A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings Summary

In the short story “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” by Gabriel García Márquez, it tells the story of a man named Pelayo and a woman named Elisenda. The couple discovers an old man in the courtyard; however, he’s not like any ordinary old man. This man has enormous wings. The couple asked their neighbor what she thought the man was and she identifies the old man as an angel. The couple then placed him in the chicken coop until Father Gonzaga arrived. Father Gonzaga questioned the old man and established that the man was not an angel. Pelayo and Elisenda decide to keep him caged up and they used him for profit and displayed him to the public like a sideshow attraction. As time passed the old winged man starts to show signs of becoming ill;

He describes him by saying, “ His huge buzzard wings, dirty and half plucked, were forever entangled in the mud” (405) Marquez produces an image of an uncommon angel, instead of the angel being described with the usual assumptions of being beautiful and heavenly. By comparing the old man’s wings to vulture wings there is a possible assumption that this could be an angel of death since buzzards are also known as vultures which prey on creatures that are sick, or near death. The characters judge the winged man because they do not know what type of angel he is or if he even is

Márquez says, “ The curious came from far away. A traveling carnival arrived with a flying acrobat who buzzed over the crowed several times, but no one paid attention to him because his wings were not those of an angel…” (407) the setting of the story describes crowds coming to see the abnormal winged man who was caged up. The setting describes a time when in the past society feared and judged ideals or people that they didn’t know or understand and they developed assumptions instead of accepting the reality that everybody is