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

man eventually heals and flies away from the town, but even after the old man caused the town no harm they still believed the old man was an annoyance on their life. Through this story Gabriel Garcia Marquez is trying to show his readers what he perceives humanity to be. Marquez uses the supernatural to expose various problems in the humanity of the town that leaves his readers with the overwhelming perception that humanity is cruel.
Marquez’s first clue to humanity’s cruelty is through the town’s negative reactions to foreignness. In the story the town receives a visit from a supernatural creature known as the old man with wings but instead of accepting the creature whom they believe to be an angel they reject him because he isn’t what they imagined an angel to be. One example of this is when the family who finds the old man puts him into a cage (Marquez 218). This shows cruelty because they degraded the old man by treating him like worthless animal rather than treating the old man like a human being. Also, since the town is religious by treating this old man, that they believe to be is an angel, in a harsh manner shows that they go against their morals and are very disrespectful not only to the old man but to their higher power.
Another example of negative reactions to foreignness was when the community regularly abused the old man while he was injured and could not protect himself. Marquez’s use of metaphors illustrates this perfectly when he says that, “they found the whole neighborhood in front of the chicken coop 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," (Marquez 218-219). This shows just how cruel the community is because they did not have the slightest respect for this old man because if the community did they would have notice how their actions caused the old man severe pain. Also, the town’s barbarity is made clear with Marquez’s comparison of the old man to a circus animal because readers can see the way the town treated hurting him as a game rather than an act of violence. These examples show that Marquez’s perception of humanity is right because humans react negatively to the unknown.
A common theme found throughout Marquez’s story is selfishness, which he portrays through various characters in the town.

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

is through her actions because that old man is the reason her family even got money in the first place and yet she does not even think of repaying him. Instead she uses her money for herself and her family and does not spend a dime or even takes the time to clean the cage for the old man. Also in words Elisenda expresses how unappreciative she is when she is watching the old man fly away and the narrative says this, “she kept on watching until it was no longer possible for her to see him, because then he was no longer an annoyance in her life but an imaginary dot on the horizon of the sea," (Marquez 225). This shows ingratitude because Elisenda still calls the old man an annoyance in her life even after the numerous hardships the old man endured that created opportunities for the family to have a better life. Thus proving Marquez’s perception that humanity is in fact cruel because human nature at heart is selfish.
Lastly, Marquez uses his text and characters, the town’s people, to portray his point of view on humanity by making the readers’ view of the town highly negative.

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

demeanor when he is branded, jumps up, and flaps his wings causing a very powerful gust of wind to appear. Marquez narrates the community’s reaction by saying, “Although many thought that his reaction had been one not of rage but of pain, from then on they were careful not to annoy him, because the majority understood that his passivity was not that of a hero taking his ease but that of a cataclysm in repose," (Marquez 221). This shows just how uncompassionate the community is because the old man chose not to hurt the community even when treated horribly and given the power to do so. While the community had no reason to act violently towards the old man and yet that is exactly what the town did. Thus proving that humanity is in fact cruel like Marquez perceives it to be because of the contrast between the old man’s actions and the town’s actions.
All in all, not everything turns out the way people imagine it. The town got a huge dose of this when they were confronted with the old man who was nothing like how they perceived an angel to be. But if people can take the good out of what they are given then they will never be handed a bad situation. This was the community’s downfall because they let their worst character traits come out during a time of chaos thus exposing that harsh side of humanity. If the community took a different approach to the old man’s arrival maybe they would have gotten a different outcome. But even with the overwhelming perception that humanity is cruel in this book Marquez does give his readers a sliver of hope for humanity. The author’s one silver lining to his perception of humanity was the old man. The old man was dealt bad card after bad card and yet he never took it out on the people around him. The community continually abused him and yet he simply ignored them showing a great deal of patience and perseverance. Gabriel Garcia Marquez shows his readers that humanity may be cruel but there will always be at least one person to give people hope that humanity may have a chance at becoming compassionate. Gandhi put it best when he said, “You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.”