Old Man With Enormous Wings And Midnight In Paris

Magical Realism is prevalent throughout both, “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” written by Gabriel García Márquez and Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris”. While Gabriel García Márquez is, a Latin American writer known for his magical realist works, Woody Allen has also done many magical realist movies. Despite the many differences both meld together reality and fantasy into a seamless work. “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” and “Midnight in Paris” parallel with their magical realism genre, their whimsical or indirect way of teaching a lesson, and the deduction that things aren’t always what they seem.

Magical Realism is a genre of literary fiction which illustrates the extraordinary as everyday occurrences by blending fantasy and reality.

“A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” and “Midnight in Paris” both use a whimsical or indirect way of teaching a lesson. In “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings”, word gets out about the “angel” and a crowd emerges. Pelayo and Elisenda use this crowd as a means of making money. The author’s tone expresses the disappointment of humanity’s tendency to fail to appreciate the “magic” that is prevalent in our everyday lives as we go through life with the “what is in it for me” mentality we are so accustomed to thinking. This story is asking us to think about what we would do, as readers, faced with a similar situation. In “Midnight in Paris”, Gil is living, learning, and loving in the 1920’s in Paris as he steps into the vintage car each night. Gil is going through the motions in the everyday life. He is engaged to a woman who he does not love while she is materialistic and just in love with his money. However, when Gil get into that car at midnight his life is changed into everything he could have ever dreamed of. When a carriage comes for Adriana and Gil, he learns that while he might think of the 20’s as the Golden Age, Adriana thinks the end of the 19th century is the Golden Age. While here, they meet more famous people and learn that they too want to go back to a better era. As he soon realizes, no one wants to be in the time in which they were born. As he sees the magic in the “ordinary” lives of everyone from the 20’s that they do not, he fails to see the magic in his present-day life either. He learns that he needs to start looking for the magic in his own world and not focus on the past. Once he decides to not go back to the 20’s his eyes are opened and when he lets go of all the things that were hindering his happiness, he finds happiness and love in his own