Jeana Najor
Professor Brooke Harrison
English 234
1 October 2012

A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings Formal Analysis The short story, “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, brings to light the propensity of human nature and society in general. The reactions of all the members of the community to the events in the story reflect their natural tendencies as human beings. The characters’ actions in the short story reflect the theme of the story which is that typical human nature is to react negatively or cruelly towards something that may be unfamiliar to them, and will leave people with empty thoughts of wondering and attention seeking tendencies that selfishly blinds them. It is possible that the author was trying to give an example of how people would commonly react in such a way that the main characters reacted in this specific short story. The man with wings is a definite curiosity but it also seems like he is very usual and ordinary. This story criticizes the human need for perfection. Also, it is made clear that the author didn’t have a particular main character. Most people would think it is obviously the man with the enormous wings, but his character is never really built upon to the point of clearly being a protagonist, even though all the other people in the story act extremely antagonistic towards him, which leaves the reader wondering. This adds to the theme of unanswered questions, and how the characters of the story reinforce it. The story does have many characters, but none of them can actually be given the title of a main character. The author mentions that the man’s wings are covered with mud. It reads specifically that, “His huge buzzard wings, dirty and half plucked, were forever tangled in mud. They looked at him so long and so closely that Pelayo and Elisenda very soon overcame their surprise and in the end found him familiar.” (Marquez 271) This image expresses the steadiness of indecency that takes control of the story, and that people very often fail to notice the wonderfully odd things in life. Just as the old man is an angel and that is how the author refers to him throughout the whole story, but he is a withered angel, and definitely no spring chicken. The wise neighbor woman even immediately suggests that Pelayo should club the angel to death, while having no prior knowledge of who the winged man is or where he may have come from. It is also never explained why the neighbor thinks that this angel is some sort of danger and should be killed, which has to do with the theme of wondering and unanswered questions, just as the reader never discovers why the baby is sick and why the angel even showed up in the first place. The issue of not understanding the angel comes into play more than once in the story and leaves the reader with an infinite number of unanswered questions. At the point of the story in which the angel is being poked, having things thrown at him, and is seen as a sort of circus act, the author immediately explains the entire situation of the angel and the crowds. By using simple language and a comparison with the crowd, the author convincingly displays the obvious difference between the angel and the people. The angel's indifference has only stimulated the crowd to more frustration, and demonstrates acts of cruelty and ruthlessness. The crowd treats the angel like a mystery. They try to figure out his identity by harassing him, feeding him different foods, and hurting him with rocks. They never try to learn anything about him or even try to communicate with him. Instead, they attempt to assert ownership and violently discomfort him. In no time, another oddity gains the peoples’ attention towards the middle of the story, which is the unusual half spider. By resorting to bizarre imagery, the author explains that a very important and intrinsic need of the human race is, simply, attention. The spider brings forth awareness to each person that sees it; she talks, eats, and gives lessons to people who need it. The author writes, " A spectacle like that, full of so much human truth and with such a fearful lesson, was bound to defeat without even trying that of a haughty angel who scarcely deigned to look at mortals." (Marquez 274) It looks to be that in this story, lack of concern is worse than mockery to many people, and the author uses the examples of the two very different phenomenons to display the likelihood in human nature to reject what does not fit the typical definition of what should be. After the Angel has made them large amounts of money, Pelayo and his wife Elisenda no longer pay attention to him. They leave him in the pen, foul-smelling like death had warmed over, until the structure collapsed. By specifying that they want their new stately home to be both crab and angel-proof, they mix the miraculous appearance of the angel, who made them a lot of money, after all, with the inconvenient annoyance of the crabs. They never understood the angel and solely took advantage of him and made use of him in a nasty way. Their child, on the other hand, seems to understand the angel and they played together confidentially. It is almost if the angel accepts the child, and it is as if they have a respectable relationship. The child behaves toward the angel with an openness that the adults do, indeed, not have. After realizing that the story is mentioned to be "A Tale for Children," it makes sense that children would more openly accept angels than adults would. Since children are much younger and much less educated than adults, they accept such different creatures rather than making a mockery out of them because of their own selfish concerns. The author must have connected these two instances on purpose to create another sort of theme in the story. The theme that it is natural for humans to act negatively toward new and unfamiliar things, may only be referring to grown adults, and not children. Another important part of the story which adds to the theme in when the angel finally leaves, Elisenda is extremely relieved and more than happy to see him go. Notwithstanding all the money that the angel had secondhand-idly brought her, Elisenda didn’t seem to think about that. It may be mere human nature to be ungrateful, but in this example, the author explains another minor theme of the story which is how humans tend to not purposely ignore the good things that are in front of them, and that those goods things are often not appreciated until it is too late. There are many unexplainable things that many people may have the advantage and blessing to see in their lifetime, and many of which may actually have a result of life changing experiences. Some things in life, and in this story in particularly, may actually foreshadow events in ones personal life or remind people of their own, and that is what the author of this story was trying to get across.

Woodson, Zach. "Literary Analysis: A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez." Helium. Helium, 16 Mar. 2009. Web. .