability to transcend one’s preconceptions leads to a false perception of reality.

Through the angel’s personality, Marquez shows that sometimes faith goes against the true meaning of things. Faith accompanies a person who cannot give up his opinion and accept a new reality. People experience the same events differently because their views of the world differ. Those who can trust the ugly creature see it as good and a messenger who tests people’s faith. And those who use it to get money do not pass the test and remain miserable and unable to understand reality.

The Thing in the Woods: What Fear Means

A person may be accompanied by events, the consequences of which cannot be reconciled. It leads one to forget the terrible things or, conversely, to concentrate on one’s fear. Thus, an item in the woods becomes a set of parts we want to get rid of and never remember. The fates of the girls Penny and Primrose are very similar: losses in their families, a horrible childhood, and a perpetual fear for life. One can see it in their’ mothers’ behavior: “So the mothers (who did not resemble each other at all) behaved alike, and explained nothing” (Byatt, 165). They try to overcome this, and eventually, their minds create something that embodies their experiences. Growing up, they find this thing again because they cannot forget the experienced horrors. Byatt shows that things like war and loss cloud the mind, and our brains look for distractions.

Penny lives her life; Primrose has a different path, seeing other things in the dreaded worm. Their journey is different, so they see reality differently, but eventually, they agree: the true human self is the same. Byatt understands truth as a universal and absolute something that brings people together like the worm: “The rest of its very large body appeared to be glued together” (Byatt, 186). And faith is an interpretation based on lived experience.

Angel and the Thing: Lessons in Morality

Both stories are similar: each teaches you to look at the world in a new way and to try to find the truth in it. Marquez and Byatt see truth differently, but they agree on the main point: everything comes with experience, but it teaches some and not others. Marquez’s lesson is that the responsibility for our lives is ours, and we can make a difference. For example, the padre was not afraid to come close because there is no difference between “a hawk and an airplane” (Marquez, 342). The lesson of Byatt is to be able to accept one’s human nature and cope with life’s difficulties. Both stories are instructive and essential to understanding the meaning of life.

References

Marquez, G. G. (2014). A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings (Marquez 2014). Penguin Books Ltd.

Byatt, A. S. (2011). The Thing in the Forest. Vintage Digital.

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Marquez’s and Byatt’s Short Stories Comparison

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