Thesis: The story, "a very old man with enormous wings," is about Pelayo and Elisenda stumbling upon an angel, keeping it for their own misuse, and in return being ungrateful and unappreciative through the course of housing this creature.
Pelayo and Elisenda find this angel on the shore of their house, they take it in and at first they don't know what to do with him. "He must have been coming for the child," (289) Elisenda says referencing their sick baby. That night that they put the angel in the chicken coop, their baby is healed of the fever and the spell of not eating. "Then they felt magnanimous and decided to put the angel on the raft with fresh water." (289) They were originally going to put the angel on the raft and left fate works its course, but then decided against it. Elisenda had the idea because all of the townspeople came to see the angel that they were going to keep it and charge people to see it. The townspeople including Pelayo and Elisenda mistreat the angel, by treating it more like a circus animal attraction then an angel. "The only time they succeeded in arousing him was when they burned his side with an iron for branding steers," (291) is also another example of how mean they were to the angel. People wanted the angel to heal whatever ailment they had encountered, or whatever traumatic experience they were going through, yet they did not do anything for the angel to want to heal. The author makes a good comparison with the girl that was turning into a spider, as a reference to how the townspeople acted towards things like this. I think he put this in the story to show us how this town focuses so much on whatever "new" is happening in the town, regardless of what it is. The reason Pelayo and Elisenda were so ungrateful was that because of the angel being at their residence, they were able to build a new house, Pelayo was able to quit his job, Elisenda was able to buy a bunch of pretty new dresses, and they still kept the angel in the chicken coop, and didn't even bother to clean it.