The Theme of Social Neglect in A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings by
Gabriel Garcia Marquez and AI by Steven Spielberg
Works of art, especially those of literature, had been portrayed
effectively through the print and audio-visual media. Through writing,
ideas are expressed vividly, and more focus on characters, settings, and
the plot of the story are given. On the other hand, audio-visual material,
such as movies, provides people with greater illustration of events
happening in the story, although the depth and essence of the story are
sacrificed in order to focus on the visual and audio elements of the movie.
Despite the disadvantages between the two media, both print and audio-
visual mode of witnessing and experiencing an account of a social reality
are effective in extending and informing the message of the story to the
readers. More often, there are similarities that make a printed artwork
similarly interesting as a movie, so long as there are emerging themes that
Thus is the case with A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings by Gabriel
Garcia Marquez and the movie AI by Steven Spielberg. Both stories confront
the issue on how society reacts when confronted with an "unreal" situation,
and how social neglect happens when an individual's "usability" or function
in the society is no longer needed. The main theme of social neglect is
discussed in this essay, especially on how society adapts to the unreal to
make a situation real and embedded meanings that can be interpreted upon a
closer analysis of these two productions.
Marquez's short story is characteristically different from the
traditional types of short stories. This is because the author used the
genre and technique called magical realism to narrate, "an angel's fall
from heaven," and how the old angel's fall resulted to acceptance or
...