Enormous Wings

In “ A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings,” a family discovers a winged man in their backyard, then imprisons him in their chicken coop and profits off of his strange physical appearance. Throughout the story, the angel is incapable of escaping his current conditions, and is often characterized as “dirty” and “much too human.” In this way, Gabriel Garcia Marques uses the reader’s expectations of what flight should symbolize to create irony. He also uses spring to more strongly symbolize freedom, rather than flight itself, defying what authors traditionally use to signify freedom. Despite his wings, the angel lacks the freedom often associated with flight. For instance, in the beginning of the story, Marquez writes, “… and before going to bed,

For example, Marquez first describes the angel by writing, “He was dressed like a ragpicker. There were only a few faded hairs left on his bald skull, and very few teeth in his mouth, and his pitiful condition of a drenched great-grandfather took away any sense of grandeur he might have had. His huge buzzard wings, dirty and half-plucked, were forever entangled in the mud.” Characters who fly regularly resemble some sort of grand and mythic creature, but here, the angel is described as lacking “any sense of grandeur,” defying the divine expectations usually associated with a flying character. He’s dirty, grotesque, balding; even his wings, which one might expect to be beautiful, or at least functional, are dirty, sparse, and restrictive. The angel’s given name is even ironic, as seen later on in the passage, when Marquez writes, “Then he [the priest] noticed that seen close up he was much too human…and nothing about him measured up to the proud dignity of angels.” Despite his designated title, there’s nothing angelic about the angel. In fact he appears to not have any distinguishing features besides his wings, and appears “much too human.” Therefore, it’s ironic that a character who’d typically be associated with the divine and inhuman because of his ability to fly, is described as so gross and