The Very Old Man With Enormous Wings Analysis

January 28, 2014
English 1302

Blind Obedience

The way society is depicted throughout Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” is extremely unusual yet completely realistic. Humans have the tendency to be cruel towards outsiders and that is highly portrayed within the townspeople and the family that finds the angel. It’s difficult to accept what is different because it is taught that what is different must be wrong. Society listens to their leaders. How does one go about becoming a leader? People trust whoever has the courage to stand up and state their opinion as fact. This is where problems arise; when individual mindsets conform to have a structured belief. Blind obedience is expected of society because so many fail to see the negative effects. This fixed following of authority causes future generations to be overall more naïve and less prepared for progress in all facets of life. When Pelayo and Elisenda were frightened by the strange creature that stumbled upon their yard, they undoubtedly trusted the neighbor who claimed the visitor was an angel. Though the couple didn’t entirely listen to the old wise neighbor who advised to club the angel, they believed her better judgment without hesitation. Maybe they trusted her because hadn’t let them down before, or maybe they trusted her simply because she was old and was considered wise. Villagers were in awe at the first showing of the angel. “The simplest among them thought that he should be named mayor of the world. Others of sterner mind felt that he should be promoted to the rank of 5 star general in order to win all wars. Some visionaries hoped that he could be put to stud in order to implant the earth race of winged wise men who could take charge of the universe.” This initial compassion was soon put to rest when Father Gonzaga stated his doubts. After the angel’s credibility became slightly shaken, the people of the town found it perfectly suitable to torment a being from heaven. If the priest had accepted the angel, then so would have the town. In today’s society, blind obedience is as prominent as ever. Any magazine article or T.V program published and aired must ring true because that’s what we’re being told. Why is everything in the media assumed true simply because it’s in the media? Do tabloids even need substantial evidence for their insane stories anymore or are the printed words of a magazine company validation enough? Political figures can manipulate societies to form what they selfishly want, and because of their stature will not be questioned.
The Milgram experiment was a series of social psychological experiments conducted by Yale university psychologist Stanley Milgram. This measured the willingness of participants to obey authority figures who instructed them to perform acts conflicting to their personal conscience. In the original experiment, there was a student, who was in on the experiment, and a “teacher”, the variable. The teacher had to deliver an electric shock to the student, who was in a separate room, for every question the got wrong. No matter how painful the shock appeared to be for the student, the teacher was instructed by the Yale professor to continue until all data was collected. Milgram polled other psychologists to predict what fraction of the teachers would be prepared to inflict the maximum voltage. It was believed that only 1.2% of the participants would be willing to go that far, but when the experiments concluded, 66% of the participants applied the deadly electric shock to their “students”. From these results, it’s clear that people are not even aware of the conformity we naturally have to authority figures. Milgram summarized, “Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority.”
The repercussions of blind obedience are far more dangerous than safe for our society. Not enough people know when they’re acting according to their personal beliefs and when they’re simply submitting to authority. This behavior is easily shown within “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings”. It’s the candid acceptance of what one priest believes over personal beliefs that begin the unnecessary mistreatment of the innocent.