A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings and Its Magical Realism Essay

The way Pelayo and his wife treated the angel throughout the whole story emphasizes some aspects of the theme. In the beginning of the story, Gabriel García Márquez described the very old man by mentioning that he had few teeth and hairs left. He compared his attire to a “ragpicker” and his overall state to a great grandfather which can only accentuate the fact that the angel looked extremely old and in a very distressing condition. According to the author, the very old man spoke an unrecognizable language which made communicating with the villagers even harder. Seeing how pitiful the state of the angel was, Pelayo and his wife concluded that he is a survivor from a ship that has been wrecked by some storm. However, even after making such conclusion they couldn’t decide whether to help him or not. They couldn’t lend a hand to an old man covered in mud. This shows how humans could be a little cruel but mostly shows how humans fear the unrecognizable and the unknown which in this case is represented by the very old man in enormous wings. Even when they started to discern what he might

“A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” is a short story written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez about an “angel” who appears in a town and catalogs the reactions of the townsfolk to his presence. The capacity of humans to do evil through no fault but their own is also something explored in their story[worded strangely & needs revision]. Through this short story, Marquez demonstrates a theme of irony, which is shown through not only the angel, but the townsfolk and their beliefs and ideals.

The story of A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings is a tale in which a pitiful looking man with wings is found outside of the home of Pelayo and Elisenda. Pelayo sees the man while he is removing crabs from their home and throwing them into the sea. His wife, Elisenda, was caring for their ill, newborn child at the time. Pelayo was frightened and pulled his wife into the courtyard to observe the old man. They believed him to be a castaway, but sought the advice of a neighboring older woman. She immediately identified the man as an angel that had come for their child. This angel was not bright white with beautiful skin and glorious clothing, but a weak and dirty old man. This story is about good and

In Garcia Marquez’s short story, “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings,” we find ourselves involved with a variety of problems varying from a ridiculous crab infestation to a much more severe one such as their newborn being terribly sick. To make matters worse, Pelayo (the husband) discovers a very old man with wings like an angle lying on his courtyard. News quickly travels of this new fallen angle so people come by the hundreds to see this miracle. To their disappointment the angle seems to ignore them and eventually the crowds no longer come. However, due to crowds, Pelayo and his wife charged an entry fee that allowed them to quit there jobs and buy a new house. Years pass and the winged man still resides with the family much to Elisenda’s disapproval. Eventually, the family believes the old man is about to die, but just like that he recovers and vanishes into the sunset. Since this story was told from a third person perspective we are limited to the amount of insight we get from each character. Another interesting element of the story is the symbolism presented. There are numerous symbols in the story, but the most significant is the storm and I will discuss this further later in my analysis.

In Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" an angel symbolizes the unfamiliar. The angel is not just a celestial body, but a foreign body-someone who stands out as being different from the rest of society. Consequently, the angel draws attention to civilized society's reaction, ergo the community's reaction within the story when it confronts him. Using the angel as a symbol, Marquez shows how ignorance reveals the vulnerability of human nature often leading to uncivilized behaviour.

Similarly, he uses setting to bring the reader to have an interest in the story by revealing a supernatural element to have a realistic setting. Gabriel Garcia Marquez uses this literary device to transform the reader’s thoughts of something fictional to non-fictional by using descriptive vivid images and bringing every detail to life. The concept of using setting as a literary device is important in this story because it gives the audience a sense of realism and affects the story overall. His direct writing style establishes how a man named Pelayo sees the supernatural creature and he was “[f]rightened by that nightmare” (Marquez 363). In a religious view, angels are the opposite of nightmares they protect those who states, “[A]ll ministering spirits [are] sent out to serve for the sake of those who…” believe in God and they obey God’s commandments to help those who are struggling (The Holy Bible: Containing the Old and New Testaments.

The Angel is spending the majority of the story with the chickens in the chicken coop. He has no room to move or stretch. This signifies how Pelayo and his wife doesnt have a second thought on the comfort or for the feelings of the Angel. The Angel is found laying in the mud at the begining with dilapidated wings. It says, “He spent his time trying to get comfortable in his borrowed nest, befuddled by the hellish heat of the oil lamps and sacramental candles that had been placed along the wire,” (365). The author uses all of this to help the reader understand how low the Angel is mentally and how hard it’s going to be to overcome the adversity the Angel is facing, rather than letting the conditions of his surrounding overcome

Through the use of magical realism, Marquez shows us the absurdidity of people’s actions. The large man with enormous wings converys people’s misunderstanding of the unknown. Although the large man is thought to be an angel, because of his grotesque looks and awkward nature the townspeople treat him poorly. They shame the creature in various ways. This shows

Marquez sets the tone of the story with an occurrence that is unusual and unsolicited: a newborn caught in bad weather. The introductory writing style is striking as Marquez gives a hint of the bad weather: “The world had been sad since Tuesday.” (Márquez 13) He introduces a supernatural element by describing a bizarre old man with massive wings. He shatters the assumption that angels are powerful and divine by describing the old man stuck in the mud as, “…impeded by his enormous wings” (Márquez 13) and unable to free himself.

Though there are many conflicts in “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” the main conflict is man vs. society. The angel is found in Pelayo's courtyard and is then moved into the chicken coop. Once word of the angel spreads people come to watch him. The townspeople flock to the angel even though they are not entirely sure what he is. Most are skeptical about whether or not he is actually an angel because the miracles he preforms were not what was expected. They threw rocks to try to wake him up. At one point they even branded him with a branding iron. Once the spider woman comes to town the townspeople forgot all about the angel and flock to her.

Location also tells us that it is economically and socially underdeveloped, and is reinforced with the image of isolation given to us when Garcia Marquez writes of Father Gonzaga having to write and send a letter to the bishop. The time period of the story is established as modern day when it is written “…in determining the difference between a hawk and an airplane…(Garcia Marquez 442).” The town’s people are portrayed as simple, primitive and crude as demonstrated when Garcia Marquez writes  “…they did not have the heart to club him to death.” and then instead Pelayo “…dragged him out of the mud and locked him up with the hens in the wire chicken coop (441).” After the child’s fever breaks Pelayo and Elisenda “felt magnanimous and decided to put the angel on a raft with fresh water and provisions for three days and leave him to his fate on the high seas (441).”

     If I ask you to picture an angel, what do you see? Is it a vibrant white, majestically dressed individual with lush and strong wings who commands reverence with his presence? What does this ethereal creature stand for? Righteousness? Protector of good and the purest form of a celestial being besides God? If you have read Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” then you may have been introduced to a conflicting image of an angel. This angel is in no way similar to the one described above. Actually, we are not even sure he is an angel. What we do know after reading this story is that the

"A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" includes many aspects, which may be described as magical. In the story, an old man with a very poor set of wings is found and kept as a pet for several years. These wings were described by the doctor in the story as "...so natural on that

Angels are merely a symbol of hope. An online angelology site explains that “In Christian, Muslim, Jewish and other theologies an angel can be one who acts as a messenger, attendant or agent of God” (web). In the midst of the dark skies and the swarm of crabs, an angel fell into the mud covered by his enormous wings. Marquez describes this angel in a very unusual and fascinating way. “He was dressed like a ragpicker. There were only a few faded hairs left on his bald skull and very few teeth in his mouth, and his pitiful condition of a drenched great-grandfather had taken away any sense of grandeur he might have had” (Marquez 401). The angel, who apparently is an old man, is how he pictures hope and according to an online article, “Marquez is a son of poor parents that was raised by his grandparents… his grandfather kept him grounded in reality” (web). The angel’s appearance of faded hairs and few teeth symbolizes his stature in life of poverty and the old man symbolized his grandfather. With the struggling of Colombia, what Marquez hoped for the most was the person that kept him grounded. The humanitarian consequences in La Violencia states online “Yet, La Violencia, did not come to be known as La Violencia simply because of the number of people it affected; it was the ferocity with which most of the killings, maimings, and dismemberings were done” (web). Furthermore,

or an angel? Meanwhile as most came to ridicule, some actually would come to seek the help of