The story ‘agreeable’ by Jonathan Frazen is a good example of how literature has used modern day life to communicate. The story uses modern day setting to communicate to the people. The story takes a modern approach including in characterization, themes, and even the setting. The story ‘A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings’ was written in ancient times in 1955. The story uses different methods of characterization, themes, and setting. Unlike ‘Agreeable’, which was written in America, this story was written in Mexico in Spanish and later translated into English. These two short stories differ in terms of style characterization and themes. Despite the fact that the stories have different settings, characterization and themes, there is a similarity in the development of the plot. These stories have similar aspects in plot development and similar ending.
The short story agreeable is about a young girl named Patty. When Patty is, she is different from what her parents expected her to be. She grows to be bigger and a little bit dumber compared to her other siblings. She struggles to fit in the family, but she could not. This lowers her self-esteem, and she feels rejected at her home. However, she finds a good place to build her self-esteem in sports. She becomes a netball player and later a basketball player. She is very aggressive in sports and gives it all she has in order to win. Her parents discourage her involvement in sports. Her mother who is a democrat by profession says she sees no reason to fight so hard in order to win a game. She instead believes teamwork is more important than winning and scolds Patty for being aggressive in a match. On the other hand, her father joins her siblings in making fun of her and the coach. They successfully manage to hide their true feelings about Patty. However, one day in a turn of events the son of one of their rich family friends rapes Patty. None of her parents is with the well-being of Patty they all are afraid of how the incident would affect the relationship between the two families. They discourage her from taking any legal action. This showed that they valued their relationship with the other family more than they valued their daughter. With help from her coaches, Patty overcomes the trauma and manages to build her self-esteem. She matures and gains her independence from her discriminative parents.
The story ‘a very old man with enormous wings’ is a fiction story involving magic and supernatural powers. The main characters in the story are Pelayo and his wife. One rainy day they discover a man in their backyard who seemed to have wings. They think that he is an angel sent to take their sick child to heaven. However, after the man appears, their child miraculously recovers from the disease. They then decide to keep the man in their chicken coop. the arrival of the man draws people from all backgrounds to see the angel. Pelayo and his wife decide to take advantage and begin charging the visitors who come to see the old man. Some of the visitors are abusive and pluck the old man’s wings to see his reaction. Others burn the old man using iron to see whether he is alive. Pelayo and his wife do not care about the old man. They make their money from the collections of visitors and build a new bigger house. They neglect the old man until the chicken coop collapses. They allow him in their house believing that he was not going to live long. However he miraculously regains his strength and goes away never to be seen again.
The two stories exhibit different uses of styles in terms of setting and characterization. One story is based on a basketball game and the other, on the existence of a supernatural being. However, despite these differences the plot development in both stories is similar. The protagonists in the stories face various challenges and a high level of neglect. In ‘Agreeable’, Patty faces negligence from her parents who use her rape case to build relationships with their family friends. She suffers in the story, but with the help of her coaches, she regains her self-esteem and frees herself from her abusive family. In the story ‘A big man with enormous wings’ the old man is the victim of neglect. After he appears to the Pelayo family, he is just because their child gets better. However, the Pelayo family us him as a way of getting income by charging the people that come to visit. After they have enriched themselves, they no longer care about the old man and take him in hoping he would die soon. However, just like Patty in ‘Agreeable’ the old man frees himself from their oppression and vanishes.
In both stories, there are parties that remain helpful to the protagonists. In ‘Agreeable’ Patty gets consolation from her coaches. Whenever she cannot get solace from her parents, her coaches are there to ensure that she has the confidence that she needs for survival in life. After her rape case, her coaches are the only people concerned with her well-being. For this reason, she opens up to the coach before any of her parents. Her coaches help in coaching her and help her build her self-esteem. The story ‘An old man with enormous wings’, portrays the child as a source of consolation to the old man. Despite the fact that others reject to help him and associate with him, the child remains a loyal friend and often goes to play with him. His arrival at the Pelayos led to the miraculous healing of the young child, and the child remains the link between him and the rest.
The stories differ in terms of religion. This is to the difference in time when the stories were written. The story ‘A very old man with enormous wings’ was written in 1955. At this time, the rate of people believing in religion was high and hence this led to the attitude of people when it came to religion. At this time, fiction involved the use of supernatural creatures with powers over human. This influenced the storyline in the short story. However, in modern times people have changed their perception on religion. The story ‘Agreeable’ begins by stating that the Patty was an atheist. The modern world fiction shows a lack of the use of superpowers and religion. The fiction is based on family relations and power battles. The story “agreeable” is based on family relationships without the use of powers. On the other hand, ‘A very old man with enormous wings’ is based on family relationship with the use of supernatural powers.
Free Comparison Between Agreeable And Avery Old Manwith Enormous Wings Article Review Example
Type of paper: Article Review
Topic: Literature, A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings, Parents, Family, Sports, Religion, Children, Relationships
Pages: 4
Words: 1100
Published: 02/20/2020
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