Quotes
“His huge buzzard wings, dirty and half-plucked, were forever entangled in the mud. They looked at him so long and so closely that Pelayo and Elisenda very soon overcame their surprise and in the end found him familiar.”
Pelayo and Elisenda's initial reaction to the old man's dirty, half-plucked wings as opposed to an angel's majestic wings grounds the story's fantastical elements in the mundanity of daily life. This reflects one of the central features of magical-realist fiction, which prompts readers to rediscover the wonder of their own world. Márquez suggests that we are often desensitized to the extraordinary in our reality and that we overlook the little miracles and mysteries of everyday life. "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" serves as a reminder for readers to look more closely at the world around them and to rediscover a sense of awe and wonder.
“What surprised him most, however, was the logic of his wings. They seemed so natural on that completely human organism that he couldn’t understand why other men didn’t have them too.”
When both the old man as well as Pelayo and Elisanda’s son are down with chicken pox, the astonishment felt by the local physician upon examining the old man's wings challenges the perception of the old man as an angel. The wings appear so natural on his human form that it raises the question of why others do not possess such wings. This blurring of the line between natural and supernatural invites a reconsideration of what is considered normal, urging readers to question the boundaries we place on the world. By presenting the wings as an integrated part of the old man's being, Márquez prompts us to reflect on our understanding of reality and encourages a more open-minded exploration of the extraordinary within the seemingly ordinary.
