Prejudice In A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings

Every day we go into life with expectations about how things will occur. These beliefs have an astounding impact on our perceptions of and reactions to the world around us, often times without us even being aware. Society, culture, religion and education help to develop these notions over the years. Also, these ideas form a certain image of everything in our mind without adequate evidence. These social constructs prevent us from seeing the real truth. In Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s story, A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings, the reader has an encounter with a very old man with wings, who is thought to be an angel at first but later, the old man is mistreated and tortured because of his unusual appearance. At the end, the story conveys how prejudice

This is exemplified when Pelayo finds an old man with wings in his garden. Although there is no evidence that the old man is an angel, Pelayo, Elisenda and the neighbour lady conclude the old man to be an angel.

“He was dressed like a ragpicker. There were only a few faded hairs left on his bald skull and very few teeth in his mouth, and his pitiful condition of a drenched great-grandfather took away any sense of grandeur he might have had. His huge buzzard wings, dirty and half-plucked were forever entangled in the mud…. And yet, they called in a neighbor woman who knew everything about life and death to see him, and all she needed was one look to show them their mistake.

"He 's an angel," she told

The spider woman’s anecdote about how she was turned into a spider is a story about how a child learns her lessons the hard way. She is a grotesque creature in comparison to the old man, but because she has a logical and imaginable explanation for her condition, she captivates everyone’s attention. The spider woman symbolizes the capricious nature of the people. They are more attracted towards her because she can talk and narrate her tale compared to the “angel” who doesn’t even acknowledge their presence. Since birth, one is taught to neither disrespect nor disobey their parents. The spider woman has a story which targets hearts and moral minds of people. Her story has a lesson. Thus, people accept her story immediately as it is does not challenge them out of their comfort zone, forcing them to think out of the box. However, if people wouldn’t have challenged some of the social norms, there would have been no development. Some social norms have to be challenged for good to broaden our thinking and bring a change in the