"A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings"

Well, the title of this piece really says it all. This short story is about an old man who has wings. He is a main character.

It was kind of random how this old guy just shows up but the people don't seem too mystified or respectful. They think they know about this "angel," but they don't. It's a strange little story of how this little town becomes a main attraction because of this supernatural creature showing up, and then his spotlight is taken by another strange creature that is new and fascinating.

I think that a theme of this story is about how we treat others, primarily when they are different from us. When this old man with big wings lands in a family's yard, the couple goes to the "wise neighbor woman" to get advice about the angel, and the woman says to club this "angel" to death (96). Now, to me, that doesn't seem to be the proper thing to do to anyone, angel or no angel. This neighbor didn't know the old man, but maybe she mentioned this suggestion because she was scared and didn't know what else to do and didn't know what the old man would do.
So the couple doesn't kill the man with wings. Instead, they lock this poor, dirty decrepit man into their chicken coop. Really? "Let's put the guest in the chicken coop." No, let's not. But then again, this was written quite a few years ago, and I assume it was written for that current time period. And the setting may be in Colombia, which is Gabriel Garcia Marquez's birth country. So maybe back in the day in Colombia it was acceptable. But I'm not too impressed or happy about it.
And then when the whole town found out, oh goodness! They were "having fun with the angel, without the slightest reverence, tossing him things to eat through the openings in the wire as if he weren't a supernatural creature but a circus animal" (97). Then, after that, these people want to make the old man a "mayor of the world" or "promoted to the high rank of five-star general" or maybe he could "take charge of the universe" (97). The people treat the old man with wings like a circus animal and no respect, yet they want to place him in high authority. So they will exalt him without respect? The people want to assume they know everything, and I think this represents us. We try to explain the things that we don't completely understand because we want to know. We are curious and hungry for information. That is, interesting information.
The family that charges money to see the "angel," they are like all of us, greedy and wanting to be successful, so we make money off what we can, unconcerned with the method, like if people are exploited.
Then, a new attraction comes along, a girl who was turned into a spider the size of a ram. And when this new supernatural thing came along, the focus was on that. The angel wasn't a hot item anymore. Another creature replaced him. We, as people, do this a lot. We will go through different fashions and trends that people follow. We like mainstream music and popular TV shows. We always crave the next best thing to come along to fulfill the desires of want in our lives. It is kind of sad. Jesus isn't our focus, but new, cool things in this world are instead.

This matters to us because we need to learn how to respect others, especially those who are different from us. We need to treat them with kindness and respect, just like what we like to receive. If it's something "good" we place it on a pedestal. But if it's "bad" or we are unsure, we show disrespect and don't care as much.
We also maybe need to cut on the "latest-and-greatest" things so that we don't get caught up in that, but rather focus our attention on Jesus who deserves it.

As a side note, this was a part that I found intriguing. When the woman, Elisenda, watches the old man finally fly away, she was relieved that "he was no longer an annoyance in her life but an imaginary dot on the horizon of the sea" (101). This "angel" had been used by this couple. He unintentionally helped them become rich, and the woman wasn't even grateful for the "help" he gave. She thought the old man was annoying.
This also could be a story of how we treat older people now. We don't show them the respect that they deserve. We try to squeeze everything out of them at as little inconvenience to us. We only want the benefit. And that is unfortunately how our society is changing today.

This short story could have many themes behind it, but those were my thoughts on Marquez's story.
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