A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings by Gabriel Garcia Marquez narrates the story of Pelayo and his wife Elisenda, who discover an old man with wings in their courtyard after killing crabs in a rainstorm.
Pelayo, a poor fisherman, discovers a homeless, disoriented old man with incredibly huge wings in his courtyard. The old man speaks in an unfamiliar language. As a result, he and his wife speak with him in vain. Pelayo and his wife, Elisenda, believe after consulting a neighbour woman that the old guy must be an angel that attempted to come to take their sick child to heaven. The neighbour woman advises Pelayo to club the angel to death. And they lock the angel in the chicken coop, and their child's fever breaks in the middle of the night. As a result, Pelayo and Elisenda feel sorry for their visitor.
The local priest, Father Gonzaga, tells the people that the old man is most likely a fake angel because he is shabby and does not speak Latin. Father Gonzaga decides to seek advice from his bishop. He promises to obtain the true truth from the church's higher authorities. The news of the angel travels like wildfire, and the courtyard quickly takes on the appearance of a marketplace. Elisenda then comes up with the brilliant idea of charging a 5 cent entrance fee to visit the angel; they become rich very quickly. The old man mostly ignores the crowd, even when they pull his feathers and throw stones at him to get him to stand. When the visitors sear him with a branding iron to determine if he's still alive, he becomes angry. Rome takes its time determining whether or not the old guy is an angel, and while waiting for their decision, Father Gonzaga works tirelessly to keep the crowd under control.
When a travelling freak show featuring a Spider-Girl arrives in the village, the crowd begins to disperse. Spectators are permitted to question her, and she tells them how she was transformed into a tarantula one night for disrespecting her parents. This is more appealing to the general public than an old winged man who ignores the people around him. As a result, the curious crowds immediately ignore the angel in favour of the spider, leaving Pelayo's courtyard empty. The sad story of the spider woman is so well-known that people quickly forget about the old guy, who had only performed a few meaningless semi-miracles for his pilgrims.
They ignore the angel and keep their kid away from the chicken coop. He quickly becomes a part of their lives, and they begin to accept him. The child pays him frequent visits. When the chicken coop falls, the old guy goes into the adjacent shed, but he frequently wanders from room to room inside the home, which annoys Elisenda.
He becomes increasingly weak and sick, and they believe he will die. But he quickly recovers. His feathers regrow, and he starts singing sea chanteys (sailors' songs) to himself at night. Elisenda watches as the elderly man extends his wings and flies off into the air, and to her relief, he disappears beyond the horizon.
To conclude, the old man appears as an eponymous (wrongly titled) persona who appears in a family's backyard on a stormy night. It also shows the combination of reality and illusion - a story that appears real yet contains elements of imagination.
Understanding the text
Answer the following questions.
a. How does the narrator describe the weather and its effects in the exposition of the story?
Ans. The narrator describes that it was a rainy season and raining continuously for three days and due to the rain many crabs were dead inside the home and spreading a bad smell throughout the house.
b. Describe the strange old man as Palayo and his wife first encounter within their courtyard.
Ans. Pelayo and his wife encountered an old man in their courtyard lying face down in the mud, very weak, impeded by his enormous wings, few fated hairs on his bald skull and very few teeth in his mouth.
c. Why did Pelayo and Elisenda imprison the old man in the chicken coop?
Ans. Their neighbours were suggesting to club him to death but they did not want to kill him. So, the couple imprisoned the old man in the chicken coop.
d. Why was Father Gonzaga not sure about the old man being a celestial messenger?
Ans. Father Gonzage was not sure about the old being celestial messenger because the old man was unable to understand the language of God, he has the unbearable smell of the outdoors, the backside of his wings was strewn with parasites and his main feathers had been mistreated by terrestrial winds and there was nothing to prove him as the dignity of angels.
e. Many people gathered at Palayo's house to see the strange old man. Why do you think the crowd assembled to see him?
Ans. Many people gathered at Pelayo's house to see the strong old man because he has enormous wings and seems like a celestial messenger.
f. Some miracles happened while the crowd gathers to see the strange man. What are these miracles?
Ans. While the crowd gathers to see the strange man, there happened some miracles like:
• The blind man who didn't recover his slight but grew three new teeth.
• The paralytic who didn't get to walk but almost won the collery.
• Leper who sores sprouted sunflowers.
g. State the irritating things that the people did with the strange old man.
Ans. People were having fun and irritating the strange old man, without the slightest reverence, tossing him things to eat through the opening in the wire as it a circus animal.
h. How and why was the woman changed into a spider?
Ans. The woman was changed into the tarantula (Poisonous spider) with the size of ram and head of maiden for having disobeyed her parents. While she was coming back through the woods after having danced all night without her parent's permission, a fearful thunderclap rent the sky in two and through the crack came the lightning bolt of brimstone that changed her into a spider.
i. Describe how Elisenda saw the strange man flying over the houses.
Ans. Elisenda saw the strong man flying over the houses holding himself up in some way with the risky flapping of a senile vulture. She kept watching him until it was no longer possible for her to see him.
Reference to the context
a. The arrival of a strange old man at Palayo's courtyard arouses many suspicions and explanations. Explain how the neighbour woman, Father Gonzaga and the doctor speak of the strange man. Why do you think these three people give three different kinds of interpretations?
Ans. Palayo and his wife encountered an old man in their rear courtyard lying face down in the mud, very weak and impeded by his enormous wings. They tried to speak to him, and he answered in an incomprehensible dialect. After seeing his different body structure and being unable to understand his language, they arouse many suspicious. Many people tried to know him and make different judgement towards the old strange man.
Among them, a neighbour woman says that the old man is an angel and she tells them that it was on its way for the sick child but he was knocked down by the rain. She is the first to suggest that the old man is a crippled angel. She tells Pelayo to club the old man to death to prevent him from taking the baby to heaven. Similarly, the father Gonzaga tells the people that the old man is probably not an angel because he's shabby and doesn't speak Latin; the language of god but rather an imposter. he decides to ask his bishop for guidance. After examining the man with wings, the doctor decides it is impossible such a creature is even alive. Here, different people give kinds of interpretations I think, all the people make the judgement about the old man according to their knowledge and wisdom power.
b. This story belongs to the genre of 'magical realism', a genre perfected by Gabriel Garcia Marquez in his novels and short stories. Magical realism is a narrative technique in which the story-teller narrates the common place things with magical colour and the events look both magical and real at the same time. Collect five magic realist happenings from the story and argue why they seem magical to you.
Ans. "A very old man with enormous wings" is a short story where the narrator has used magical realism techniques to narrate the story. He uses both natural and divine imagery in his descriptions of place, character, and events in a short story. From the beginning of the story, the narrator's style comes through in his unusual,
almost fairytale-like description of the restless rain. ' The world had been sad since Tuesday." There is mingling at the fantastic and ordinary in all the descriptions, including the swarms of crabs that invade Pelayo and Elisenda's home and the muddy sand of the beach that in the rainy greyness looks " like powdered light". It is in this strange, highly textured, dreamlike setting that the old winged man appears a living myth, who is nevertheless covered in lice and dressed in rags. The narrator has also included some miracles, like the blind man who didn't recover his sight but grew three new teeth, or a paralytic who didn't get to walk but almost won the lottery, and the leper whose sores sprouted sunflowers. The author introduces the episode of a woman who became a spider for having disobeyed her parents. this episode at once shifts people's concentration from the strange old man to the spider woman. The story behind the spider woman is unbelievable but the human attraction towards " truth" and " lesson" reflects human nature.
c. The author introduces the episode of a woman who became a spider for having disobeyed her parents. This episode at once shifts people's concentration from the strange old man to the spider woman. What do you think is the purpose of the author to bring this shift in the story?
Ans. Although the 'angle' was introduced in the story more mysteriously, the concentration of people from the old man to the spider woman. The crowd liked the morality tale behind the spider girt. The woman was changed into the tarantula with the head of Maiden for having disobeyed her parents and the townspeople preferred the " Human truth" and ' Fearful lesson". Also, the spider girl is part of a travelling carnival. Tickets to see her are cheaper and she entertains the crowd whereas the shy angle recoiled at the attention.
The narrator uses the spider woman to symbolize the human attraction to ' truth' and ' lesson' no matter how unbelievable. By having her draw away the old man's crowds, he implies humans are repelled by ambiguity, whether in symbols stories or real life. The story shows human nature-related curiosity, greed and cruelty.
d. The story deals with the common people's gullibility. How do Palayo and his wife take advantage of common people's whim?
Ans. In the short story "An Old Man with Enormous Wings" narrator reveals some of his ideas of human nature. he shows how pessimistic humanity can be through an experience with a fallen angel. He has figured out human greed and selfishness. When the people knew about the angle, countless people arrive there to see him. At first play and his wife were going to put the angle on a raft and free him from their chicken coop prison. Later they knew that people would come from everywhere to see the fallen angel that they held captive in their courtyard. By keeping this angle locked up in the chicken coop, they were profiting off of his misery. With the money they saved, they built a two-story mansion with balconies and gardens and high netting so that crabs wouldn't get in during winter.
