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The Function of Symbolism in Gabriel Garcia Marquez's 'A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings'
In Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" an angel symbolizes the unfamiliar. The angel is not just a celestial body, but a foreign body-someone who stands out as being different from the rest of society. Consequently, the angel draws attention to civilized society's reaction, ergo the community's reaction within the story when it confronts him. Using the angel as a symbol, Marquez shows how ignorance reveals the vulnerability of human nature often leading to uncivilized behaviour.
At the very outset, civilized society is shown to be unenlightened and uncharitable towards the unfamiliar. Instead of offering a helping hand, Pelayo, a representative of the civilized society, runs away in terror from the angel who "is an old man, a very old man, lying face down in the mud" (487) and totally helpless. The angel is falsely accused of being a "fugitive survivor of a celestial conspiracy" (488). Later, when the chicken coop collapses, the angel is not welcome in the house. The people fear what they do not understand and belittle the angel instead of attempting to understand him to gain insight and enlightenment, and when he has a temperature, or can barely see and eat, they show him no charity. Instead, Elisenda shouts out that "it is awful living in that hell full of angels"(491) when in reality it is awful for the angel living in the hell of uncivilized society.
Furthermore, civilized society demonstrates suspicion, rudeness and prejudice when confronting the unknown. For instance, Pelayo and his wife immediately prejudge the angel because of his decrepit outward appearance. Indeed, they finally accept the ang...
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... little world, and is so narrow-minded, that it is impossible to accept that something different from itself could possibly rank higher in the overall scheme of things. The angel does nothing to incur civilized society's disrespect, anger, and abuse. Instead of acting in a civilized manner, society is suspicious, ignorant, savage and cruel in its treatment to someone who is different from all the rest. Instead of taking a civilized approach of intellectual refinement and enlightenment, society acts unsophisticated, primitive and crude. By bringing these actions to light, Marquez skillfully enlightens the reader to conclude that humanity is indeed vulnerable and not all that "civilized" after all.
Bibliography:
Garcia M. Gabriel. "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings". 2004. 13 Nov. 2006
http://www.geocities.com/cyber_explorer99/garciamarquezoldman.html
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When the angel comes, the very wise old woman tells them that he must be here to take their child, but they don’t listen to her intelligent advice. “Against the judgment of the wise neighbor woman, for whom angels in those times were the fugitive survivors of spiritual conspiracy, they did not have the heart to club him to death. Pelayo watched over him all afternoon from the kitchen, armed with his bailiff’s club, and before going to bed he dragged him out of the mud and locked him up with the hens in the “wire chicken coop”. Pelayo defies nature by not letting the Angel go, and hence the Angel is locked up “as if he weren’t a supernatural creature but a circus animal”. At the end of the story, the wife watches the angel fly away and realizes that now he is no longer an annoyance in her life.
Throughout all the great civil rights leaders, I personally believe that Martin Luther King was the greatest of them all. What king achieved during the little over a decade that he worked in civil rights was remarkable. "There are few men of whom it can be said their lives changed the world" from wikipedia. Using Mohanda Gandhi's philosophy of nonviolence King gained the power of many citizens respect which lead him in success in, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Birmingham Protest March, and breaking the barrier to allow black people vote rights.
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Throughout history, many people have witnessed events that they cannot explain. People want to believe the supernatural and the unknown but perhaps they have never encountered something odd or strange themselves. The old man with wings, the main character in "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings," written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, was a misunderstood individual throughout his time on earth. The author uses details of the old man's persona and describes several strange events that occur to demonstrate the difference between natural and supernatural.
In Marquez's story, an exotic drowned giant was found on the beach next to a poor, small village, but soon accepted into their homes and loved by the people with respect and pride. Since the village men had no knowledge to anything beyond their small area of nearby villages, their horizons were extremely narrow and had never seen such a beautiful man before, so he was treated as God and even gave him identity and buried him in the nicest way they could offer. Because of the large drowned man, the village men had realized the ugliness of their own society and how simple and plain lives they lived. The drowned man here brought inspiration and change to the village with no ambition, no dreams and no knowledge about the outside world-and motivated them, bringing 'colour' to their lives and making them realize how simple, plain and uncivilized they lived and gave them faith and hope and inspiration to a brighter future and a way to civilize themselves and their society. In contrast, in B... ...
In the story “A Very Old Man With Wings”, Gabriel Garcia Marquez writes about the