BSED IV AN,SE HYEON

Marvelous Afternoon - Balthazar

STORYLINES
Balthazar is a poor man who dislikes rich people. Particularly rich people like José Montiel. It
is not that Balthazar is jealous of José rather he does not wish to live the type of life that José lives. A
life that may be driven by money and a life that is alien to Balthazar. How opposed Balthazar is to
José’s way of life is noticeable by the fact that he gives the cage to Pepe for nothing. Whereas José
acts greedily by refusing to pay the sixty pesos for the cage. This may be important as Balthazar has
shown that he is a generous man even though he can ill afford to give his work away for free. How
generous Balthazar may be is also noticeable by the fact that he buys those in the pool hall drinks.
Again when he does not really have the money to do so.

There is also a sense that Balthazar is in conflict with himself. He has never been drunk before
and is venturing into unknown territory. It is also clear to the reader that Balthazar loses the run of
himself when he is talking to the people in the pool hall. He begins to have grandiose ideas about
what he will do (build a million cages). Something that is in contrast to how Balthazar had previously
acted when people first complimented him on the cage. He had humility. Yet when drunk he has
ideas of grandiosity. Which may mirror the same ideas that José has when it comes to his life. Which
may suggest that Balthazar and José may not necessarily be very different to one another.

The end of the story is also interesting as Balthazar has spent the afternoon living an illusion.
He is spending money as though he is a rich man. Just like José. Yet ironically he has a dislike for rich
people. The reader left sensing that when Balthazar wakes up he will also dislike himself for his
actions. He has spent money he hasn’t got and lied to people about getting sixty pesos. All for the
sake of his pride.

CHARACTER
Balthazar - A poor but wise man who doesn' want to live the way of the rich: ostentatious and
extravagant.

`It doesn't matter', said Balthazar `I made it expressly as a gift for Pepe. I didn't expect to charge
anything for it.'

But ironically, when drunk, he exposes the part of himself that wants to act like a rich one, unveiling
his long-hidden pride.

Balthazar buys beer for everyone. In his drunk state he talks about a project : ...by dusk he was
completely drunk, and he was talking about a fabulous project of a thousand cages, at sixty pesos
each, and then a million cages, till he had sixty million pesos.

Ursula - Balthazar's partner. She is practical, realistic, and calculative. Rather than admiring the beauty
and authentic of the cage like everyone else does, she fist notices the size and the price that comes
out of it.

'I think it is the biggest cage I've seen in my life.'

Doctor Giraldo - A poetic, loving husband to an unwell wife who is fond of having birds. He also
recognizes the asthetic of the cage.

`This is a flight of the imagination', he said : `You wouldn't even need to put birds in it', he said,
making the cage turn in front of the audience's eyes as if he were auctioning it off. `It would be
enough to hang it in the trees so it could sing by itself.'

Jose Montiel - The rich man who is completely insensitive to beauty. He's the only one in the story
who isn't awestruct by the beauty of the cage. Note the words used by Montiel to describe the cage:
it is a `piece of furniture' and a `trinket.' He is the only one who is blind to the beautiful cage and
does not notice the craftsmanship.

`none of these things was particularly important.'

THEME
This story is about the preservation of a man's artistic value and how he must overcome a
materialistic society

SYMBOLIC ANALYSIS
Cage- Cage is something of beauty but the purpose that it serves, which is to imprison birds, does
not convey beauty. It symbolizes the material element in society; particularly money.

MAGICAL REALISM
Gabriel Garcia Marquez's fiction has been characterized as belonging to a style of literature classified
as `magical realism', where the fiction has a component of the magical to it. It breaks down to a term
namely 'surreal reality' where the reality contains fantasy or dreams.