A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings Essay

In “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings”, Gabriel Garcia Marquez writes this story in the style of magical realism, he uses many creative deflections to make an interpretation more difficult to reach or understand. The old man, who has a human body but somehow has very realistic wings or what it seems to be realistic, he is surrounded by filth and disease. He does have a human response as he interacts with them and seeks someone to heal him although the people don’t seem to acknowledge him. If any heavenly gifts he possessed, we’re not sure, it remains a mystery, but with the lunar dust, stellar parasites on his wings and his miracle it is supernatural. Pelayo who happens to be Elisenda’s husband is a villager that is poor and is convinced by his wife to charge villagers to see the old man once he captures him. Pelayo does not want to take a hold in caring for the old man but does not feel any kind of remorse or guilt for using the old man to get rich. Father Gonzaga, the village priest takes the responsibility to decide whether the old man is an angel or just miraculously happens to have wings, but he takes it up with the Vatican and tries to reduce the enthusiasm and cruelty by the people. The ambiguity could be the message itself, we don’t always know what to make of events in our lives. As in good events in our lives may not actually …show more content…
The sea is seen as possibilities to end cruelty. “Sea and sky were a single ash-gray thing and the sands of the beach, which on March nights glimmered like powdered light, had become a stew of mud and rotten shellfish.” The fact that there were rotting crabs around implies that the surroundings are not beautiful. The contrast between light and dirt demonstrates us to take time to see beauty in what is ugly and ordinary. Pelayo and Elisenda can’t see beauty in the old man they see that he is dirty, homeless, even a