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Enormous Wings

Decent Essays

Brothers Grimm stories of the early 1800s, such as “Hansel and Gretel” and “Snow White,” were often subtitled as “Stories for Children” in order to teach children lessons and keep them away from participating in any activities their parents did not wish them to partake in. In "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings," Gabriel Garcia Marquez creates a Brothers Grimm-esque fairytale, using a symbolic angel and characterization to develop the idea of expectation and taking miracles for granted when appreciation should be given. Marquez subtitles his story as “A Tale for Children,” and similarly to the Grimm stories, the tale does not feature a cutesy happy ending, as many of the recent adaptations by Disney of the Brothers Grimm stories have. Marquez …show more content…

Many people believe in karma, that one’s actions will determine their fate – especially bad karma. In “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings,” the general theme is ungratefulness. The angel, when it comes to take the couple’s child, is too weak, and therefore the child is spared. The couple thanks the angel by housing him in a rundown chicken coop and exploiting him to the townspeople for profit. They did not care for him, though he was old and injured; they did not clean him, though “his huge buzzard wings, dirty and half-plucked, were forever entangled in the mud” (272). The couple’s ignorance towards the angel and their mistreatment of him cast them as a pair of bullies, playing upon the weak and misfortunate. Enduring the abuse can be seen as a compassionate act by the angel, as it …show more content…

The couple first gets their hopes up when their neighbor tells them her expert opinion – “They called in a neighbor woman who knew everything about life and death to see him, and all she needed was one look to show them their mistake. ‘He’s an angel,’ she told them” (272). When everyone in town heard of the angel, they all had this idea of what the angel was in their minds, and expected a miracle worker, one who could heal all and fly and “speak the language of God” (273). The townspeople, when faced with this angel, realized that he did not live up to their expectations of an all-mighty being capable of healing and flying, and "burned his side with an iron for branding steers" and "threw stones at him" (273). He was almost too human for the townspeople to be considered an actual angel, considering his health and appearance. The story intends to tell that people should take things as they are and not hold others to their own outrageous standards.
Finally, Gabriel Garcia Marquez used the subtitle, “A Tale for Children,” to hide his true motivation for writing “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” from any political powers. His idea was that one would not assume the story was judgmental and mocking if it was deemed as “for children,” and he was never caught or punished, though his concept is now well-known after years of analysis of the story.

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