Already, the winged man becomes alien to Pelayo and Elisenda, and when people categorize someone as non-human, wronging them is no different than stepping on an unfortunate ant. Murder is not murder, and abuse is not abuse because they do not consider killing an ant a crime. By dehumanizing the winged man, the same begins to apply to how the village treats him. So, after locking the winged man in the chicken pen, the villagers do not feel even an ounce of pity for abusing him and instead try to use him to benefit themselves. Pelayo and Elisenda begin "charging five cents admission" to see the winged man as if he is a circus act; the villagers go as far as burning his sides "with an iron for branding steers" and throwing stones at him because they want to "get him to rise so they could see him …show more content…
The villagers stop hurting him because they fear the winged man could harm them should he wish to. They still do not consider him human because they feel no guilt for their wrongdoings; they only fear the possible consequences of their actions. The way the village treats the winged man is nothing short of a person feeling no remorse while whipping a slave because they are considered property. Hurting another human being becomes easier through dehumanization, and in the villagers' case, they seem even to justify their actions through the winged man's dehumanization. Like how a circus takes in a lost dog and demands it to perform tricks as compensation, the winged man becomes the villager's spectacle to enjoy. Because the winged is not one of them yet uses resources he has no claim to, he owes the villagers for their generosity. So by that logic, the villagers believe they can do whatever they like without punishment as payment for their