Linda Eckert
English 205
Professor McDonald
October 10, 2007
A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings
I chose to write about the story of “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” because I found it to be the most interesting of all three. I also found that it is the most intriguing because we have no idea what he is and we never figure it out. I kept reading it thinking by the end of it we would know what it was and we never found out. There is a lot to be figured out in this story and surprisingly, at the same time, it is all laid right in front of us.
To begin with, I came to the conclusion that this old man is not an angel fallen from heaven. I think he is nothing more than a very old man who had grown wings in some odd and inexplicable manner. Thus thinking about the reason why he had wings is what made me confused. There is nothing that I can come up with that would make sense as to why this old man has wings and more importantly, why does he come to the backyard of Pelayo’s family. I began to think that maybe the fact that he had wings was because he had wanted to fly one day and had asked God for them, after all, this is a fictional story. Then after I read about the lady who became a spider, I thought maybe he received the wings as a form of punishment. In the end, I could not figure it out.
Angels are usually thought to be elegant, beautiful people, normally wearing white and with a spiritual presence, not disease infested very old men that wallow in their own filth. This metaphor makes you question your own opinion of what angels look like. We do not have any tried and true methods of shaping the legitimacy of an angel. The Father tested the man by speaking to him in Latin, the language of God, and by looking for a belly button or for him to perform a miracle but unfortunately, nothing worked. And even so, the townspeople still believe that the old man is an angel because there are no other reasonable possibilities as to what he is. The author stresses the fact that the townspeople thought this man with wings was an odd creature that should be on display for everyone to see and abuse like a circus animal. Many people, including myself, would be unwilling to place someone who we think of as an angel inside a chicken coop. If this in all actuality had been a real angel, then Pelayo’s family did not do the right thing by putting him out there on display.
The Essay on Who Is Real Socrates The Humble Man Or The Heroic Figure
Who is real Socrates: the humble man or the heroic figure? Platos Apology portrays Socrates as the person of definite kind of personality this is a self-assured man, generous, indifferent towards the successes of human living. He was sure that a divine spirit directs and inspires him, and that a clear mind is the primary condition providing for virtuous life of human. If the last point is not ...
Furthermore, when reading about the lady who became a spider, I found a very strong resemblance to a lady who became a snake for disobeying her parents that I once met at an annual fair in my hometown in Mexico. This lady was on top of a big squared cage and we were able to see her and talk to her and listen to her tell her story. It took me a few annual visits to finally realize that it was nothing more than a fake and that her body was inside and underneath the cage and her head was attached to a snake’s body look-alike. So obviously the fact that this was an actual woman was the main reason why she was able to talk and I finally stopped paying to see this woman.
In contrast, the very old man was perhaps not a human being since he was not able to speak the language the townspeople spoke, nor Latin as the Father had tried to have a conversation with him. I know for a fact that the lady who had become a spider in this story was also not real, which is why she was able to talk to the people and became more interesting than the very old man. Another important point that this story addresses is how we treat other people, especially those who are different from us. When Pelayo first sees the old man, he ran away from there, leaving him lying in the mud instead of helping him out, but then again I would probably do the same since I would be scared at first not knowing what he was or where he came from. When the supposed to be wise woman neighbor, the Father, and church chain of command were unable to figure out what this man was, they just completely forgot about him.
The Essay on Chicken Coop Angel Man Story
Angel In the story "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez a man named Pelayo is taking crabs to throw into the sea when returning he finds a man with wings. He then runs to tell his wife of this and in turn they both tell their neighbor who "knew everything about life and death" (Marquez 84). It was not until the neighbor came that the thought of this man being an angel was ...
When the chicken coop fell apart because of the rain, Pelayo’s family did not let the angel in to the house which had been built with the money made through him. He was told to stay outside and not to come in the house. When the angel was sick, nobody was nice to him or took care of him. Pelayo’s wife, Elisenda, did not seem mad at all when the old man finally had enough wings again to fly away. Pelayo’s family had become rich so now they did no longer need the old man and they did not care about what happened to him. I guess this is a way to show that people use others to get what they want and once they achieve their goal, they no longer care for them, which is sad.
In conclusion, this story is not only a children’s tale, but also a way of showing us how we can be inconsiderate sometimes and not even realize it. Also, the fact that we treat people different because of the way they look and dress is one of the morals of this story. I have to say that I see this as a very important theme in the story because doing something for someone else without expecting anything in return should be the way things are done. On the other hand, what Pelayo and his wife did was completely the opposite. Although at first they tried to help him out because they thought that because of him their child healed, once they saw how the old man attracted people, they decided to use him and become rich thanks to him. In my opinion, this was a very good story and I am glad we had the opportunity to read it because I had not read it before and I really liked it.
