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Old Man With Enormous Wings Surrealism

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The true nature of the very old man is essentially left as a mystery for the audience to reflect upon and assess in accordance to their own perceptions. The ambiguity associated with his surreal nature incites curiosity upon those around him leading to insensitivity, and allowing for the rise of conflicting perceptions. Throughout Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s story “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings,” the curiosity of the townsfolk continues to grow, eventually expanding to the point where the townspeople are experimenting with him in rather cruel and unusual ways. The morning after the old man’s appearance, “the whole neighborhood [was] in front of the chicken coup having fun with the angel.” The immediate spark of curiosity that initiated …show more content…

These perceptions stem from the sense of ambiguity and surrealism that surround the man. As the man does not speak the language of the people in the town, no one can learn about his background, so they begin to make presumptions about who he is. One lady declares that he was a “flesh-and-blood” angel. Though she has no way of knowing this for sure, she makes her declaration with a tone of certainty and inarguability. In our lives, we try to find explanations for everything that surrounds us. We have developed entire fields of work that are dedicated to acquiring and distributing knowledge. Since the beginning of civilized society we have had theorists, researchers, and philosophers all trying to answer the questions of life. It is simply part of human nature to attempt to make conclusions about the world around us and even with little to no knowledge. In contrast to the lady, a priest in the story expressed concern that the very old man may be a “carnival trick” used by the devil “to confuse the unwary.” Like the lady, the priest also jumps to conclusions about the old man’s morality and background. He seeks to find an explanation to the ambiguity of the angel and expresses uneasiness about its presence. The ambiguity of the man with the wings leads to many unsupported presumptions about his origin and intentions in order to put the townsfolk at

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First off, an angel is found. It is expected that the angel would be young, have beautiful wings, and clean. Instead, the angel is old, has wings that are falling apart, and the angel is found lying in mud, so he is dirty. In Marquez’s short story, it states, “He had to go close very close to see that it was an old man, a very old man, lying face down in the mud, who, in spite of his tremendous efforts, couldn’t get up, impeded by his enormous wings” (Marquez 1). The meaning of this quote is a dirty angel was found in the mud and he could not get up.

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Each time, he describes an angelic figure, or even God himself, to be the source of the noise. This possibly symbolizes an intervention attempt of a higher power or a guilty conscience. Whenever he has reached the “depths,” of his house, there will always be some force that odes him to make the correct choices. In conclusion, Soto retells an event of his past youth that aided in a greater understanding of morality, guilt, and sin.

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In the book “The Turn of the Screw” the Governess’s interpretation of the unusual events might be based on her fantasy and twisted thought. The governess first encounter with the man was not clearly described rather she brought the description of a man whatever she fantasizes. The irony is her conclusion why that man came for and said ‘it was not for me he had come. He had come for someone else.

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The short story, “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez is titled this because it shows that the characters don’t understand or appreciate how magnificent the angel is. When Pelayo and Elisenda first meet the angel, they “skipped over the inconvenience of the wings” and automatically assume that he is a “lonely castaway from some foreign ship wrecked by the storm,” (1). They view him as a “very old man lying face down in the mud,” (1). They don’t consider the possibility that he is an angel until their neighbor “who knew everything about life and death,” (1) tells them that he is one. Their newborn child is ill with “a temperature all night,” (1).

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Marquez creates confusion over the identity of the old man in order to present the human nature to react to differences to the reader. The village people are determined to ostracize the man as they “dragged him out of the mud and locked him up with the hens in the wire chicken coop” (Marquez #). Many theories of his identity are discussed throughout the citizens creating a confusing atmosphere. Eventually, “No one paid any attention to him because his wings were not hose of an angel but, rather, those of a sidereal bat” (Marquez #). Once the old man is no longer an object of obsession, he becomes a part of the past.

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Many people would agree that a hero is not necessarily someone who saves lives, but someone who is courageous enough to help people in need no matter what their situation is. In the literary work, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, the reader is introduced to a character named Atticus, a lawyer and a father of two children. Throughout the novel, Atticus teaches his kids, Jem and Scout, life lessons through his heroic actions. Despite living in Alabama during a racist time period, Atticus decides to full take on the task of defending a black man in court against a white woman. Atticus displays heroism and courage before, during and after the Tom Robinson trial in order to set an example for his children and the town of Maycomb.

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In the short stories of “The Very Old Man with Enormous Wings,” and “The Shawl,” this human inclination is presented as the direct result of miscommunication. When Pelayo and his wife, a crab farming couple, discovers an old man with a curious pair of wings, they attempt to speak to him, only to be given a response with an “incomprehensible dialect” that renders conversation impossible. They summon a neighbor to explain the oddity who advises them to “club him to death”. The hasty conclusion is made by that of someone with evidently no knowledge about the incomprehensible man because of his inability to communicate. Had there been a dialogue between the fallen angel and his discoverers, false assumptions and violence would not have necessarily been the direct result.

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In A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings, author Gabriel Garcia Marquez uses imagery, simile, symbolism and metaphor to describe the mistreatment of an ‘angel’ that fell from the sky, revealing the theme that assumptions can lead to unwarranted misfortune for the one being judged. This theme is first presented when characters Pelayo and Elisenda discover a man with wings. “He was dressed like a ragpicker… his pitiful condition of a drenched great-grandfather took away and sense of grandeur he might have had” (Marquez, 975). Through visual imagery and simile, describing the winged man as a great grandfather and a ragpicker, he is connoted as grotesque, malformed, and of no use. These assumptions piled negative connotations on the old man without

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