A Comparison Of The Magic In The Rocking-Horse Winner And A Very Old Man With

Term Paper Title	A Comparison Of The Magic In The Rocking-Horse Winner And A Very Old Man With
# of Words	1625
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	6.5

A Comparison of the Magic in "The Rocking-Horse Winner" and "A Very Old Man With
Enormous Wings"

     Magic arises out of the two main characters of D.H. Lawrence's "The
Rocking-Horse Winner" and Gabriel Garcia Marquez.  Paul, in the first story,
pulls out higher forces to help him decide who the winner of the next horse race
will be.  In the Marquez story, a nameless and elderly angel lands on earth to
experience first hand the human behavior he strives to correct.  The magic in
the air gives these stories a feeling of suspense.  They are horrifying, if not
in the Stephen King horror genre.  These tales encompass an undeniable amount of
magic, faith, greed, vindication and misunderstanding.
     Pelayo and Elisenda, in the Garcia Marquez yarn, find the soul retriever
on his way to take their child to heaven, or so it is thought.  The magical
angel's identity had to be discovered by a neighbor of the couple because they
didn't think that an angel could wind up on their land.  Who would think of an
angel landing?  Meanwhile, Paul doesn't show when he discovers the magical power
of the rocking horse he received as a gift one year.  He does ride it often as
Lawrence describes.  The stories are bound by the fact that the magical things
they discover are unbelievable at best.  They often criticize Paul for his
affection for a horse he should have outgrown long ago.  No one would believe
that the rocking-horse essentially talked to him.  Although the characters in "A
Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" believe that an angel is in their presence,
they have no idea what to do with him.  No one had ever dealt with a spirit on
this level before.
     As he rocked back and forth on his rocking horse, Paul had faith in
finding the winner of the next horse race.  For some reason they could not
explain, Paul's uncle and Bassett had faith in him to pick it.  They kept making
money on the young boy with faith.  The boy, whose parents had no luck, also had
the faith that they did not have.  Sadly, his faith killed him.  He wanted so
much to rid the house of the voices he heard that he drove himself to death from
the intense pressure he placed upon himself.  When he died, he killed the voices
as the spiritual world claimed the only member of the family with luck.
     "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" shows that the people in this small
fan can have some level of faith without directly showing it.  Although Pelayo
and Elisenda lock up the angel to display him, they still believe he is an angel
and cannot kill him when another offers this.  They don't have the heart to club
the old man to death, though he may be an inconvenience at first.  Father
Gonzaga doesn't necessarily believe in the angel, but the townspeople and
tourists do. They wish for things even when others before them don't have their
miracles exactly met.
     It is hinted in the Lawrence story that Paul may have lived if he hadn't
been so greedy.  He wasn't full of greed like his parents, but the mysterious
voices of the house drove him to greed to rid the house of them.  To start with,
Mother and Father in this modern fairy tale are downright rapacious.  Mother has
an especially insatiable wallet.  Although her husband makes good money, she
must have the finer things in life such as servants and the like.  They pass on
the ever present desire for more materialistic items to Paul.  He wants to gain
the love of his mother and decides that using his luck to earn money is the way
to do it.
     It is the greed of Pelayo and Elisenda that wind up saving the life of
the elderly angel.  They give him a chance to rest and start anew by the couple
putting him on display as a sort of circus freak.  Sadly enough this translates
over to modern sitings of crucifix marked men.  Many religious fanatics have to
travel wide and far to see proof of their faith just like in the story.  The
fact that the poor couple makes money off the angel could be a testament to him
being their guardian angel as opposed to the harbinger of death to their child.
They conti...

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