Magical Realism

Big Fish is a magical realism film about how a son tries to connect with his father before he dies by reliving stories and myths his father has told throughout his life. All throughout Will’s life, his father told outrageous stories and in a way, the stories outweighed Will. Will’s father was rarely ever home, and when he was, all he did was tell his famous stories over and over again. Not only did Edward over-tell his stories, but they were remarkable and in a sense, magical. The stories were unbelievable and while Will enjoyed them in his youth, as he grew older, he started to hate them more and more. The stories angered Will because he wanted to really know his dad, and all he really, truly knew about him was his stories. As Will grew up into a young man, he and his father grew apart until the point where they rarely even talked, and when Will got news that his father was dying, he decided it was time to mend their broken bond. Will returns back home to his mother’s and father’s house to do so, and when he first arrives he tries to talk to his dad. He tells his dad that he feels like he doesn’t really know him, or anything about his past, because all he knows are his stories, and he doesn’t find any truth in those stories because they have magical elements to them. To that, Edward explains that his stories are what he is, a storyteller. Will is a reporter meaning he only relays the absolute facts, whereas, his father is a story teller, who takes a story and makes it more elaborate by adding details and stretching the truth a bit. Will doesn’t understand this part of his father’s stories because he is so dead set of facts and believes all his father’s stories are lies in their entirety because they include some exaggerations. His dad and him live in two different worlds, but these worlds are actually closer related than either of them believe. Will is a reporter, and while reporters focus mainly on the facts, they also include a variation of a narrative in their work, and therefore, Will is more like his dad than he thinks. Will tries to relive his father’s stories to attempt to understand his father but he still sees them as lies. It isn’t until he really looks into their factuality that he learns that parts of them are definitely true and parts of them are magical exaggerations that make the moral of the story, and the story itself more memorable and impactful. It isn’t until Will’s father is on his deathbed, and unable to talk that Will starts to understand everything. Edward has suffered from a stroke and is in the hospital about to die. He is unable to speak at length so he asks Will to tell him the story of his death, and Will does just that, executing a flawless story that connected to all of his father’s stories. Edward died knowing that his son finally understands his love for storytelling and at his funeral Will realizes the truth in all of his father’s stories. Then, when Will’s son is born, he re-accounts the stories to his own child and tells him that his father is his stories, which enables his father to live on forever. After his father’s death, Will came to respect the art of storytelling, instead of despising it like before, and when he had his own son, he passed down his father’s stories. By passing down his father’s stories, Will becomes a storyteller just like his dad, and also allows his father’s legacy to live on. Will’s full name is Will Bloom, which is clearly a play on words. Will starts out not understanding his father and his love for stories, but with time, he grew to understand and respect his father’s passion and when he had his own child, pursues it himself. Will bloomed into a storyteller and allowed his father to live on forever with him, and everyone else by retelling his stories.

A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings is another magical realism piece, and it is just as beautiful and wonderful as Big Fish. It is a story about a family that withstood a massive storm, and in the wreckage, found an angle in their garden. Right from the start it is clear this story has magical elements because angles don’t just show up in real life and the storm is described in almost a mystical, fairytale way. The homeowners, Pelayo and Elisenda, hold the angle captive in the chicken coop and charge people to come and look at him. The story takes place in a normal, practical setting, but the magical element of the angle ties the world of reality and the magical world together to present points. One of the multiple morals that can be taken from the story is the fact of how naïve and stupid people are sometimes. The homeowners had such a miracle in front of them and they failed to realize it because they based the angles importance and authenticity on his appearance. Their thoughts on the angle were, “There were only a few faded hairs left on his bald skull and very few teeth in his mouth, and his pitiful condition of a drenched great-grandfather took away any sense of grandeur he might have had. His huge buzzard wings, dirty and half-plucked were forever entangled in the mood. They looked at him so long and so closely that Pelayo and Elisenda very soon overcame their surprise and in the end found him familiar” (Marquez 1). This shows how stupid they are because they have such an amazing miracle placed at their feet, and they feel like the angle has no importance and he is no better than him because they overcame their excitement and felt so familiar with the angle after they saw what bad shape he was in. It is a common idea that angles are white, holy, and clean and this angle was everything but, but in truth, he was still in fact an angle. The homeowners treated the angle with no respect whatsoever and locked him in the hen pen. Even after the angle had made the family rich and they were set for life with all the fancy lavishes, the family still didn’t appreciate him, or have any gratitude towards him. When the angle recovered from his illness and flew away, “She [Elisenda] kept watching him even when she was through cutting the onions and she kept on watching until it was no longer possible for her to see him, because then he was no longer an annoyance in her life but an imaginary dot on the horizon of the sea” (Marquez 5). Elisenda didn’t feel anything when the angle left, except a feeling of relief that the angle wouldn’t be a burden anymore. After everything the angle let the family achieve they don’t respect his existence or even acknowledge him for what he did or what he is. After he is gone, he is referred to as an “imaginary dot on the horizon of the sea” which goes to show the stupidity of the homeowners. They were blessed with an old, sickly man in their garden, but that man had the heavenly wings of a messenger. The angle brought the family so much, and in return he didn’t even receive recognition. All of this can be summed up by the title, A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings: A Tale for Children. The “Very Old Man” part represents the old age, disease, and all the frailties of an earthly creature but the “Enormous Wings” part represents the supernatural and heavenly aspect, and the “A Tale for Children for Children” part symbolizes the childish, naïve, unconscious persona of human beings. Every line of this piece is beautiful and this is just a mere scratching of the surface as to what this story actually entails.  

Siddhartha Essay: The Essence of Love

                Initially, Siddhartha found love to be insignificant and superfluous because, at that point in time he merely categorized love as a sensation that child people experience. In the beginning, Siddhartha’s outlook on love was rather immature, because all that mattered to him was reaching his enlightenment. Everything else in the world was frivolous because he couldn’t see how it would help him reach his ultimate goal. Siddhartha even left his family behind because he thought their love was holding him back, which just goes to show how much he valued the aspect of love. But with time, over the course of his journey, Siddhartha comes to realize the importance of love and affection through many different instances, and later on in his lifetime he uses love to reach his enlightenment and acquire his love for all things. In Siddhartha’s life the function of love differs tremendously throughout his quest for enlightenment and these multiple ways love emerges and the difficulties love possess holds the key to Siddhartha’s eventual success. 

            Love first appears in the novel between Siddhartha and his father. Siddhartha’s father loves his son more than anything in the world, just like most other fathers feel about their children. Siddhartha was praised in his village and brought everyone joy, but he, himself was lacking this joy; “Siddhartha had begun to harbor discontent. He had begun to feel that his father’s love and the love of his mother, even the love of his friend Govinda, would not always and forever suffice to gladden him, content him, sate him, fulfill him”(Hesse 5). Siddhartha didn’t value the immense love these people had for him, nor did he feel the same way about them because he didn’t find their love to be enough for him, and considered it even as a hindrance holding him back from achieving his goals. And when a group of Samanas comes through the village he decides to abandon his loving family to pursue his own dreams, which in a way is commendable because he is taking charge of his own destiny. But at this point in the story, Siddhartha is young and immature and he doesn’t even remotely have a grip on the aspect of love. He doesn’t understand why his father is so against the idea, and even considers his dad to be selfish, but with time, and experience he will one day be able to appreciate this. And at that, Siddhartha leaves town with the Samanas and lives among them for years, submerging himself into a sort of hell, starving himself, torturing his body, and learning and mastering all the ways of the ascetics. But after all this pain he doesn’t find himself any closer to reaching enlightenment and that is why when he hears word of The Perfect One, the Buddha he is quick to abandon everything he’s worked so hard for, for a predetermined, falsified sense of hope. Govinda and Siddhartha leave the Samanas and go to hear the teachings of the Buddha, and while Siddhartha doesn’t accept the doctrine of the Buddha, The Perfect one presents him with something that proves to be imperative to Siddhartha’s success. Siddhartha is instantly captivated by the Buddha and feels and immediate love for the man. Siddhartha thought to himself, “Never have I seen a man gaze and smile like this, sit and walk like this…I myself would like to be able to gaze and smile, sit and walk in just such a way, so freely, so venerably, so secretly, so openly, so childishly and mysteriously. Truly, only a man who has penetrated the innermost core of his being can gaze and walk like that. Very well, I too will seek to penetrate the innermost core of my being” (Hesse 32). The Buddha exhibits love to Siddhartha, largely in the configuration of compassion. The Perfect One entails something that Siddhartha now strives to comprise in himself, and that thing is love. The Buddha is so wholeheartedly at peace and embraces a love for everything in his heart, and Siddhartha is transfixed by this. This is essentially where the topic of love obtains some value for Siddhartha, even though Siddhartha ultimately rejects this love because, from what he believes at this point, it doesn’t aide him because it is part of a doctrine that doesn’t help him reach enlightenment. 

            After this encounter with the Buddha, Siddhartha sets off again, this time on his own. Along the path he experiences an awakening that rids his need of teachers, redefines his Self, allocates himself as his own teacher, and allows him to recognize the beauty of  things he used to not notice. Siddhartha has left the life of spiritual seeking to plunge himself into the world of senses and pleasures, and to demonstrate this, Siddhartha has a symbolic dream. In this dream, Siddhartha’s dear friend, Govinda appears in a yellow robe asking Siddhartha why he had to forsake him. Govinda represents a Christly figure, asking why he left the religious realm, and then Govinda turns into a woman and the dream gets more sensual, which represents Siddhartha’s removal from the spiritual world and entrance into the world of senses. In the world of senses, Siddhartha meets an exquisite young woman named, Kamala, who mesmerizes him. The two grow very close and Kamala teaches Siddhartha the physical act of love through their many sexual escapades, but also teaches the importance of love along the way. After much time had passed, Kamala said to Siddhartha, “In the art of love…you are the best I’ve ever seen…Well have you learned my art, Siddhartha. Someday, when I am older, I wish to bear your child. And yet all this time, beloved, you have remained a Samana. Even now you do not love me; you love no one. Is that not so?” and to that Siddhartha replied, “It may be so…I am like you. You too, do not love-how else could you practice love as an art? Perhaps people of our sort are incapable of love. The child people can love; that is their secret” (Hesse 63). Siddhartha has mastered the physical aspect of love, but again, he cannot accept this form of love at this time, nor is he able to give or receive it. He knows he has feelings for Kamala and he knows that she is special to him, but he can’t acknowledge these feelings as love. He thinks of himself as a superior to the normal people, referring to them as “child people”, hinting that they are unaware and naive, and saying that they can love, but he can’t, meaning that he still thinks of love as strictly a sensation. But all this comes to a change when, years later, after he has left the city, he finds out that he has a son with Kamala, and after an unfortunate accident, the son is left under his care. While dealing with his spoiled son was no easy task, Siddhartha still had such a strong love for him, “But now, ever since his son had come, he, Siddhartha, had become a child person in his own right, suffering because of another person, loving another person, lost, a fool, because of love. Now he too felt for once in is life, late as it was, this strongest and strangest of passions, was suffering because of it, suffering terribly, and yet he was blissful; he felt somehow renewed, somehow richer“ (Hesse 102). This whole time, Siddhartha had been incapable of loving anything, and then along comes his son, and despite all the trouble he causes, Siddhartha loves him more than anything he’s loved in his whole life. With this new parental role, Siddhartha has found love buried deep in his heart. The love of a parent to their child is so extreme, and Siddhartha is experiencing its pull at this point in the story.  Up until this point, Siddhartha has gained his wisdom from the absence of love, and this love for his son threatens this wisdom. Love is an attachment to the world and that goes against Siddhartha’s theories, but he learns that enlightenment can’t exist without love, and Siddhartha has to accept it if he wants to reach his ultimate goal. It is this love, more of the love-pains for his son that causes Siddhartha to reach enlightenment, because he perceives this love as love for the entire world and everything in it. 

            At long last, Siddhartha reached his ultimate goal of enlightenment and fulfilled his destiny because of his acceptance of love into his life. While many things and many people had an impact on his spirituality, in the end it was love that brought him to enlightenment. His son and the trouble he caused led Siddhartha to attain his love for all things around him. While the love for his son was an individualistic love and was an obstacle on the path to enlightenment, it was a step along the course to the ultimate form of love, which is universal love. With this universal love Siddhartha had compassion towards everyone and everything and started to change as a person, he became one with everything and conquered Oneness. He no longer viewed himself as a superior to the child people and became connected and compassionate with them. Right before he reached enlightenment, Siddhartha said to Govinda, “Love, O Govinda, appears to me more important than all other matters. To see through the world, to explain it, to scorn it – this may be the business of great thinkers. But what interests me is being able to love the world, not scorn it, not to hate it and hate myself, but to look at it and myself and all beings with love and admiration and reverence” (Hesse 123). Siddhartha finally apprehends the importance of love and understands that while love for one person is individualistic, love for everything is considered universal love and is essential to becoming one with the world. Siddhartha said to his best friend, “Kiss me on the forehead, Govinda!” and “When Govinda , perplexed and yet drawn by great love and foreboding, obeyed his words, bent down close to him, and touched his forehead with his lips, something wondrous happened to him” (Hesse124). At this exact point is when Siddhartha officially broke the cycle and entered his Nirvana. A kiss is a gesture of love, and Govinda was drawn to Siddhartha because of love and from that kiss, Siddhartha was able to reach his enlightenment. All throughout his life, Siddhartha had been pursuing his goal of enlightenment, and now, yet he is very old, he finally reached it. Siddhartha had to learn to love, not just people or things, but to love the world and everything in it, to accept it and not deter it, in its wholeness. Siddhartha became an equal part to this world that he loved so much, but with this knowledge, wisdom, and ultimately, love he was able to reach enlightenment and attain the ability to transcend the world.

            In the beginning of the story, Siddhartha considered love as a mere sensation that child people experience, because they had no consciousness, but throughout his journey, his viewpoint on love changed, and in the end when he acquired a love for all things is when he finally reached his enlightenment. Back when he left his family in pursuit of his destiny, he had no grasp on the essence of love and didn’t understand why his father was so upset. But once he had a son of his own who decided to abandon him for a different path, just like he did when he was young, he was able to comprehend the love a parent has for their child and the pain and suffering they endure when that child decides to walk out on them. The knowledge and wisdom of love are two different things; knowledge is something that can be passed on, but wisdom is something that has to be experienced, and both of these play a major role in Siddhartha’s journey. He learns a lot about love and obtains a lot of knowledge concerning love through a plethora of events in his life: starting with his first love, his family, igniting with the presence of love in the Buddha, the physical act of love taught by Kamala, the parental love he has for his son, and in due course, the love he develops for all things before he reaches enlightenment. Right after Siddhartha reaches his enlightenment, he dies, but he dies as one with the world and with a fire of love for everything burning in his heart.

Chapter 10 Reflection

After Kamala died, Siddhartha was left to care for his son, young Siddhartha. The boy had been very shy and weeping but Siddhartha just wrote it off as suffering because of his mothers death. But over time, nothing changed and the boy grew even more hostile. Young Siddhartha grew up very spoiled and was used to luxuries, servants, and all the other amenities of wealth. But Siddhartha was a poor man, living and working on a river bank, and clearly, this was out of young Siddhartha's comfort zone.  Previously in the book, Kamala had told Siddhartha that he was incapable of ever loving anyone, but after the arrival of his son, Siddhartha found this to be false. "...Siddhartha, had become a child person in his own right, suffering because of another person, loving another person, lost, a fool, because of love. Now he too felt for once in his life, late as it was, this strongest and strangest of passions, was suffering because of it, suffering terribly and yet he was blissful; he felt somehow renewed, somehow richer" (Hesse 102). Siddhartha found himself suffering terribly because of his sons actions; Siddhartha loved his son so much and he just wanted his son to love him back. Vasudeva noticed the suffering Siddhartha was undergoing and tried to convince him to let his son go and let him determine his own life, but Siddhartha was blinded by his love for his son and couldn't part with him. Tempers rose and eventually, the son ran away back to his life of luxury. At first Siddhartha followed in pursuit of his son, but then realized it wasn't worth is, but proceeded anyway. He re-entered the city and found himself in front of the gates of Kamala's pleasure garden. There, his past flew through his mind once more and made him feel that same sense of nausea as before. Then he fell down in exhaustion and once again, om recovered him. As he sat there, "Deeply he felt his love for the runaway boy in his heart- it was like a wound - yet at the same time he felt that this wound had not been given him that he might wallow in it: This wound was to be a radiant blossom" (Hesse 106). Although Siddhartha feels deeply saddened by his son, he still understands and accepts why he set off. Just like Siddhartha did back in his youth, young Siddhartha set off from his father and his beliefs to find his own. With time, Siddhartha knows his son will reach his own enlightenment through his own method, and Siddhartha forcing his lifestyle and doctrine on his son is clearly not the way to go about it. Of all people, Siddhartha would understand this. At that, the two men returned back to the river and go on with their lives, and never talked about this event again.

Siddhartha Journal

"There's no reality except the one contained within us. That's why so many people live an unreal life. They take images outside them for reality and never allow the world within them to assert life." -Herman Hesse

This quote touches on the idea that people bring things from outside their own personal realm of life and consider that to be their reality. People always try to make more out of what they have and they can't have patience to and let what is bound to be happen. Like in Siddhartha, when he starts to doubt his Samana ways. Siddhartha has mastered many of the skills and is well on his way to becoming a great holy man, but he hasn't reached enlightenment yet. That is all he seeks for in life, and when word of the perfect one, the Buddha reaches him, he is willing to drop everything he has worked so long and hard for, for an alternate path with a predetermined, falsified form of hope. Siddhartha gets caught up in his scheme of reaching enlightenment that he fails to experience and enjoy the little things, just like many other people in life. Ultimately, the little things are what makes life so wonderful and as soon as Siddhartha dropped his desire to follow teachers, he is enlightened in a sense and and finally recognizes the true beauty of the little things in life

Awakening

"Walking away slowly, Siddhartha realized he was a youth no longer; he had become a man. He realized that something had left him, the way a snake's old skin leaves it. Something that had accompanied him throughout his youth had been a part of him was no longer present: the desire to have teachers and hear doctrine".
 (Hesse 33)

"I'll be my own teacher, my own pupil. I'll study myself, learn the secret that is Siddhartha". (Hesse 35)

"From this moment when the world around him melted away and left him as solitary as a star in the sky, from this moment of cold and despondency, Siddhartha emerged, more firmly Self than before, solidified".
(Hesse 37)

One time when I got in trouble with my family,as my parents were yelling at me and I was in tears, my dad told me that no matter what they would always love me. This was a major point of realization in my life because at this point I realized the power of love and although I had done something that really upset my parents, they still loved me just as much as before. 

The first time I really experienced death was when my cousin died when I was 12. My cousin, Tiffinny was only 13 years old, and while she was born with some serious birth defects, it never crossed my mind that she would die, let alone so young. And when she did, it hit me hard because at that time, I didn't really understand the value of life, and how our time on earth is limited. At her funeral when I walked up to see her one last time, I grasped the idea that she was gone, and life is finite, therefore, from that day on I have had a greater appreciation for my life, because I understand that one day it will come to an end.

On my trip to New York City I went to the very top of the Empire State Building. When I stood at the edge and looked over I was amazed at what I saw: there were so many cars and people on the streets below, but they were so small, just mere specs.. This moment is when I understood that I am just a small part of the world and there is so much more to it than just myself. I grasped a greater understanding of life that day, and I finally understood what makes life so precious.

The Metamorphosis

               The work, The Metamorphosis is about a young man named, Gregor, who works as a traveling salesman to maintain his family’s well-being and to pay off his father’s debt.  He is the only source of income for his family and although he hates his job, he continues to pursue it for the sake of his family. The very first line of the work informs the reader that one morning Gregor wakes up to the realization that he has transformed into a “monstrous verminous bug (Kafka 1). This shocks the reader right from the start and sets the stage for the rest of the piece. The fact that he transformed from a hard-working young man into a large, ugly bug, perhaps a cockroach, is symbolic for many reasons, for one, bugs like cockroaches are considered as irritating pests and are unwanted, also, the transformation from a human to a bug dehumanizes Gregor because now, although he maintains his human mind, he is in the body of a bug. The explanation of Gregor’s realization is very detail oriented and the reader can virtually envision it happening. One thing that can be considered ironic is that Gregor isn’t upset by his transformation and upholds a very calm and collected attitude. Gregor seems to worry more about the common, real-world problems such as getting to work on time, making his sell deadlines, and the other stresses a traveling salesman has to endure. This idea suggests dehumanization because Gregor’s job dehumanizes him. The first and foremost issue on Gregor’s hands is that he’s a bug, but he couldn’t care less, all he cares about is getting to work on time and accomplishing his work tasks. This mentality continues on throughout the section, and when Gregor’s manager shows up, it reaches a climax. All Gregor wants is to convince his manager to let him keep his job and in doing so, he breaks out of his room. This brings his family and boss to the realization that he no longer is in the human form, nor can he communicate with them. And at that, Gregor’s father herded him back into his room like a wild animal, “stamping his feet on the floor…waving the cane and the newspaper” (Kafka 8). At this point, Gregor is no longer considered as a human being; while he still retains his human mind, he has lost his way to speak and communicate and is in the body of a bug. Also, his family is appalled by his appearance and treats him like an animal, herding, hissing, and hitting poor Gregor.  Gregor is undergoing the process of dehumanization at this spot in the story, which will continue on throughout the other parts as well.

                The second section begins with Gregor waking up after being knocked out by his own father. He wakes to find his favorite food left sitting in his room from his sister, Grete. The food doesn’t appeal to Gregor at all and when his sister returns she realizes that and brings him a varying selection of foods to see which he prefers. Gregor happily devours all the rotten foods and is repulsed by the fresh stuff, further demonstrating the idea that he is not human and hinting the idea that he is a gross and repulsive character now. His sister cares for him, and soon after, his wounds feel almost completely better, possibly meaning that his physical state has some correlation with his humanity or his dehumanization. Gregor continues to reside in the confines of his bedroom and “from day to day he perceived things with less and less clarity” (Kafka 13). This is symbolic because with the continuation of Gregor being locked in a room, much like an animal being locked in a cage, he slowly loses his ability to see clearly, which can be taken literally and analytically. Literally, it means he can’t see clearly any more, for example when he looks out his window he can barely make out the buildings that used to be so clear, but analytically it means that he is slowly, but surely losing his grasp on life, reality, and control of himself. Gregor receives pleasure from scurrying around on the floor, walls, and ceiling, showing that he is taking on some bug qualities and becoming less human. Because of this, Grete proposes that they move the furniture out of Gregor’s room so he has more space to carry out his bug interests. Gregor’s mother disagreed with Grete’s suggestion; “the sight of the empty walls pierced her right to the heart, and why should Gregor not feel the same, since he had been accustomed to the room furnishings for a long time and would therefore feel himself abandoned in an empty room…and isn’t it a fact that by removing the furniture we’re showing that we’re giving up all hope of an improvement and are leaving him to his own resources without consideration?” (Kafka 15). But unfortunately, Grete convinces her that the plan is the right thing to do, and they remove most of the furniture, leaving Gregor in almost a bare room, dehumanizing him even further. Gregor tries his hardest to hold on to what he can so he can remain alive to himself, but doing so results in a series of unfortunate events, such as his mother fainting at his appearance, his father misunderstanding the occurrence, and ultimately, his father chasing and wounding him significantly with an apple.  Gregor has been stripped of his humanity, he is a bug, has no way to communicate, his mere possessions that tied him to his human life have been taken from him, and now his father believes the only way to manage him is to use brute force, when in reality Gregor is completely sane and understands everything that’s going on. The section ends with Gregor’s mother crying and begging her husband to spare Gregor’s life, insinuating that there might be some hope for Gregor in the future.