García Márquez's 'A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings'

Everyone is unique and different in their own way, and that makes them beautiful. In “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings,” Gabriel García Márquez gives the reader distractions from the basic story line to make the reader focus more on the other characters, such as the villagers and other situations throughout the story, other than our main character. These techniques then create the main idea of the story to be intertwined, within each description and situation. Although the old man is our main character, and almost every event focuses on him - his appearance, behavior, identity, and fate - the attention focused on the old man is more than likely often interrupted by the change of the reader’s focus to other characters, who are sometimes created and included in the story to distract the reader. The story, in fact, changes between the perspective of the narrator and the perspective of the villagers, individually. When Father Gonzaga enters the story, he explains and shows his suspicions about the old man, his observations, and promises the villagers to acquire advice from higher authorities such as the pope of the main church. Later, the pope approaches the old man, and after another few details and situations, the descent of the old man’s popularity and attention rids Father Gonzaga of his insomnia. Then the old
These specific villagers, who are looking for the old man’s help and the cures he provides: A blind man grows three new teeth; a man has sores that sprout sunflowers; a paralyzed man, does not recover, but almost wins the lottery, all due to the miracle and the actions the old man has done to help them. These details call attention to the villagers, rather than to their cause of how this miracle or