In 400 words, The two stories you read this week are both examples of “surrealism” or “magical realism”: works in which an otherwise normal reality has elements of the impossible or the magical. (This is as opposed to pure fantasy, such as Lord of the Rings, in which the whole world is different and magical.) Authors use these magical elements to highlight the themes of the stories. For your reading response, please write about how these two stories use the “unreal” or “magical” (a man being resurrected in a parrot, an angel falling to earth, etc.). How did you interpret the unreal? What messages do you think the authors were trying to convey? And did the stories remind you of other stories, movies, or art you’ve seen or read such as fairy tales?

Stories
1. Jealous Husband Returns in Form of Parrot
By Robert Olen Butler
From the collection Tabloid Dreams (Henry Holt & Co., 1996)

2. A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings: A Tale For Children
Gabriel Garcia Marquez