rohamsameni
Among so many characteristics of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's magical realist short story, "A Very old man with Enormous Wings", this post is intended to focus on only metafictional element that appears in this story. Metafiction deals with a self-conscious reader and challenges his prior belief in fiction and reality. The short story belongs to the tradition of magical realism genre, which blends reality and fantasy and uses the "metafictive device" to make the reality and fiction apparent to the reader.
John Thiem in "The Textualization of the Reader in Magical Realist Fiction" approaches this concept by defining an idea that is used commonly through magical realist literature. In Thiem's article, the relation of the defined term, "textualization", with metafiction is identified as: "A magical realist topos which includes a pronounced metafictional dimension" (240). Thiem defines textualization in two parts. First, when a reader or author is transported into the world of a text, which sometimes becomes a character in the story, he is reading. Second type takes place when the world of a text intrudes into the reader's world and occurring of this is possible through the magical realist nature of textualization.
In Marquez's story, examples of both types of textualization are evident to the reader. The first confront of Pelayo and Elisenda with the angel is an elusive example of the first type. " They looked at him so long and so closely that Pelayo and Elisenda very soon overcame their surprise and in the end found him familiar" (Marquez 331). Although a man with enormous wings seems extraordinary to the reader at first, but as he reaches the end of the story this creature is not as odd as it looks at the beginning. The reader shares the same feeling with these two characters. Therefore, he feels transported into the world of the text. On the other hand, "Rome" is a symbol of Christianity in the real world which appears in Marquez's Story. Thus, the text enters the real world and causes the "textualized reader" to return into reality. This can be considered as an example of the second type of the textualization. The reader also may feel the illusion of being in the story, when the doctor is called into the chicken coop to examine the old man. When he accepts the reality of the wings, like the reader, again we see that a magical realist text becomes "self-reflective" and metafictional. Note that the "doctor" is another symbol of the real world that reader can make connection with, in the story.
Thiem believes that some postmodern stories are "double-coded" (243). One code is understandable through the "wide readership" and is for commercial intentions. The second code is less popular and is related to “serious readers” such as postmodern theorists and other writers. Catherine Burgass shares the same idea in "A Brief story of postmodern plot". In her opinion: "… in practice, it is only academics who are consistently self-conscious enough to read metafiction as persistently disruptive" (184). Burgass mentions in her article that a non-academic or a "naive reader" ,unlike a postmodern theorist, fails to distinct between real time and time in the parallel fictional world, which this distinction is a metafictive device in the hand of the writer. Therefore, some of the parallels in "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" may not be obvious to an ordinary reader.
Considering Burgass's statement about the beginning and ending of a postmodern fiction when she says: "Clearly, beginnings and endings have a special function in postmodern metafiction, making the entrance and exit of the fictional world and its parallel time." (183), draws our attention to the fact that Marquez has structured the opening and closing scenes of the story, perfectly well. In the first paragraph, Marquez is taking the story into the fictional world by depicting intrusion of a creature to the real world, which he doesn't belong to, and he takes it back to reality along with the reader at the end of the story when this creature exits the plot of the story in a metafictional way, by saying that, "… he was no longer an annoyance in her life but an imaginary dot on the horizon of the sea." (337). Note that "imaginary dot" reminds the reader that he was reading a fictional work. This is a wonderful example of engaging the reader consciousness of the act of reading. It is appropriate to mention another subtle point about the above quotation. Final escape of the angel from the world of the story makes the textualized reader conscious about his own experience of escaping into the world of the text, which is described by Thiem as: "the ultimate reader response" (243). This is another example of the first type of textualization.
According to Thiem, metafiction is the magical realism element that focuses on the reader by: "…casting him in the central role…" (240). Textualization merely describes one effect in magical realist literature, which is "total absorption" of the reader in the story. This effect often leads to a mental tendency of the reader to fill in gaps in texts and to be considered producer just like the writer. This is basically because postmodernist writer "tends to identify with the reader" (Thiem 241). Thiem describes this tendency in this way: "the textualized reader leaps back to the prior, more powerful, […] and assumes to some extent the authorial function of producer of texts" (242). In "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" we see disagreement over whether the old man is an angel or a human being. Also, the narrator, itself, has no explanation for the old man's wings and his mystifying origin, leaving reader with questions and no solid evidence. These are the gaps that an "absorbed reader" fills in, while reading the story.
In magical realist literature, text world and real world swap their places constantly to let the reader forget his act of reading, absorb in the text in order to appear in it and rewrite it. At the same time, swap of the two different worlds reminds this reader that he is just a reader of a fiction work. Metafiction always poses this question in reader's mind that what is fiction and what is real, and helps the reader in a sense of visualizing the situation in which the boundaries of the real world and fictional world are violated. Although metafictive elements may not be obvious to all types of readers and although this characteristic may not be the highlight of Marquez's short story but there are distinct evidences of textualization through the plot of the story.
Works Cited
Thiem, John. “The Textualization of the Reader in Magical Realist Fiction.” Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community. Eds. Lois Parkinson Zamora,Wendy B. Faris. London: Duke University Press,1995. 235-46. Print
Burgass, Catherine. “A Brief Story of Postmodern Plot”. The Yearbook of English Studies 30 : (2000): 177-86. JSTOR. Web. 19 June 2010
Marquez, Gabriel Garcia.”A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings.” 40 Short Stories: A Portable Anthology. 3rd ed. Ed. Beverly Lawn. Boston: Bedford/ St.Martin’s, 2009.331 -37. Print
John Thiem in "The Textualization of the Reader in Magical Realist Fiction" approaches this concept by defining an idea that is used commonly through magical realist literature. In Thiem's article, the relation of the defined term, "textualization", with metafiction is identified as: "A magical realist topos which includes a pronounced metafictional dimension" (240). Thiem defines textualization in two parts. First, when a reader or author is transported into the world of a text, which sometimes becomes a character in the story, he is reading. Second type takes place when the world of a text intrudes into the reader's world and occurring of this is possible through the magical realist nature of textualization.
In Marquez's story, examples of both types of textualization are evident to the reader. The first confront of Pelayo and Elisenda with the angel is an elusive example of the first type. " They looked at him so long and so closely that Pelayo and Elisenda very soon overcame their surprise and in the end found him familiar" (Marquez 331). Although a man with enormous wings seems extraordinary to the reader at first, but as he reaches the end of the story this creature is not as odd as it looks at the beginning. The reader shares the same feeling with these two characters. Therefore, he feels transported into the world of the text. On the other hand, "Rome" is a symbol of Christianity in the real world which appears in Marquez's Story. Thus, the text enters the real world and causes the "textualized reader" to return into reality. This can be considered as an example of the second type of the textualization. The reader also may feel the illusion of being in the story, when the doctor is called into the chicken coop to examine the old man. When he accepts the reality of the wings, like the reader, again we see that a magical realist text becomes "self-reflective" and metafictional. Note that the "doctor" is another symbol of the real world that reader can make connection with, in the story.
Thiem believes that some postmodern stories are "double-coded" (243). One code is understandable through the "wide readership" and is for commercial intentions. The second code is less popular and is related to “serious readers” such as postmodern theorists and other writers. Catherine Burgass shares the same idea in "A Brief story of postmodern plot". In her opinion: "… in practice, it is only academics who are consistently self-conscious enough to read metafiction as persistently disruptive" (184). Burgass mentions in her article that a non-academic or a "naive reader" ,unlike a postmodern theorist, fails to distinct between real time and time in the parallel fictional world, which this distinction is a metafictive device in the hand of the writer. Therefore, some of the parallels in "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" may not be obvious to an ordinary reader.
Considering Burgass's statement about the beginning and ending of a postmodern fiction when she says: "Clearly, beginnings and endings have a special function in postmodern metafiction, making the entrance and exit of the fictional world and its parallel time." (183), draws our attention to the fact that Marquez has structured the opening and closing scenes of the story, perfectly well. In the first paragraph, Marquez is taking the story into the fictional world by depicting intrusion of a creature to the real world, which he doesn't belong to, and he takes it back to reality along with the reader at the end of the story when this creature exits the plot of the story in a metafictional way, by saying that, "… he was no longer an annoyance in her life but an imaginary dot on the horizon of the sea." (337). Note that "imaginary dot" reminds the reader that he was reading a fictional work. This is a wonderful example of engaging the reader consciousness of the act of reading. It is appropriate to mention another subtle point about the above quotation. Final escape of the angel from the world of the story makes the textualized reader conscious about his own experience of escaping into the world of the text, which is described by Thiem as: "the ultimate reader response" (243). This is another example of the first type of textualization.
According to Thiem, metafiction is the magical realism element that focuses on the reader by: "…casting him in the central role…" (240). Textualization merely describes one effect in magical realist literature, which is "total absorption" of the reader in the story. This effect often leads to a mental tendency of the reader to fill in gaps in texts and to be considered producer just like the writer. This is basically because postmodernist writer "tends to identify with the reader" (Thiem 241). Thiem describes this tendency in this way: "the textualized reader leaps back to the prior, more powerful, […] and assumes to some extent the authorial function of producer of texts" (242). In "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" we see disagreement over whether the old man is an angel or a human being. Also, the narrator, itself, has no explanation for the old man's wings and his mystifying origin, leaving reader with questions and no solid evidence. These are the gaps that an "absorbed reader" fills in, while reading the story.
In magical realist literature, text world and real world swap their places constantly to let the reader forget his act of reading, absorb in the text in order to appear in it and rewrite it. At the same time, swap of the two different worlds reminds this reader that he is just a reader of a fiction work. Metafiction always poses this question in reader's mind that what is fiction and what is real, and helps the reader in a sense of visualizing the situation in which the boundaries of the real world and fictional world are violated. Although metafictive elements may not be obvious to all types of readers and although this characteristic may not be the highlight of Marquez's short story but there are distinct evidences of textualization through the plot of the story.
Works Cited
Thiem, John. “The Textualization of the Reader in Magical Realist Fiction.” Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community. Eds. Lois Parkinson Zamora,Wendy B. Faris. London: Duke University Press,1995. 235-46. Print
Burgass, Catherine. “A Brief Story of Postmodern Plot”. The Yearbook of English Studies 30 : (2000): 177-86. JSTOR. Web. 19 June 2010
Marquez, Gabriel Garcia.”A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings.” 40 Short Stories: A Portable Anthology. 3rd ed. Ed. Beverly Lawn. Boston: Bedford/ St.Martin’s, 2009.331 -37. Print