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A very Old Man With Enormous Wings

            "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" is a short fiction story written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez in 1955. There is much to be interpreted in such a short story with a quick beginning and quick ending. There is more than one way to interpret this story I choose the more spiritual and biblical way. .
             Marquez starts it out with "On the third day of rain." That one line can be thought about in many different ways. I see it as that angel is of God, and on the third day God's son rose form the grave, as said in the bible. It was the third day that Pelayo came upon this very old man who appeared to be an angle. Once Jesus rose from the grave the people were much happier and this also made the town not "sad" anymore, which brought excitement and talk to it also. .
             I also see an oxymoron when in everyday life we see angels as beautiful, clean, and miraculous in many ways. This angel though was infested with parasites, its wings were very dirty, and he didn't come across at the stereotypical angel. Marquez said "he was dressed like a rag picker. There were only a few faded hairs left on his bald skull and very few teeth in his mouth. Since he did look like this and was not very pleasant the people of the town treated him awful. They would throw things at him and treat him like a circus animal. This once again is very similar to the bible. People treated God's son the say way right before he was hung on the cross. The people of the town and the people in biblical times both felt bad and guilty after realizing who they were tormenting and ridiculing. Most people who came to see the angel would come to laugh and throw things or come to him just for a miracle, and then have nothing more to go with him. .
             What kind of made me mad was when Elisenda described the "angel" as an annoyance after all the money she made off of him. As Marquez described "With the money they saved they built a two-story mansion with balconies and gardens and high netting so that crabs wouldn't get in during the winter, and with iron bars on the windows so that angels wouldn't get in.


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1. Summary of A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings

In the short story by Gabriel García Márquez called, "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings" he portrays two brilliant characters known as Spider-Woman, and an old man with huge wings who is also known as an angel. ... The story shows that the people think the Old Man with Angel wings, not understandable people because he is more complex, and does not tell the people any information about himself, so he is unexciting to pay much attention too. In "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings" it states, "A spectacle like that, full of so much human truth and with such a fea...

  • Word Count: 516
  • Approx Pages: 2
  • Grade Level: Undergraduate

2. The Old MAn With Enormous Wings

A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings Gabriel Garcia Marquez manages to bring a story to life that has magic, sadness, mystery, greed, enchantment, religion, and wonder all in just a few pages. The main character is the very old man with enormous wings. ... "He had to go very close to see that it was and old man, a very old man, lying face down in the mud, who, in spite of his tremendous efforts, couldn't get up, impeded by his enormous wings" (Marquez, 2004, 323). ... The narrator of A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings is Pelayo. ... After several days of spectators they finally got the id...

  • Word Count: 1278
  • Approx Pages: 5
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: High School

3. A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings

A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings The story "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez describes the life of a particular angel. ... When Pelayo and his wife Elisenda saw the body of an old man lying face down in the mud, they took him into there house. ... His wings seemed natural completely human organic, even though they were torn with only a few feathers left. ... Normally he would awake with a start, "ranting in his hermetic language and with tears in his eyes", he would flap his wings which brought a whirlwind of chicken dung and lunar dust. ... The very old m...

  • Word Count: 655
  • Approx Pages: 3
  • Grade Level: High School

4. A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings: Elder Abuse

In Garcia Marquez's story "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings," the treatment of the old man is a metaphor for the way many societies treat their elderly. In "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings," the people in the story assume the old man has no usable skills whatsoever. ... Marquez is trying to show that like the old man with enormous wings, old people are treated as if they have no skills and are useless. ... The last way Marquez shows the abuse of the elderly in "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" is the horrid living conditions the old man is kept in. ...

  • Word Count: 712
  • Approx Pages: 3
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  • Grade Level: High School

5. Reality in A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings

"A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" is a story that combines the reality of everyday life with fantasy. ... The old man with wings and the girl who turned into a spider are two examples of unreal events used to tell a story that is too strange to believe. ... The cruelty was shown instantly when they decided lock the old man up with the hens in the wire chicken coop. ... The old man became the subject to the people's taunting and people even "burned his side with an iron for branding steers.... The townspeople tortured the old man just like Christ was tortured with the cro...

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6. The Old Man With Wings

Whether it is the story of "The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World", or the story of "The Old Man with Wings," Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a great yet mysterious writer. ... This, meaning that he would never have a chance of living again, while in "The Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" the man did have a chance of living. He had wings to carry him and the drowned man did not. ... "He had to get close to see it was an old man, a very old man, laying face down in the mud, who in spite of his tremendous efforts, couldn't get up, impeded by his enormous wings." ... But the old man was not so...

  • Word Count: 790
  • Approx Pages: 3
  • Grade Level: High School

7. A Very Old Man

In "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez the angel, old man, is treated maliciously by the society in which he "falls" in. Pelayo and Elisenda, Pelayo's wife, treat the old man as they would treat a poor wonderer at first and then a slave after they begin to exploit the old man. ... After the news about the man with enormous wings spread people from all over came to see such a spectacle. Seeing this Pelayo and his wife exploit the angel by "fencing in the yard and charging five cents admission- (312) to see the man with enormous wings despite how the angel feels. ...

  • Word Count: 536
  • Approx Pages: 2
  • Grade Level: Undergraduate

8. A Hunger Artist and A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings

"A Hunger Artist," by Franz Kafka, and "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings," by Gabriel Garcia Marquez follows the same theme of alienation, neglect and dehumanization to those who are deemed different. ... In "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings,"" Gabriel Marquez brings up the same themes even though he expresses them a bit differently. What makes the old man unique is the fact that he has wings. ... The old man continued to stay with Pelayo and Elisenda even after they built a new home and the popularity of the old man wore off. ... By comparing "A Hunger Artist," by Franz Kafka, and "A V...

  • Word Count: 1008
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9. Magic Realism in "A Very Old M

In Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings", magic really stands out because it contains two very supernatural events. ... In Marquez's "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings", Marquez uses the old man with wings and the girl with the head of a spider as out of the ordinary elements that are made to seem real without a question of their existence. ... In Jorge Luis Borges" "The Gospel According to Mark", the magic elements are not as outstanding as "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings". ... In Marquez's "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings", this realistic env...

  • Word Count: 916
  • Approx Pages: 4
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