Enormous Wings

Literature involves a variety of approaches of which the author utilizes within story lines as a tool or primary inspiration for a literary work. Among the variety of plausible approaches a writer inspires, remains the ability and artistic license for the writer to allow personal life experiences to seep through or behind the lines of their literary work in order to inspire a story line. The influence of realism used by the writers remains subject to the involvement of additional literary approaches and devices that allow for the utilization of fictional elements (Pryor). The short story, “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” combines the realistic ideals and fictional influences to inspire an overall message involving human nature and its

Author, Gabriel Marquez was born to a remote town near the coast of the Caribbean seacoast of Colombia and spent the majority of his life living in Central America as a writer (“Gabriel Garcia Marquez”) Magic Realism is primarily of Latin- American origin; “In Latin America…there is an attitude among certain portions of the population that anything can happen” (Kennedy). In consideration of the origin of Magic Realism, Marquez involves a historic basis for, “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings”. A nations history influences various culture and religious practice which among a variety of other influences, impact the tradition, art, and literary works produced. As a whole, Latin America on the basis of religion in accordance to the nations history, stands to be a primarily Catholic nation; “…In this way, magical realism is closely connected to the Catholic religion, which believes in miracles and other spontaneous and indescribable

Marquez describes a family, whose respect for faith and religion is evident at the beginning of the short story as the couple, sought the opinions of wise neighbors, priest’s and bishop’s in order to concur the identity of the creature they happened upon. Upon the realization however, that the mystical creature could bring them wealth, the couple disregarded any empathy towards the creature and instead made the sickly creature into a freak show, charging people money to see the fallen angel. The family made an immense profit off of the angel and despite the financial stability the family gained from the creatures popularity; the couple still felt the angel to be a source of stress and burden. Marquez described Elisenda’s reaction to the angels miraculous departure, as she let out “a sigh of relief…he was no longer an annoyance in her life but an imaginary dot on the horizon of the sea” (Charters,