"A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" (Spanish: Un señor muy viejo con unas alas enormes) is a fictional short story by author Gabriel García Márquez written in 1955. It falls within the genre of magic realism, and is one of the short stories included in the book Leaf Storm.
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"A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" begins with a husband and wife, Pelayo and Elisenda, who find a very old man in their courtyard one stormy afternoon. Amazed, they gaze at the enormous wings attached to the body of the old man as he struggles to get up from the mud. After it rains for three days, the main characters Pelayo and Enlisenda, pick him up among the stench of the mud. The couple attempts to communicate with the old man, but are unable to because he speaks a different language (which is never identified.) A neighbor comes by and lets them know that the old man is an angel who has come to take their sick child. Unsure of what to do, Pelayo decides to lock the angel in a chicken coop overnight. Early the next morning the local priest, Father Gonzaga, comes to the home, followed by the rest of the community, to test the old man and determine whether or not he truly is an angel. Ultimately, Father Gonzaga finds many reasons why the man cannot be an angel, such as the fact that the old man cannot understand Latin, and also because he has too many mortal characteristics. Elisenda, tired of having so many people at her house, decides to charge an entrance fee to see the angel. The family becomes rich and builds a mansion with the money they have collected. The Old Man then lives with the family in the chicken coop for many years to come.
The crowd soon loses interest in the angel because another freak has risen to fame. The new attraction is a woman who disobeyed her parents when she was young, and has since been transformed into a tarantula. In order for her to continue telling her story, the people of the town toss meatballs into her mouth, which was "her only means of nourishment." Meanwhile, the angel's health has declined, and it seems he is on the verge of death. Years pass, and he is still trapped in the coop, treated poorly by Pelayo and Elisenda. However, he suddenly becomes more healthy, grows a few new feathers, and is able to get out of his cage. At first, he roams around the house, but Elisenda keeps shooing him out of the rooms with a broom. One day he leaves the house, and begins to attempt to fly. After much effort, he is able to fly off into the distance, and Elisenda is relieved to have the "annoyance" gone from her life.
The Old Man landed on Pelayo and Elisenda's property. Pelayo is the husband to Enlisenda. He discovered the Old Man in his backyard. During the whole story, he is very eager and willing to help others. Because of his helpful nature, he protects the Old Man and cares for him, especially from the priest and the crowds. He believes that the Old Man is a sailor. Pelayo doesn't necessarily want to house the Old Man, but he does want to keep the revenue. In a sense, he was wise, while still making some selfish decisions towards the Old Man.
Elisenda first comes up with the idea to charge people to see the Old Man. She is very family oriented throughout the story. It bothers her though, that she has to clean up after all the crowds from coming to see him. Near the end when the Old Man begins to come in the house, she gets annoyed because she has to clean up after him. It's understandable that she was annoyed after a while by the Old Man because having an intruder in your home must be distressing.
He appears in the backyard in the mud. The family is first hesitant about what he is, so they make him live in the chicken coop. He is very dirty and he speaks a weird language that the people cannot understand. While some people think he is an angel, others think he is a Norwegian. When the crowds first start to come around, he is absentminded and patient about whats going on. The crowds come from all over the world to see him so he becomes a celebrity. Later, the crowds burn him with a branding iron and he becomes angered. In the end, he grows all of his feathers back and he flies away. He essentially over stayed his welcome with Pelayo and Enlisenda.
Father Gonzana is the priest and the authority figure of the town. He takes on the responsibility to figure out what the Old Man is. He was a little perplexed about what the Old Man was, so he referred to his superiors. He later says he thinks that the Old Man is an imposter, or a phony. He also had a calming personality, primarily when the crowds were flooding.
The Neighbor was known for being wise, intelligent and helpful. She thought that the Old Man was an angel and fell from the sky to take Pelayo's son away. While her advise for clubbing the Old Man wasn't used, she still attempted to help her neighbors Pelayo and Elisenda. Her helpful nature was reflected in the story.
The Spider Woman essentially comes and takes the Old Man's fame. She is a troublemaker who got kicked out of her parents' home for disobeying. After disobeying her parents, she got turned into a tarantula with the head of a woman. The people then forget about the Old Man and focus their interests on the freak show named Spider Woman.
The child of Pelayo and Enlisenda is ill when the story opens. The Neighbor tried to tell the family that the Old Man came to take the child to heaven. Sometimes during the story, he is found playing with the Old Man.
In order to better understand Gabriel’s stories, it is important to understand where he came from and what influenced his stories. Gabriel Garcia Marquez was born on March 6, 1927 in Aracataca, Colombia. Rather than traditionally growing up with his parents, he grew up with his maternal grandparents. The house he grew up in was said to house his aunts, uncles and sometimes it was said there were ghosts. Gabriel went to Jesuit College, thinking he wanted to study law and eventually be a lawyer. Later, he found himself attached to Journalism. In 1954, he was sent to Rome on a mission to help with a local newspaper. He hasn’t looked back on his decision to study journalism since.
Gabriel’s grandfather, Nicolás Ricardo Márquez Mejía, was a colonel in the Colombian Military. He fought in the Colombian Civil War commonly known as “The War of a Thousand Days.” Often people from the Colombian Civil War made their way into Gabriel’s stories. They were represented as normal characters but frequently served as a memory and a remembrance for them. Marquez’s grandfather also took him to the circus every year. This is represented in “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings” as the circus attraction.
Gabriel’s grandmother, Tranquilina Iguarán Cotes, was very superstitious and was interested folk beliefs. She often told stories to Gabriel, to which his grandfather told him not to listen, and these stories were later used as imaginary creatures in his stories. Such as in “A Very OId Man With Enormous Wings,” the Old Man is a reference to these stories and the mystical creatures. It is often said that he wrote his stories in the same tone and manner as his grandmother would have told her stories.
Garcia Marquez's life on the whole has been a great success. While he did go into great debt when he was writing his first story, but it came out to be an outstanding achievement. Carlos Fuentes stated following reading his first story, "I have just read eighty pages from a master." This story was later named One Hundred Years of Solitude. Later, Garcia won the Noble Peace Prize for Literature in 1982. About five years later, he became one of the most famous writers in the world. He became an inspiration to people in politics, writing and teaching. Ever since, he has excelled in his news journalism and in his fictional stories.
The Old Man's wings could represent a number of things. Mainly, the reader could see them as freedom. Since part of the town thought that the Old Man was an angel, his wings could represent him freeing the town from their troubles, such as the sick child. If the neighbor was right about her interpretations about the Old Man, he could have eventually freed the child of his illness and the families troubles. Some people actually thought this was why the Old Man appeared in their back yard. If he were to represent an angel, he could also free the town of their confusion and uncertainty about others. When the spider woman appeared, they did not approach her in the same manner that they approached the Old Man. This was because they knew exactly how she came to be (from disobeying her mother.) Since they didn't know exactly how the Old Man came to be, they didn't treat him the same way.
The author makes it clear to the reader that the center point of the story is not exactly about the Old Man, but more so about how the people react to his existence. If it was meant to be about the Old Man and his life, the author might have entered some of the Old Man's past and thoughts into the story. Rather, all the readers hears and sees is how the people react to him. This allows the reader to recognize how people react to the unknown.
The Spider Woman appeared from disobeying her mother. She was treated differently from the Old Man because the people knew how she came to be. This affect of people treating others unfairly made a very large point in the story. ; to not only treat others fairly, but not to judge anyone by their appearance.
Marquez, Gabriel Garcia. "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings." The Story and Its Writer. Eighth Edition. Ann Charters. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2011. 446-452. Print.
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