A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings

In a tale literally as old as time and a short story written in 1955 several themes can be seen throughout them both but only one stands out above the rest: human nature. Both “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” and “The Enchanting Song of the Magical Bird” use magical-realism to point out how people will act when they are faced with a trying situation. Even though one focuses more on the negative aspect of human nature and the other focuses on the better part, both are insightful and raises questions about one’s nature of themselves. In “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, human’s negative nature can be seen throughout the story in all of the characters. Pelayo and Elisenda take advantage of a miracle and the entire town in order to get rich and buy a new house. Father Gonzaga allows the townspeople to harass an angle because of his indecision and lack of faith in the old man. The neighbor, whose initial reaction was to club the old man to death and think of

While he is a man with wings who was found on the beach next to a house with a very ill child inside, he is believed to be a person from a foreign land whose ship had been in an accident. Once he is questioned by the Father, he is believed not to be an angle only because he does not know Latin. The townspeople ignore the miracles he has accomplished and believe his only asset above the power of human’s to be his patience. Pelayo and Elisenda do not think of him as anything Godly but only instead as a bothersome pet. Even though the old man performed acts no other human could accomplish, he could not be an angle. To the townspeople, because he is an old man who can barely talk to share his wisdom, let alone move, he cannot be an angle, and because he doesn’t not know Latin, he cannot be an angle. If he is not an angle, then he is just an old, bumbling