Same instructions as last time. Respond to one of the prompts, or say what you find it helpful to say about the story.
1. What connection(s) do you find between this story and either or both of the other two we have re-read so far ("The Handsomest Drowned Man . . ." and ". . .Enormous Wings")? Or is there a way in which this story seems significantly different?
2. Verbal irony could be defined as the use of words that mean what they say they mean while also meaning something else in a way both the speaker and audience agree on in an unspoken way. Can you find an example of irony in this story, and can you explain how the irony works?
3. What is a key moment in the story, and why?
Of the many key moments in Blacaman the Good, the one that struck me as the most interesting and captivating takes place when Blacaman the Good is being tortured by Blacaman the Bad. Blacaman the Bad is teasing Blacaman the Good with the carcass of a dead rabbit. Blacaman the Bad is showing his poor friend that he would rather throw away the rabbit's carcass than let him have it to chew on. " [...]but my patience only went so far and all I had left was rancor, so I grabbed the rabbit by the ears and flung it against the wall with the illusion that it was he and not the animal that was going to explode, and then it happened, as if in a dream. The rabbit not only revived with a squeal of fright, but came back to my hands, hopping through the air." (119) The rabbit's transformation lead to great things for Blacaman the Good. His fortune turned upwards after years of being under the power of Blacaman the Bad. Unfortunately for Blacaman the Bad, Blacaman the Good's newfound powers did not treat him as well. In fact, the discovery of these powers led to a very restless eternity for Blacaman the Bad.
ReplyDeleteI find this moment very important because it gives the story a wonderful moral- good trumps bad. I like to believe this is true. It is nice to think that all the people with good intentions and genuine sincerity end up in positions of prosperity. I don't think people with bad intentions should be left without the possibility of prosperity, I just like the idea that good wins in the end.
Blacaman the Good's revenge on Blacaman the Bad is the ultimate key moment in the short story. Blacaman the Bad teased, tortured, and deceived Blacaman the Good. Blacaman the Good saw through his illusions and had little respect for him, infact, his hate for Blacaman the Bad stretched as far as not respecting him after death. Blacaman the Good revived his corpse while buried underground multiple times, and will continue to do so as far as Blacaman the Good lives.
ReplyDeleteI think Blacaman the Good's extreme hate for Blacaman the Bad, is key because without seeing the cruelty on either end stemming from the power of illusion and it's affect on people, illusion and what is truth is taken lightly. Once it affects a good person (Blacaman the Good), to bring hate to someone, the negative affects of fiendish illusion are presented.
Between the three stories, death clearly plays a huge role. The magic of preventing death is Blacaman the Good's trade, and invents a cure for a vicious snake bite. Moreover, Marquez elaborates on death by creating an intentionally vague line between what is actually death and the illusion or trick of death. It is never positively clear if the cure is a scam, and when the rabbit comes back to life, it seems to be a vision. The line appears also when Blacaman the Good finds revenge on Blacaman the Bad by preventing him from dying forever.
ReplyDeleteIrony also appears in multiple ways in Blacaman the Good, as it did in the previous stories. First, one could argue Blacaman the Good and Bad are quite nearly the same person. Incredibly similar to the point that it seems they could be separate personalities of one being, with the Good trying its hardest to lock away the Bad. Blacaman the Good also does some questionably Bad actions, such as throwing a rabbit carcass against a wall, or seeking a terrible revenge on Blacaman the Bad.
There was a lot of magical realism in both The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World and Blacaman the Good. In The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World, it seems as though Esteban is able to do things even though he is dead. At the beginning of the story, the children have to carry him around on the beach, which would be nearly impossible for them to do, for it took a few men to carry him to the village. It also says that he must have been very unhappy in the huge body since it “bothered him after death.” But there is no way for them to prove that this is actually true.
ReplyDeleteThroughout Blacaman the Good, there are some things that are said that are just very strange.
Also, when they ran away and were hiding in a cave, they were relying on cobwebs as food to keep them alive. I feel like there are many better ways to survive than eating cobwebs, even in hiding. There are also many things at the beginning of the story that are considered odd and unrealistic.
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ReplyDeleteI feel almost as if Blacamans revenge was needed. The fact Blacaman the good could bring people back to life was for shadowing of Blacaman the bads death. Treating the good so back, it eventually got him into a deadly situation. The irony is Blacaman the bad got what was coming to him because he is brought back to life after dying, and then brought back to life again.
ReplyDeleteI actually kinda like this story more then the previous two. I also liked the use of magic realism in this novel a lot more.
I think the key moment in this story is when Blacaman the Good gets his final revenge on Blacaman the Bad. Because all throughout the story Blacaman the Bad has been mistreating him and torturing him, yet the revenge is almost civil. Blacaman the Good doesn't torture him with a rabbit carcass, or beat him or yell at him. But he simply doesn't allow him peace. Blacaman the Good heals people and helps create peace of mind for the rest of the world, but he takes it away from the person who took it from him.
ReplyDeleteThat is where the story comes full circle and Blacaman the Bad finally pays for his actions. All is settled and right.
It is pretty clear that Gabriel Garcia Marquez uses magic realism in almost all of the stories and novels, at least the ones I have read. In this three short stories magical realism is present from beginning to end.
ReplyDeleteHe uses this technique for the story not to look completely fantastic, but realistic at the same time, so it is a balance between both, which i find very interesting and worth to analyze.
Another thing i saw and i thought it was interesting was the in both stories Blacaman the good and A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings is the distinction he makes between good and the bad. l
Something that I find particularly interesting about this story is that many other stories in the novel have a common theme/idea of death, and in this particular story death and sickness is approached from another perspective. After reading “Blacaman the Good Vendor of Miracles” I realized that what sets this story apart from the other ones, besides being very strange, is that death can be overcome and reversed. The previous stories in this novel all involve death yet no one ever comes back to life or has the ability to physically come back to life either.
ReplyDeleteThe story revolves around Blacaman the Bad who is a terrible person, he is very malevolent and he tricks people to get money. Everything starts realistic but goes to more magical towards the end when Blacaman the Good gets his magical powers. When Blacaman the Good gets his magical powers he goes around curing people. This is defiantly unrealistic since a lot of the ailments he cures are realistically irreversible. An example of Blacaman curing people can be found on page 119: "...drawing the fever out of malaria victims for two pesos, visioning blind men for four-fifty, draining the water from dropsy victims for eighteen...” However Blacaman though he has the power, refuses to bring back dead people. "The only thing I don’t do is revive the dead, because as soon as they open their eyes, they are murderous with rage at the one who disturbed their state, and when it’s all done, those who don’t commit suicide die again of disillusionment."
Basically, the story is about life and death as are the others. My personal opinion is that Blacaman the Good is even worse than Blacaman the Bad because of the things he learned from the “Bad.” Blacaman the Good is a perfect example of an abuser of power. Blacaman the Good knows not to revive the dead, yet he doesn’t mind doing it to torture Blacaman the Bad."...I bring him back to life once more, for the beauty of the punishment is that he will keep on living in his tomb as long as I am alive, that is, forever (122)". Before, Blacaman the Good would gladly help people avoid death by healing them. However, he deprives Blacaman the Bad from dying. This makes it seem like Blacaman the Good thinks that dying is a privilege to Blacaman the Bad, and because the “Bad” is deprived from this privilege he will live forever, eternally suffering.
What I thought was interesting about this story is that a lot can be inferred as to what happened before and after the story. At least in my mind it looked like there was a pattern that had and would continue to occur. It seems as though the cycle could be that there is always a Blacaman, who begins as an apprentice and has a pure heart. But soon power corrupts and Blacaman the Good becomes Blacaman the Bad, who thens finds and innocent apprentice who succeeds him.
ReplyDeleteThis definitely happened within this is story, and it seems feasible that if the story were to continue, the cycle could as well.
I agree with Zane's statement that the most outstanding moment in Blacaman the Good was when Blacaman the Bad is torturing Blacaman the Good. I thought Blacaman the Good's choice of retaliation against Blacaman the Bad was an interesting choice. You would not think that someone evil that has been killed and put to justice would be brought back to life as a form of punishment, but it did the trick with Blacaman the Bad. At the same time, it was interesting how quickly Blacaman the Bad began to humiliate and torture Blacaman the Good near the beginning of the short story.
ReplyDeleteThis short story is very different from the last two, The Old Man with Enormous Wings, and The Handsomest Drowned Man. The first two seemed to be centered around persecutive, point of view, and heroism.
ReplyDeleteThis story is much more about death, torture, and revenge.
Although all three passages have the magical realism, this story, Blacaman the Good displays more of a realistic story line. The setting is more modern, and the people are much more intelligent and civilized, juxtaposing the island-setting for the first two and the savage/ inhumane villagers.
The magical element is much more scarce here, since the only magic mentioned is really cheating death (which is also very briefly described, as if it has little importance).
In this short story, there are two main characters that contrast each other. Because these two men are like polar opposites, one always has to be on top of the other- they cannot be equal.
This story was quite dark and definitely not a story for children. A lot of the writing style stuck out to me as I read it through. For example, many times the author will start a new paragraph with a very direct statement, written in a way that repeats throughout. The story is not broken up into very many paragraphs, so the first time we see this pattern is the first sentence of the second paragraph which reads, "That was what Blacaman was like, Blacaman the Bad, because I'm Blacaman the good." The next instance is at the start of the next paragraph which says, "He didn't laugh again for a long time." The first sentence of the following paragraph is the same kind of direct statement, "That was when I lost the little affection I had for him." And the final place we see this pattern is the first sentence of the next paragraph which is, "That was how my great life began." All of these sentences are short, very to the point, and introduce the new paragraph. In previous stories we have read, the most important or surprising sentences of the paragraph are the last few sentences, but in this case, Gabriel Marquez was reaching his point quite quickly.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of the content of the story, I would have to say that I disagree with Zane about the story having a classic "moral good trumps bad" kind of ending. Blacaman the Good completely stooped to Blacaman the Bad's level by continuously resurrecting him and causing him to suffer to death many times over. Although his actions might have been completely justified, as Blacaman the Bad treated Blacaman the Good in a horrific manner, it is still not the work of a truly "good" human being.
The irony in this story seemed to stand out to me most while reading. The huge fluctuations between good deeds and bad deeds done between Blacaman the Good and Blacaman the Bad are almost confusing at times. Near the beginning of the story our author recalls Blacaman the Bad choosing him while on his search for a fool, but as the story progresses he admits to finding something special within him too. Later Blacaman the Bad makes the radical decision to begin severely torturing Blacaman the Good, while moments before they seemed to be on good terms. This eventually leads to Blacaman the Good's discovery of his great skill in the science of healing the sick, and brining the dead back alive. This in and of itself is clearly ironic too. But the cherry on top of this massive ice creamy sunday irony comes when Blacaman the Good spends large sums of money and time on constructing a massive tomb and for Blacaman the Bad after his death in his honor, only to use it as a fairly simple torture devise in order to get revenge.
ReplyDeleteThe contrast that I notice between "The Handsomest..." and "Blacaman the Good..." is that both the women in the first story and Blacaman the Bad in the second story seem to create an infatuation over the weaker characters, but they treat these more disadvantaged characters very differently.
ReplyDeleteIn "The Handsomest..." the village women show a great deal of interest in Esteban. They show this by giving a good amount of their time and energy to caring for the corpse, respecting it, and admiring it.
However, in "Blacaman...," Blacaman the Bad seeks out spiteful revenge on Blacaman the Good, even though he seems to really concentrate and give a lot of attention to Blacaman the Good. Also, Blacaman the Bad treats this fully conscious, real person with disrespect, neglect, and forces him to experience awful circumstances.
In both of these stories the stronger characters seem to abuse the power and control, that they enjoy, over the weaker characters. The village women use Esteban as their model for their own custom-designed ideal of a man in their society. Blacaman the Bad uses Blacaman the Good as some kind of sick and manipulative entertainment.
A similarity from my beginning contrast, is that besides how varying both of the defenseless characters(Esteban and Blacaman the Good) are treated, they both seem to be used by the characters in control for their own selfish desires and spectacles.
Many people in the stories in Gabriel Garcia Marquel's book seem to seize the moment to take advantage of an opportunity to have the ability to make decisions and have control in their lives, regardless if it affects others in a bad or a good way.