Three Short Short Stories

"A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" storie may be relate with the folk tales and fantasies from the childhood of the Latim American author Gabriel Garcia Marquez. He may be trying to camouflage the country problems portraying unrealistic stories that may scape the reality of social problems of a third world country to the magical realism of his stories. The old man with the enormous wings may symbolize the heavenly spirit full of good intentions towards the community, being patience his major virtue. But the lack of angelical traits besides his wings left the people on the community wonder if he was really an angel.

"Girl"by the author Jamaica Kincaid born in the island of St. John's, Antigua is a dialogue almost a monologue by her mother or believe to be her mother that tells the daughter what to do in a harsh way almost like a general in the military. Clearly is not a loving relationship between mother and daughter. The way the mother teaches her manners demanding her to do chores in the house and to be respected by others and telling her in a such negative way to don't act like a slut, make me believe that the way some children are raised reflect their personallities as an adult. In this case I felt that the girl never had a chance to express her feelings or opinions back to her mother, obeying her above it all, and eventually growing up as an woman with a sense of insecurity and submissiveness to others reflected by her mother's verbal abuse as a child.

The Japanese author of "The Grasshoper and the Bell Cricket" storie Yasunari Kawabata, portrait the innocence of a group of children playing and chasing insects in the woods and with their lanterns. The dark setting leads to a mood of discovery and romanticism symbolizing the purity of youth love in the air between a boy and a girl. The discovery of the bell cricket much more rare than the grasshopper leads me to believe the boy intentions to give the girl such a rare insect, and her acceptance with such warm feelings, that they became fond of each other, and the bell cricket symbolizing more than a bug but a piece of his pure love to her . Kawabata storie demonstrate imagination and the subtlety of the vivid details with a lot of implictity meanings and the semblance of a colorful fairy tales.