A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings’ Analysis Essay

A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings is a story from the famous Colombian novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Marquez is one of the most preeminent writers of Magical Realism, as he always tries to put a mixture of the magical and mystical theme. The story is strange like its setting in the small villages of Latin America where rare things often happen. Some say the reason behind the happenings is because of their religious views, others because of how they socialize with each other, or even because of the fact that Latin people can believe in so many things just like they could not believe in anything.

The story begins in the month of March in a Latin Caribbean place with a poor family of a very low class society. Pelayo and Elisenda found an old man with wings in their courtyard. The old man becomes famous that everyone thought he was an angel. Eventually the angel is rid of his fame by a woman who had turned into a spider for disobeying her parents. In that moment, the angel loses his reputation but not his essence, a reason which in one day for no apparent reason the creature decides to leave the village. The concept that human kind has towards the angel is represented as a decrepit, filthy, soaked, toothless, riddled with parasites and with very human odors. This short story is a parody as it is in a contradiction of the angel he doesnt get attached to anyone, his miracles are messy, he ends up sleeping in the shed all full of dirt and crawling from one side to the other. This could represent Pelayo and Elisendas life of economic hardship trying to survive. To achieve this, Marquez describes a courtyard littered with crabs, incessant rain, pestilence, the ashen sky and sea evoking sadness and generalized poverty. The author shows exactly a very sad and depressed scene of this poor family in need of a lot of things.

With the character of Father Gonzaga, Marquez criticizes the church because this priest is not capable to make a decision for himself, according to what he sees if this is a true angel of God or not, and this quote proves the point
He argued that if wings were not the essential element in determining the different between a hawk and an airplane, they were even less so in the recognition of angels. Nevertheless, he promised to write a letter to his bishop so that the latter would write his primate so that the latter would write to the Supreme Pontiff in order to get the final verdict from the highest courts

He still has to ask for permission even if people thinks that hes wise and intelligent, following an entire hierarchy. Such a response is never received, well who would care about the arrival of an angel in the backyard of Pelayo and Elisendas house. The story tells us that the angel behaves like a meekness dog with illusions.