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Analysis Of A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings By Gabriel Garcia Marquez

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The short story, “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings: A Tale for Children,” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, is unusual to say the least. Several aspects of the story make it different from many short stories that are in existence. For one thing, it never really satisfies. Things just seem to work out without any real fanfare and perhaps not in the way the reader expects them to work out either. Another unusual aspect to the story is the coldness and complete lack of acknowledgement of what the “angel” or “old man” did for the people of the town where he appeared. That not knowing what to call the antagonist—if he can rightly be considered antagonistic in his actions in the story since he really does not do anything, but the narrator attributes miracles and near-miracles to him—is another puzzling part of Marquez’s story. Perhaps the …show more content…

Why was the old man/angel there? Was it to cure Pelayo and Elisendo’s child? Was it to bring them wealth? If that was the reason, why did they not understand that was the old man/angel’s purpose and treat him better? Why were they not among the simplest in the village who want to name him mayor of the world? Micah Dean Hicks acknowledges that there are questions about “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings.” He says, “García Márquez knows that people want answers, for the world to make sense, for things to matter. But good art is contrary. It isn’t going to give you what you want, and it isn’t going to do what you expect. It’s going to surprise and confound you at every turn” (Hicks). That is certainly what Marquez accomplishes in this story. Perhaps that is also why he specifically says the story is for children. Maybe Marquez knew that children were not going to question the story’s particulars in the same way that adults do. Children also may not have the egos of adults that would, like the villagers in the story, refuse to attribute the miracles or wondrous acts or coincidences to the angel’s presence in the

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