A Very Cruel Town With Enormous Wings, By Gabriel Garcia Marquez

A Very Cruel Town with No Wings: A Tale for Analysts Humanity or the human race has inspired many people, with both their good and bad qualities, to interpret their behaviors into works of art such as literature. The tale A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings by Gabriel Garcia Marquez is no different in expressing views on humanity now. Marquez expresses his views by using fictitious writing to symbolize his beliefs. Gabriel Marquez’s story involves a very old man with wings who stumbles into a very religious town looking like a train wreck. But instead of accepting the old man, who the town believes to be an angel, the town treats the old man harshly by caging him, abusing him, and judging him in a highly negative light. In the end, the old

One example of a selfish behavior seen throughout the story is exploiting others for personal gain. This is shown when Elisenda, the mother of the family who found the angel, formulates the idea to charge people five cents in order to see the angel. In one scene, Elisenda is shamelessly exploiting the angel in order to make a profit knowing that the people who are visiting mainly come to abuse the angel (Marquez 220). This shows selfishness because Elisenda did not care about the old man’s well being at all. The only thing she cared about was how she could gain from what she refers to as, “an annoyance on her life,” (Marquez 225). Furthermore, Elisenda conveys selfishness through how unappreciative she is. Elisenda not once exhibits appreciation towards the old man who did nothing but make improvements on her life. For example, Elisenda makes an extensive amount of compensation off of the old man while he receives the short end of the stick. Yet Elisenda showed no signs of gratitude towards the old man in both her actions and her words. Marquez portrays this by saying, ”With the money they saved they built a two-story mansion with balconies and gardens...Elisenda bought some satin pumps with high heels and many dresses of iridescent silk…The chicken coop was the only thing that didn’t receive any attention,” (Marquez 223). This shows how selfish Elisenda

In the story there is no sense of closure on the old man for the readers. The readers are left with so many unanswered questions like why the old man came, where did the old man come from, why did the old man leave, is the old man an angel or just a man with wings, and so much more. And the person to blame for all these unanswered questions is none other than the town’s members. This is because the community did not handle the situation properly by treating the old man unfairly and by not giving communicating with the old man in a civil manner a true shot. Thus resulting in the readers not getting any sense of closure for the mysterious old man with wings, which leave the readers very frustrated with the town’s people. Also Marquez’s text leaves his readers with the impression that the town is the antagonist while the supernatural creature, the old man, is the protagonist in this tale. This is highly ironic because in most supernatural tales the supernatural creature is seen as the antagonist because they are far more powerful than a regular human. But this just further proves Marquez’s view on humanity because even when the town is compared to a creature very capable of overpowering them, the town is still viewed as the antagonist of the story. That is because in the story, the old man only loses his calm