Man With Enormous Wings

Storytelling is perhaps the oldest of all human traditions. People live their entire lives in a web of stories—not just when we're consciously taking in narratives from the news or from movies but whenever we dream, daydream or (if we happen to be children) play make-believe. A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings is a short story about an old man with wings falling out of the sky and it follows the people he interacts with and the events surrounding him. The way characters interact with and think about the old man and the spider girl are based on the stories they have been told throughout their life. Stories are how people make sense of the world and they create our sense of how the world should be. People’s experiences and emotions with stories

Whether it is an animal, person, or place we hear stories about them and that shapes what we think the reality of them is going to be. We are unhappy when these assumptions do not match reality. In A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings, Father Gonzaga, a visiting priest, comes to see the old man, but he fails to meet all of the priest’s pre-conceived notions about what an angel is. These assumptions that came from stories the priest had read include: an angel would know G-d’s language and have knowledge of how to greet ministers came. As a result, the priest thought the old man was an imposter and did not treat him with respect. Father Gonzaga also thought the old man did not give off the “dignity” that everyone thinks of when it comes to an angel, who are the messengers of

Guests could see the “sincere affliction” in the way she recalled her story. When she was child she went to a dance without permission and on her way home through the woods she was transformed into a spider. Her story is a tragic human one; the narrator even makes mention of how her story is “full of so much human truth.” The spider girl would also answer any questions about her rather absurd and horrifying situation. Even though the spider girl is a lot less human looking than the angel she is treated with more humanity because of her story and the way she interacts with people. She emotionally connects with others through her story and garners their empathy. Stories create the social connection of human beings, which are social