Varieties of The Fantastic in Fiction

This story follows  the Buendia’s and their many family members. It is a blend of both realism and the fantastic while also showing the darkness of colonialism. It also shows themes of the Bible like Adam and Eve

Before the Gypsy’s came to Macondo the town was full of three hundred people that all lived peacefully(no one ever dies) for many years. They had no formal government and no rules (except for no cock fighting). When the gypsies arrive with new inventions and catches Jośe Arcardio Burundi’s attention the town starts to change not necessarily for good.

As more people come into the town they also bring the outside problems and dark parts of the world like Insomnia, Greed,Death,and War. With the slow colonization of the town brings trouble for the family that often results in tragedy. The story goes in cycles. With many members of the family sharing the same name and often meeting similar fates of the their names sakes.

By the end of the story the town is again in solitude but destroyed from the many years of invasion and the Buendia bloodline finally ends.

This book was hard to understand. From what I can piece together, this one family has seen multiply deaths and tragedies in a short lifetime. All the men had the same names, Jose Arcadio or Aureliano. I had to reread few sections just to know which was speaking or who the action was happening to. The man in the family died first, while the women lived for a long time. This just like in my family, the men in my family dies first while the women always have to wait and live on without them.

I think this story happens during the 1800s to the 1900s based on the information that was given about the first time they are seeing and hearing about these new inventions. The men in the family liked to have sex with other females of their family, They has sex with their sister, aunts and cousins. The second generation of this family, Colonel Aureliano and his brother, Jose Arcadio slept with the same woman and had a child with her.

While I was reading, I was trying to figure out what I was reading. By the end of the story, none of the other members of the small town remember the Buendia’s’ and the war they fought in. I would think they would remember the family who has the most bad luck in the whole town but that is just me. My favorite part I think would be when the youngest Aureliano was trying to be a bad ass and his grandmother, Ursula, came after him with a whip and dared him to have a family friend killed. She whipped him in front of all the men at the boot camp and everyone knew that she was in charge.

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez is a novel of both changes and constants over the many decades that pass between the first page and the last. There are obviously many changes throughout the story as time progresses, especially since this book covers such a large period of time. The reader witnesses characters’ personalities develop and grow, for better or worse, from the time they’re born to the time they die. The reader is also given new major historical events to look at from beginning to end. However, the occurrences that stay the same and continue happening throughout the novel are the most interesting happenings.

The largest constant is that of incestual relations. Over and over, family members resist and then fall into each other as if it’s in all of their natures to do so, and maybe it is. Doomed from the start, the founding pair of Macondo, José Arcadio Buendía and Úrsula Iguarán were related and still started a whole family together. Some family members with passion for one another are able to resist their urges, while others hardly hold themselves back. The Buendía bloodline in Macondo ends similarly to how it began, with two related lovers (Aureliano and Amaranta Úrsula this time) having a child.

Another constant in this book is the names of characters. The name “Aureliano” is used in 21 characters’ names. “José” and “Arcadio” are both used in five. It also seems to set up the characters for a destiny in which they repeat their family’s past sins. 

There is also the occurrence of loss of memory, starting with the insomnia plague that came to Macondo in its early days and ending with the erasure of Macondo from everyone’s memories in the end. There was also the notable massacre of plantation workers that everyone but José Arcadio Segundo forgets.

Lastly, Márquez continuously makes his characters be visited by ghosts. It is interesting the way he handles this fantastical aspect of One Hundred Years of Solitude. Along with the other fantasy elements in the novel, ghosts are treated as quite normal, not-entirely-unexpected guests in the land of the living. The first ghost in the story, Prudencio Aguilar, is met by Úrsula Iguarán. Although he was a horrific sight to see, he “did not bring on fear in her, but pity,” (pg 22). The reader can begin understanding that the less realistic parts of the story won’t be treated as wild and impossible, but rather acceptable developments. Even when Remedios the Beauty floats off into the sky, it does not cause the citizens of Macondo to believe they’ve perhaps lost their marbles.

This handling of the unrealistic adds a fun layer to the story as a whole. It’s already filled with relationship drama, sex, war, and the like, and it also has near-magical phenomenons that make it that much more intriguing.

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a story in which realism and magical events happen to the family Buendia. The story follows seven generations of the Buendia family, the founders of Macondo, and their origins as well as their troubles. The story spans over the generations with a large number of characters, most that like many Hispanic families share names. The story which at times is hard to follow due to the changing perspectives and timelines, has many themes and symbolism imbedded in the narrative. One theme which stood out to me was cyclical time and the elitism of the Buendia family.

One of the themes that stuck out to me the most about the family Buendia is the way in which their lives seem to be predetermined. The use of cyclical time allows for the readers to have the sense that for the family the past, present, and future are inseparable.  The use of the cyclical time also emphasizes the recurring behaviors that are ultimately the destruction of the Buendia family. This cyclical time can also be seen in the way that the characters repeat names, and adopt the some of the personality traits of their predecessors. These personality traits also show how their lives stay in a cyclical time as their traits perpetuate the issues they encounter, for instance the passed trait of being impulsive which often leads the characters to their deaths. Furthermore, even their acts of incest perpetuate this cyclical time as the traits will continue to passed until the cycle ends and a child is born with a pig tails, because in order for the cycle to stop there must be a stop to their inbreeding.

Furthermore, another theme that is tied to the cyclical time is the elitism of the Buendia family. The Buendia family are people that have money, power, and statues in their small town as they are founders. Their problems are all cyclical because they are self perpetuated. One of the main issues that arise in the Buendia family is the fear that one of their children will become a monstrous child with a pigtail, which is would be their punishment for their acts of incest. However, the incest is not only the effect of the Buendia being an elite family, but the effect of their love to themselves and their roots. The family is so in love with themselves that they inbreed to continue their bloodline. This same love is what blinds the family to their wrongs and their mistakes, and in turn they never learn to move past their mistakes making them repeat cycles in their lives. Furthermore, as seen the family has personality traits that they pass down to one another, much like their names which is another indicator of their elitism and self love, but those traits which have been the downfall of their predecessors never are told. This comes to show that the Buendia family like many other elites avoid the things that shine a negative light on the family and their predescesors.

This week I chose to write about the short story “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings”. This story was one of the shorter story we have read with it only being 5 pages long. The story begins with crabs (which was a bit unusual for me) and how they are becoming a bit of a nuisance. I was not sure what the crabs were supposed to represent in the story or if there was meaning behind them. They seemed like an important aspect, but I couldn’t figure out their purpose. The story continues to reveal that the couple (Pelayo and Elisenda) in the story’s child has come down with a fever, which I assume in those days would be very concerning due to lack of healthcare and medicine. Pelayo then finds an old man who was stuck lying face down in the mud.

He had to go very close t see that it was 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 enormous wings.

The man is thought to be an angel who is coming for their sick child, but it also gave me the impression of a fallen angel (Lucifer), but given the rest of the story I am not sure if the author was taking that route or not. After the “angel’s” arrival the child’s health improved, but this is the only miracle that seems to happen during the stay of the  supposed angel. Pelayo and Elisenda did come into money after allowing people to view the creature, but that was the most positive impact that was had. I will say that I did feel bad for the creature since it did not have choice. It seemed that there was a lot of greed and I also noticed that there was not much focus on the child that was sick once the angel arrived.

Pelayo and Elisenda were happy with fatigue, for in less than a week they had crammed their rooms with money and the line of pilgrims waiting their turn to enter still reached beyond the horizon.

It is safe to say that this story did confuse me a bit with what it was representing or trying to say. I do believe that it is possible that the man could have been an angel, but even if not it is clear that he represented something supernatural and fantastic. It was kind of hard for me to connect with the meaning of this story, but I do think that maybe a lot of the people’s more negative qualities came out. Greed, selfishness, judgement, etc. These traits did not seem to change throughout the story, but I do think it shed a light on them so that we were able to identify them.

“Salt Slow” is set in a post-apocalyptic future where incessant storms have inundated the land. A man and a woman are aboard a ship, and the lady is expecting a child. She reflects on their connection prior to the disaster and sees how the world has transformed, but rather how much her companion has changed. Also she has transformed, as she is now extending her hands and feet into the webbing between them. When she gives birth, the child is a half-human, half-sea monster combination. The man thumps it with a paddle and then tosses it into the sea. It reappears a few days later, having grown monstrously huge. The mom reaches out just to hold her kid as the father walks away. Since the girl has recognized her kid’s differences, her spouse abuses the infant and throws it into the sea out of dread. This depicts the heroine’s transformation from a childless person to someone who accepts having children. This makes the character feel out of place inside her own flesh, as well as in her relationship with a man. All of this tends to function together to underline women’s obligations to please all elements of themselves as individuals and lovers. In this submerged environment abounding with strange and mutant ocean wildlife gives everything to an uncensored and, at times, a terrifying glimpse at the difficulty of becoming impregnated, the grief of a miscarriage, and the agony of delivering a baby.

The two characters, a man and a woman, are sailing on a boat looking for food. The sea has rising to the cities and now it seems that everything is under water or almost under water. The lobsters are found with their bodies upside down, dead in the white water. They don’t know how long they have been out to sea, don’t remember the days, and don’t know why the animals and the humans are dying. The woman is pregnant.

The rain started when she was bleeding the first time when she was pregnant and had not stop since.  This story reminds me of Noah’s Ark a little bit. The rain has flooded the world, two characters on the boat trying to survive and finding animals changing and growing bigger. She got pregnant again and when she gave birth the child had animal features that did not resemble the man. The baby had like octopus arms, and his skin was moving around like air.

They stayed away from other humans and that is like what we did doing the beginning of Covid. We stayed away from others, and we did not know what caused Covid. We were and still are trying to survive in the new norm because of Covid. After being in a relationship during Covid we realize things about our partner we did not realize before Covid. Being in close quarters with our partners, we lost sense of the time and days, and we realize who we are as a person.

The first thing that caught my attention in “salt slow” was the inclusion of two characters of opposite gender and the fact that they seemed to be on a journey away from somewhere comfortable. When Armfield wrote, “takes up his apple knife,” I was sure that they were a new take on the story of Adam and Eve. We later learn that this “Eve” has a miscarriage– according to the mother of the story, it seems to be her fault– and this introduces the sin. However, this version of the story is further complicated and dissected in a way that makes the reader think about gender roles and the meaning of survival.

In this story, “Eve” is more focused on the “after” of the survival; as she looks at the world around them, she focuses on the birds and thinks, “Bigger wings make it easier to stay airborne for weeks at a time.” Armfield is using the limited third-person perspective in a way that makes us attuned to how Eve processes her journey and wants to live through the catastrophe– more than live through it, I think, but also make something meaningful through it. This is emphasized by the fact that the man was the one with appetite, not the woman. On the journey, Eve is constantly observing his need to eat and be satiated with good food, but she ignores this need of his. Her thoughts are focused on what they’ve lost, and what might remain: she’s thinking about shorelines, the knowledge she wants to retain, and stories of her childhood that she hopes has survived. These emotions and thoughts culminate in the resurfacing of her child, which Adam clubs and throws overboard.

While she’s explaining her pregnancy, Eve goes through changes that make her uncomfortable. These changes are further exasperated by the way her body shifts supernaturally. Instead of just growing a heavy belly, she’s also growing webbed feet and hands, making it harder to connect with Adam. It’s like she’s being betrayed by her body. The line, “A very slender sort of betrayal, the deliberate absence from a room,” also stuck out to me, because being birthed is also the action of leaving a “room:” the womb. I think Armfield  has juggled a lot of complicated emotions in this story, and the ones that stuck out the most clearly to me was the way a woman can feel betrayed, both by a lover and by her own body, and her own “god-given” role of the continuation of society by being a woman; what is it that she’s supposed to contribute to society, and why?

“Cassandra After” follows the Main Character and dead girlfriend,Cassandra, that has come back to life. When Cassandra visits she decomposing but in tact. Throughout the story we see that the MC doesn’t usually date women and because of her religion isn’t very open about her sexuality but she deeply loves Cassandra. While we don’t know why or how Cassandra came back we see that their relationship is deep even when one of them is dead.

I think that the main purpose of this story is to show how grief can deeply affect the mind. As the narrator explains the catholic church says that grief is a year long process, starting with heavy. Because the narrator is still in the heavy grief stage this makes me think that she imagined her dead lover come back to her. As we see she never got to have closure because Cassandra’s sudden death so this visit is a way for her to have the final conversation she never had. When she finally gets this closure though I think she is finally able to move on to the next level of grieving.

“It was strange, now, to be able to look right through her in places – the deep places in her throat and ribcage where the skin had worn away to reveal her dark interiors, the opened hollows of her chest. I had always imagined her soul like a stitch in fabric, metallic thread in wool. Looking into her, I wondered where I could expect to find such a stitch or whether, like so much of what I recognised, it had simply come away from her body and been lost.”

Julia Armfield pays an attentive eye to the obstruction and restrictions of the human body, emphasizing the limitations of such a vulnerable and imperfect encasement of the mind. She oftentimes uses bodies to convey symbolic and metaphoric tones, while also humanizing the fantastic qualities of her narratives through the shared idea of the imperfectiveness of being real and raw and able to stop existing; to decay and to die. In other words, to be human.

The bodies portrayed in Armfield’s stories hold great significance, oftentimes dominating the narratives in the most obvious ways –such as in “Mantis” and “Granite”–, or hinting at the fleetingness of power and life, creating a sense of mortality in things otherwise recognized as untouchable and inaccessible. For instance, the weather in “The Collectables” is described as a ‘sore-boned morning.’ This depiction of vulnerability in nature almost forces the reader to recognize the fragility of all life. Nothing is unscathed, nothing escapes the heaviness of existence.

In Armfield’s “Cassandra After,” the consistent portrayal of the complicated and nonlinear act of bodies still rings true, as the bodily functions of “salt slow” are almost always invariably problematic. In said story, the narrator discloses ‘I had a bad body around that time,’ showcasing that the author comprehends the fascination and interest in nonconforming bodies, in these portrayals of the raw and exposed. Disorderly protagonists are ultimately the most rewarding; the most compelling; the most real. And these are the kind of concepts that frequent her collections.  This story in particular delves into the understanding of life and death; muddling the waters of the conventions of what it means to be dead and alive, –or rather– unalive. Moreover, the narrator takes act in unhealthy and unembellished habits following the death of her girlfriend. Immersed within a state of grief and mourning with little care towards her own wellbeing, she finds difficulty in maintaining her hygiene, having begun the ‘habit of going to bed unwashed and waking up with my tongue furred over and tasting strangely of iodine.’ As a clever parallel, her deceased girlfriend is also somewhat lacking in the personal hygiene department, though for reasons much more unsettling– she has risen from the dead. Another imperfect body.

The body of Cassandra is a main focal point of the narration, for every experience, every incident, every recollection, memory, and conversation is centered around and mediated through the body. It seemingly acts as a tool to propel the story forward or bring the story back, using instances of describing her decaying form to tie into the narrator’s experiences of when Cassandra was alive and her body was different; their situation was different. In this sense, the title perfectly embodies the sensation of a time before and after her death; a Cassandra Before and a Cassandra After. Furthermore, even the examination of an afterlife is dictated by the state of the body; whether or not it should be buried or cremated based on the religious implications experienced by the narrator. Through the traditional Catholic funeral customs, a cremated body’s soul cannot be granted eternal life, and only through an intact burial can the promised land be found, theoretically.

Overall, the recurring themes and visceral symbols expressed by Armfield allow for a connection, a continuous ideal examined over and over again in new ways through new characters, plots, and endings. There is an overlapping of meanings; a constant significance that links them together, binds them at their seams, and then asks for interpretation.

“[…] I couldn’t talk to her just yet; I was sweeping the bones of a girl I had loved off the kitchen floor.”

For the stories we had to read for today’s class, I got the feeling from both of them that they were the accounts of people who were trying to get over a relationship gone wrong. In “Smack,” the narrator is struggling to move on after her divorce; driven largely by hurt and anger, she locks herself up in their beach house, which her husband had taken in the split. I think that the conflict here is largely created by the tension between the “smart” decision and the “emotional” one. This theme is further emphasized by the gender of the characters. The narrator, a woman, is impulsive: cue her car theft adventure and illegal trespassing. She’s going through the process of sorting through her left-emotions from her relationship and is finding that she isn’t ready to move on yet (hence, the ring being stuck on her finger). I think the backdrop of the mass beaching of jellyfish is a metaphor for her emotions: all of these brainless, bodiless animals dying on the beach, and all anyone is doing about it is gawking and burning them. “Smack” was about the unhinged and stupid decisions we make when we’re hurt and going though emotional turmoil.

“Smack” was a seemingly normal story by Julia Armfield that follows a woman going through a divorce. It is narrated in third person, using a very descriptive and seemingly indifferent tone. There is nothing specifically fantastic about this story, at least in any way that it jumps out to the reader. However, the fast appearance of the jellyfish could be considered fantastic, though the situation itself isn’t completely uncommon. In fact, several times people try to justify the reasons as to why the jellyfish have been washing up so frequently, and their reasons are plausible. The real reason as to why they are appearing so frequently is never said.

All that being said, I found the title of the story to be interesting. We are told early on that a group of jellyfish are called a smack, and at the end of the story the protagonist imagines becoming part of the jellyfish. Going through a divorce is very clearly not easy for our protagonist; she hunkers down in the house she had been living in with her husband, who the narrator mentions liked to play chess. He would smack her hands away when she attempted to do an impulsive move. The action of smacking someone, whether it be their hand or their face, is a very abrupt and forceful thing to do. It usually stings afterward, similar to jellyfish. This physical attack can also be an emotional one. In this case, the protagonist is going through a divorce that happens almost too abruptly (at least for our protagonist), and she cannot cope with what is happening. She reminisces on past moments she had in the house with her husband, and refuses to leave the house that holds those memories. When she finally leaves, she goes to sit with the dying jellyfish, which according to the narrator, take up to fifty minutes to die out of water. The protagonist feels so incredibly pained by this divorce that she feels a connection to these jellyfish.

The story “Cassandra After” challenges readers to consider the process of grieving, as well as the relationship with those that are being grieved. The narrator includes anecdotes of traditional grieving processes and etiquette contained within the Catholic church, precisely laid out rules and expectations. A step-by-step to grief. This is juxtaposed by description of the decaying girlfriend, an organic representation of death, decay, and grief. The two extremes between the ridiculous notion that grief can be contained in steps, and the absurdity of talking to a decaying body, leaves the space in between to be explored.

The narrator herself teeters between wanting defined lines, rules of being, and organic, unrestricted interactions. Her relationship with Cassandra is a relationship embracing the organic, the truth of her nature; but even within this relationship the narrator has moments of doubt, even going so far as attending a church she doesn’t necessarily believe in. 

“Smack” by Julia Armfield was an interesting short story about a women that in an act of defiance during a divorce locks herself up in her ex-husbands beach house. However, to this point I am still unaware of the fantastical element of the story, as every event in the story did not seem to be impossible such as the swarms of jellyfish that were dying. Yet, although I did not find anything particularly fantastic about the short story it was an interesting read, as it illustrates a compelling portrayal of a women going through a complicated divorce. The only fantastic element that I saw was her supposed dead in being blanketed by the jellyfish and somehow becoming a part of the jellyfishes, yet that could of been a form of speech and not truly Nicola becoming part of the jellyfishes. We also are introduced to her relationship with Daniel her ex-husband and Cece her sister. Throughout the story we can see that her relationships are strained, and that there are many resentments, which I felt fueled the story forward and brought the readers to sympathize with Nicola.  Cece seemed to resent Nicola’s relationship with her father even introducing her by stating her father’s form of endearment by calling her ‘precious cargo’. Similarly, Daniel also seems to devalue Nicola’s self-worth when he states that, “he hadn’t considered the pitfalls inherent in really taking ownership of someone (88),” which shows Daniel’s view on Nicola as a person and partner. Which is also shown by Cece when she stated that, “We always knew Nic would find someone dependable (88),” which illustrates that both Daniel and Cece have low expectations and views on Nicola and her capabilities as a person. This bring the reader to sympathize with Nicola and her low self-worth as she is surrounded by individuals that remind her of her faults as a person.

“Difficult At Parties” was a very interesting story to read. The story focuses on the narrator who is very isolated from other people. There is a man named Paul who is often with her, but the narrator still seems very closed off from other people or inviting other people in. It gives me the impression that she is not very open when it comes to trusting others. The narrator also seems to have a problem with intimacy or sex. These things seem to trigger a reaction out of her that other people do not have. It makes me wonder if the narrator was sexually abused or if there is something else that is not being revealed to us. I actually like that the narrator took this approach towards the story. There is no need for the narrator to explain her lack of want for intimacy. She does not need to please anyone by doing so. At the end of the story the narrator seems to give in even though she does not want to which I believe is very true for many people. Whether it be temptation or the want to please their partner, you have to wonder if they are doing it for themselves or for others.