September 10, 2013
English 101 (Essay 1)
A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings
Gabriel Marquez’ use of the supernatural in A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings depicts a sense of good in the story. Marquez’ writing ties religion, supernatural, and satire into his story by leading the reader to believe that the very old man that fell from the sky is an angel.
In the beginning of the story the reader finds out that the family has a very ill child. Marquez opens up the story by setting an eerie mood. For example, the setting of the story takes place by the ocean and the weather is very dark and rainy. The reader then learns that the main characters child is sick. Later, Pelayo returns from the sea to find a man stuck in the mud. Pelayo and his wife Elisenda notice that he is no regular man, because he had giant wings and could not communicate with them. One can deduct, that this old man is an angle. I believe the old man is an angel because he has wings and doesn’t speak the same language. Referring to the bible, angels speak in tongues and cannot be understood by others. On the other hand, the opposition could state that the old man was a demon or the angel of death. Someone could see this man as the angel of death coming to take Pelayo and Elisenda’s sick child. Elisenda even considers beating the old man to death in fear of what he was. A priest examines the creature and cannot decide what the old man is.
As the story progresses Pelayo and Elisenda take care of the old man and nurse him back to health. In the mean while, they use this old man as an attraction. The couple literally put him on display for people to see and charged for it. Hundreds of people flocked to see this very old man preform miracles. This lasted for a while until the story gets sidetracked by a half-spider half-girl. Marquez seems to change the topic completely by adding another supernatural creature to the story. The spider girl just adds another weird twist to the story and