Interesting Literature

A Summary and Analysis of ‘A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings’ by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings’ is a 1968 short story by the Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez (1927-2014). Like much of his fiction, this story is an example of magic realism (which we’ll say more about below).

Subtitled ‘A Tale for Children’, ‘A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings’ is about an elderly man with large wings who crashes into the home of a man whose son is ill. The townsfolk gather around to see the man, who some believe is an angel fallen from heaven. Before we offer an analysis of García Márquez’s story, here’s a brief summary of its plot.

Plot summary

The story begins with the titular old man with enormous wings crashing into the muddy yard outside the house of Pelayo, a man who lives with his wife, Elisenda, and their sick son. When the elderly man speaks, it is in a dialect they do not recognise and his accent is that of a sailor’s.

Their female neighbour tells them that the man is an angel who must have been coming for their son, but the incessant rain knocked him off-course. The next day, word spreads, and the whole neighbourhood turns up to take a look at the ‘angel’. By this time, Pelayo has confined the old man to his chicken coop and his son’s fever has abated. They had considered putting the old man on a raft with some food and pushing him out to sea, when their neighbours showed up to see the supposed angel in their midst.

As the day develops, the townsfolk begin to suggest what the fate of this old man should be: one thinks he should become mayor of the world, another reckons he should be made a five-star general, while one thinks he should be ‘put to stud’ so that he could sire a race of superhuman creatures.

The local priest then arrives to inspect the angel, and when the old man doesn’t understand the Latin the priest speaks, Father Gonzaga concludes that the man cannot be a true angel at all. His wings are too filthy, and he lacks the dignity one would expect from an angel. But the townspeople do not believe him, and continue to show up in greater numbers, wanting to see this angel for themselves.

Elisenda, spying an opportunity, decides to charge each of them an admittance fee of five cents if they wish to see the old man with wings. Over the next week, they make a fortune charging people to visit the angel, and their home becomes a site of pilgrimage visited by people with the strangest of afflictions. Speculation continues concerning the ‘angelic’ (or non-angelic) nature of the mysterious old man.

But then a travelling show arrives in town: a woman who was turned into a spider (a tarantula as large as a ram, but with a woman’s head) because she disobeyed her parents. Because the fee to see this ‘act’ is lower than the five cents being charged to see the angel, many townsfolk stop queuing to see the old man with enormous wings and instead go to see the spider-woman, who is also happy to answer all manner of questions about her unusual condition.

Although the queue of people waiting to see the angel disappears as the spider-woman lures away all of the waiting crowd, Pelayo and Elisenda are happy because they can use the money they’ve already made to build a better house. However, the continued presence of the angel in their yard becomes an annoyance to them. Their son spends time with the angel in his chicken coop, and both of them fall ill with chicken pox. They fear that the angel is going to die, but in time he recovers and flies away.

The subtitle which Gabriel García Márquez appended to ‘A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings’ identifies this short story as ‘a tale for children’, and in many ways, the story might be analysed as a kind of fairy tale. Indeed, its central figure, the old man who may or may not be a genuine angel or some other strange supernatural being, can be viewed as a ‘fairy’ of sorts, whose arrival coincides with the improvement of Pelayo’s son’s health.

Like most good fairy tales, this story also fuses myth or fantasy with more everyday or realistic elements. This combination is also common, however, in works of magic realism : a literary movement with which Gabriel García Márquez was closely associated. In magic realist fiction, we are given a realistic view of the world but there are additional magical elements in the narrative as well.

In ‘A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings’, the key magic realist elements are obvious enough: a woman who has been transformed into a giant spider; a man who, angel or otherwise, has wings and is capable of flight.

These two beings are at the heart of the story and its meaning, which is as much about how groups of people respond to unusual elements within a society as it is about the two individuals themselves. Indeed, the old man with his enormous wings is something of a cipher: nobody knows what he thinks about anything because they cannot understand the language he speaks.

His main virtue, we learn, is patience, and he seems content to wait in the chicken coop and does not ask for much from Pelayo and Elisenda (who become very rich from him in a short space of time). The spider-woman, by contrast, was subjected to her supernatural fate because of disobedience – or, to put it another way, because of im patience, in that she wanted to go out to a dance but her parents forbade it, presumably on the grounds that she was too young.

These two special individuals – one very old, the other young; one male, one female; one patient and the other flighty; one capable of flight and the other earthbound – represent polar opposites in many respects. Indeed, whereas the old man is turned into a reluctant circus spectacle by his hosts, the spider-woman arrives as part of a travelling show, and intends to sell her story (as we’d say nowadays) and court public interest.

They also represent very different things. The townsfolk are sceptical of whether the old man is really an angel from heaven, but even after Father Gonzaga tells them outright that the man is no angel, they continue to turn up at the house so they can catch a glimpse of the mysterious figure. The spider-woman clearly has been transformed into an arachnid, as they can see this with their own eyes, but there are no heavenly claims made about her fate.

One question a reader of ‘A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings’ might ask is whether the old man’s claims to ‘angelhood’ actually matter: if he is not angelic but merely a strange winged man, does that make him any less of a spectacle worthy of study and speculation? Clearly the ‘freakish’ elements of spider-woman’s affliction are enough in themselves to warrant crowds of people flocking (and paying) to see her.

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Irony in “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings” Essay

This response is to the short story “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Pelayo, a man who hunts crabs, finds a weak and decrepit angel on the beach and rescues it. The news spreads far and quickly, but the creature fails to live up to the expectations of the curious crowd and is soon forgotten. Nevertheless, the family earns a considerable amount of money that allows it to escape poverty and begin living decently. It still treats the angel poorly, considering him a nuisance, and is relieved when the visitor recovers from his plight and flies away.

The story has an ironic quality, as the angel can be considered the family’s savior yet receives neglect. It can be inferred that he was sent to Pelayo by God to help him, but the superstitious crowd gives the arrival the meaning that he intended to claim the man’s sick child. It is likely that the angel’s stay was exactly as he planned and that he achieved his objective. However, since he did not perform his miracle with pomp that is usually associated with Christian miracles, his help went unrecognized. The most significant hint that reinforces this view is the angel’s treatment of the child, whose chickenpox he shares, presumably to ease the boy’s burden.

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"Irony in “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings”." IvyPanda , 3 June 2021, ivypanda.com/essays/a-very-old-man-with-enormous-wings-by-g-marquez/.

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IvyPanda . 2021. "Irony in “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings”." June 3, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/a-very-old-man-with-enormous-wings-by-g-marquez/.

1. IvyPanda . "Irony in “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings”." June 3, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/a-very-old-man-with-enormous-wings-by-g-marquez/.

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A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings

Gabriel garcía márquez.

Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on Gabriel García Márquez's A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings . Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.

A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings: Introduction

A very old man with enormous wings: plot summary, a very old man with enormous wings: detailed summary & analysis, a very old man with enormous wings: themes, a very old man with enormous wings: quotes, a very old man with enormous wings: characters, a very old man with enormous wings: symbols, a very old man with enormous wings: literary devices, a very old man with enormous wings: theme wheel, brief biography of gabriel garcía márquez.

A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings PDF

Historical Context of A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings

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  • Full Title: A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings: A Tale for Children
  • Where Written: Bogotá
  • When Published: 1955
  • Literary Period: 20th Century Latin American Fiction
  • Genre: Short Fiction / Magic Realism
  • Setting: A small, nondescript town on the coast of South America
  • Climax: The old man eventually regains strength and flies away
  • Antagonist: Pelayo, Elisando, and the town inhabitants
  • Point of View: Third person omniscient

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Home — Essay Samples — Literature — A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings — The Themes Of Compassion, Cruelty, And Patience In A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings By Gabriel García Márquez

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The Themes of Compassion, Cruelty, and Patience in a Very Old Man with Enormous Wings by Gabriel García Márquez

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Published: Sep 1, 2020

Words: 875 | Pages: 2 | 5 min read

The essay analyzes Gabriel García Márquez's short story "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" and explores the themes of cruelty, compassion, and patience within the narrative. The story is set in a provincial Colombian town and revolves around an old man with wings, believed to be an angel, who is discovered by Pelayo and Elisenda.

The theme of cruelty and compassion is evident from the beginning as the townspeople, including Pelayo and Elisenda, react to the old man's presence. Initially, they consider clubbing him to death, but they show a degree of compassion by placing him on a raft with provisions and setting him adrift at sea. However, when they realize the old man's uniqueness, they treat him more like a spectacle in a circus than a celestial being, throwing objects at him and causing him harm. This illustrates the dual nature of human behavior when faced with the unfamiliar.

The essay also highlights the old man's remarkable patience and his ability to remain compassionate despite the mistreatment he endures. While the townspeople display cruelty and greed, the old man remains passive, and through his patience, he ultimately influences Pelayo and Elisenda to show compassion by providing him shelter.

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a very old man with enormous wings analysis essay

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