The man in the water makes what would normally be seen as a normal disaster, if such a thing is possible, into a story that stunned so many people. Allende and Rosenblatt both present alike themes in similar and different ways. One way that these two stories are different is that the man in “The Man in the Water” tried to help as many people as he could, even when he knew the consequences could be death. But Azucena didn’t really help anyone. Their deaths were also different. Isabel Allende used a realistic fiction story-like approach, while Roger Rosenblatt used an informative, report-like approach.
These stories are very similar because they are in the same genre yet still have differences. This essay will compare and contrast these two stories. More specifically, this essay will be comparing and contrasting how both stories convey the genre of magical realism through the characters, and literary devices (how they show it). In the next two paragraphs I will tell you one similarity and one difference that these two writings have regarding their topic and theme. In “The Man in Water” and “And of clay are we created”, nature is used in both. They are also both about death, an ominous monster that takes what it wants. Many themes appear in the short stories, but there is only one that both have in common. That is, humans are not powerless against nature.
A difference between the short story and the article is that in The Man in the Water, the author didn’t seem to really exaggerate as much as Isabel Allende, the author of And of Clay are we Created. Allende used magic realism and Rosenblatt was more realistic. In two specific stories, Isabel Allende’s And of Clay Are We Created and Roger Rosenblatt’s The Man in the Water, disaster strikes and the people in the stories are symbols of what true human beings should be like; faithful, positive, and strong in the heart and mind. Both.
