Literary Characteristics Essay

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Literary Characteristics Stories can be literary for different reasons. There point of view, the amount of humor and irony, and the way the story is written can determine whether it is a literary piece of work or not. The story "The Drunkard," by Frank O'Connor uses humor and irony. The story "A Rose for Emily," by William Faulkner uses the point of view tactic, and the stories, "The Rocking Horse Winner," by D.H. Lawrence, and A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings," by Garcia Marquez both use the idea of fantasy. The short story, "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings," by Gabriel Marquez is a fantasy told in the 3rd persion omniscient point of view. In the beginning of the story Pelayo finds an, "old man, a very old man, lying face down in the mud, who, in spite of his tremendous efforts, couldn't get up, impeded by his enourmous wings." Soon after, once Pelayo and his wife call on their neighbor who is some sort of "expert," decides that the old man is infact an Angel, and was coming for their sickly son, but because of his old age, the rain was strong enough to take him down. Later on in the story a, "woman who had been changed into a spider for having disobeyed her parents," is introduced who was said to be, "a frightful tarantula the size of a ram and with the head of a sad maiden." These examples show how the idea of fantasy is used in the short story. Another literary technique that is used in the story is the idea of foreshadowing. In the beginning of the story, Pelayo is killing crabs in the darkness at noon. Both of these facts foreshadow that something out of the ordinary is about to occur, and soon enough, Pelayo finds the old man with the wings. One of the themes in the story describes human nature. It shows how people forget and lose care easily. At first Pelayo, his wife, and soon the rest of the

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