The Very Old Man With Enormous Wings, By Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I have just finished reading a story of magical realism The Very Old Man With Enormous Wings: A tale for Children by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. In my opinion this magical realism was very well written; even though I think more of the characters emotions could have been shared. Although Gabriel Garcia Marquez chose such a basic storyline of a new person comes to town, he was able to take it to new places. The story is also written from a third person limited point of view. In class we talked about the seven deadly sins. These are different traits that can be found in people and the characters of a story. In this story the old man has pride. The character demonstrates this on many occasions.

The old man in the story shows he has pride when he
doesn’t resist, when he accepts the embarrassment, and when he leaves.
The old man landed in a family's backyard on a very rainy muddy day. When he is discovered, they treat him like an outsider or a newly discovered species of animal. They get him up from the ground and placed him in a chicken coop, but the man just sits in the corner and does not bother to get out. I feel that this action shows how prideful he is because he knows he is going to get out before long, and he would rather not embarrass himself. “The inconvenience of the wings and quite intelligently concluded that he was a lonely castaway from some foreign ship wrecked by the storm… in front of the chicken coop ” (Marquez p1). Even if he is stronger than the other people he does not want to stoop to their level. “Anger is the enemy of non-violence and pride is the monster that swallows it up” (Gandhi). Just as Mahatma Gandhi says pride overcomes violence. As if being caged up wasn't bad enough once word got out that there was a man with wings a lot of
people showed up to see him. Mostly all visitors brought candles and lit them by the coop. He never asked for help but was rather happy with their candles because he had a greater plan that he was counting on. The old man with wings knew that he could improve his state even if it took a lot of time and if it meant more torture for something greater. “ Sacramental candles that had been placed along the wire” This shows that the old man is thinking through and solving his problems.(Marquez p2) “Weakness leaves, pride comes in. Confidence grows. Successful life.”(Plitt). Because the man held in and was strong, he had confidence in his plan and his craftsmanship. This is all a part of having pride.

As we learned in class the seven deadly sins can be found in everyone, whether they are your neighbor or a character in a story. The seven deadly sins are pride, envy, gluttony, lust, anger, greed and sloth. All of these can be good characteristic in the correct amount. The old man knew what he wanted and had the mindset to go for it. He did not fight right away and didn’t stoop to others lower level. He also made his way and stuck by himself because he knew that he was right. There is a lot of pressure placed on the main character, including what he is going to do next because we are not in his head.