English 2 – Literary Response

My Singular Irene Literature is, by my understanding, a means to critic society and individuals or the way the world is behaving. Writers of Literature write literature to provide a new way of seeing things that might be different from our point of view. In other words, writers use tools of literature story like: symbolism, point of view to help them is making the literature story to be more exciting and clear to us, the reader. The author helps us to see the frailty or other bad deeds and good things about this life in this world as we seldom see those things with our own eyes.
A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings and My Singular Irene is a very good example for this literature reading, because it is very rich in literature concept and devices, like: symbolism or point of view. The main character in this story is said to be alienated, repressed and silenced in the story. I will prove this statement by retelling the main point on the story that supports this statement. A very old man refers to an old angel that is cast ashore into earth because of inability to keep up with the heavy rain. e can see that the angel is alienated from examples that shown this statement, such as : ”They found the whole neighborhood in front of the chicken coop having fun with the angel, without the slightest reference, tossing him things to eat through the openings in the wire as if he weren’t a supernatural creature but a circus animal. ”(Gabriel Garcia Marquez 36). the angel is alienated because It is treated differently from the others. The others are having fun with the angel rather than socializing with the angel. The angel is also repressed and silenced.
There is a quotation that shows this statement: “Pelayo watch over him all afternoon from the kitchen, armed with his Bailiff’s club, and before going to bed he dragged him out of the mud and locked him up with the hens in the wire chicken coop. ”(Gabriel Garcia- Marquez 36). From this statement, we can derive that the angel is “caged” from it’s freedom and its freedom is repressed by the caged that Pelayo given it, thus the angel is silenced from the freedom. My Singular Irene is also a good example for this literature reading.

Irene is reputed to be alienated is true in this story. Irene is treated differently from other people. From the story we know that Ilene’s husband( the first person view in the story) isolated Irene from the outside world by buying Irene very expensive “stuff” to lure Irene to stay in the house isolated from the outside world. Irene is also axiomatic to be repressed and silenced. We know from the story that Irene is considered as a “thing” to her husband, because her husband wants Irene to act like he wants.
So, in order to satisfy his ego, Irene is inhibited and muted by many ways, like: not allowing Irene to go to the outside world, forbidding visitors to meet Irene. Irene too, like the Angel is constrained from freedom. A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings and My Singular Irene are an example of story that has a symbol of contemporary alienation and triumph over it. First, I am going to express about A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings. The angel in the story is alienated or make indifferent. It is derived from the behavior of the people that found the angel. It is treated like mere goods than divine figure.
So, it is true that it is a contemporary alienation. Later in the story, we know that the angel has his most precious tool that can bring him back to his divine status. That tool is its wings, when its wings grows back, he immediately leaped up to the sky and clapped its wings and fly to the horizon of freedom. The angel is reputed to be a triumph over alienation. Second, My Singular Irene is also a symbol of alienation. Irene is also made hostile like the angel. She is isolated or “caged” by her husband; there is an interesting point in this story in my point of view.
To me, Irene seemed to be speechless or not a living thing. The author writes the story in such a way that us, readers, grabs the alienation theme in the story. Irene is also considered as a triumph over alienation. There is a quotation from the story: Horrifying! Irene changed into a horrendous butterfly! I stood up and fell again, powerless now. She would leave me; she would take flight and leave me. The gigantic Irene Butterfly smiled at me, diminished, and disappeared with the others. I am at the site of the events, waiting for Irene’s return. She has no return.
She cannot deny me the peace that her company always offered me. (AlmAnzar, JosE AlcAntara 45) From this quotation, I interpret it that Irene’s freedom does also mean she has a higher status in the relationship with her husband now. What I meant by higher status of relationship is the one that always try to get the relationship going is the one that has a lower status, in this case, her husband. Irene’s triumph over alienation is expressed by the author of Irene transformation into the most beautiful butterfly that can fly anywhere it wants. It is very interesting that these two stories have a similar thing.
They both define freedom by flying leaving the thing that binds their way to freedom. The following paragraph below tells a story about human needs for personal freedom and community. There is certainly no argument in this world that can be used to defy human needs for socializing and personal freedom. Human always seek out a way to grab that freedom. Kingdom falls, kingdom rises, Leader of a faction dies, and assassin was born. All of these examples are made because of the need to obtain and maintain personal freedom and the ability to communicate freely with communities of choice.
There is an interesting story below those talks about human’s desire for personal liberty. This story is about the struggle of African-American communities in the United States to obtain their right of personal freedom and human needs for sociality. United States also known as the land of the free and the brave has been well known for its freedom. It has a lot to offer, such as: the freedom of speech, the right to work, etc. But, in contrast to all of those things, there is a little dispute inside this great country in the era of slavery. African American is the target for this matter.
African American arrived in the United States as Indentured Servants via Jamestown, Virginia in 1619. They could earn their so called “personal freedom” by working as slave to their chosen master. As time goes by, the other majority in the United States made a conduct for slaves called “Slaves Codes”. This Slave Codes constrained African American in the Unites States from their liberty. They did fight for it until the Majority pushes another harsh rule for any slaves that disobey its masters. From this point, we can see human’s needs for personal freedom.
Human fights for freedom risking everything they had, like: their lives, treasure, relatives. There is also a story of a president that fight for part of his citizen’s needs for personal freedom, his name was Abraham Lincoln. He was a farmer boy that born Feb. 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky. His parents were both born in Virginia. Abraham was well known for his strength and cleverness in farming skills. In not so long time he began to be very famous in the community because of his skills in socializing. Not so long after that, he became the president of the United States.
He saw this great calamity of slavery and intends to abolish this calamity for good. To pursue this personal freedom, Abraham had gone through a lot of obstacles from his own family until his own citizen in the south. Alas, not so long a civil war broke out between the north and the south. But, the good always wins; Abraham with the North wins the Civil War by diplomacy. And thus the period of reconstruction began. Unfortunately Abraham was killed by an assassin in April 14, 1865; Lincoln was killed at Ford’s Theatre in Washington by John Wilkes Booth.
This story has greatly described to us the importance of human need for community and personal freedom. In conclusion, these two stories, My Singular Irene and A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings, tell us about the importance of personal freedom and need of interaction with other people. They also told us, no matter how hard human is pushed to abandoned their personal freedom; human always emerges to fight their way to obtain freedom even though they have to put their lives on the line to achieve their goal, personal freedom.