“A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings by Gabriel Garcia- Marque

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“A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings”:Gabriel Garcia- Marquez story “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings”, written in 1955, is about a family harboring what is thought to be a fallen old “angel man”, initially thought to be on his way to take their ailing child away. The angel must have been coming for the child, but the poor fellow is so old that the rain knocked him down (Marquez, 1955). The family not knowing how to treat the situation embarks on a journey of mixed emotions of whether the man is good or evil, strange creature or angel. We will journey down the road of evaluation of the magical realism within this story. Good and Evil Coexist: Good Wins In the beginning of the story a father, mother and ailing child are all at home on a gloomy day. It was unknown why their child was sick, but the father was determined to blame it on the overwhelming amount of crabs around the house. Because the newborn baby had a temperature all night, they thought it was due to the stench (Marquez, 1955, p. 1). As the father killed crabs he came across a figure laying in the mud, it was an old man with wings. My initial thought process was this is an angel, but the description of the “being” did cause some second-guessing. His long “buzzard wings” and bald head, I thought, or maybe it is a vulture fallen out of the sky, and the family has been just unaware of what kind of creature this was, but then realized it could talk (Marquez, 1955, p. 2). The family was so curious about the creature they allowed it to be seen by neighbors’ against the recommendation of the wise old woman who also stated the creature was an angel (Marquez, 1955). At those times angels were fugitives of the celestial conspiracy (Marquez, 1955), which meant they were beli... ... middle of paper ... ...rquez’s fiction. (p.1) References Christopher, J. (2011, July). The Life and Influence of Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Yahoo Voices - voices.yahoo.com. Retrieved 2014, from http://voices.yahoo.com/the-life-influence-gabriel-garcia-marquez-8776677.html TheFreeDictionary.com (n.d.). Celestial - definition of celestial by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus, and Encyclopedia. Retrieved January 2014, from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/celestial Gabriel, M. (1955). A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings. New York: Harper & Row. Retrieved from https://csuglobal.blackboard.com/bbcswebdav/pid-384822-dt-content-rid-45301_2/courses/KEY_ENG130/courseFiles_fall2013d/ENG130 Merriam- Webster (n.d.). Magic realism - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Retrieved January 2014, from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/magic%20realism

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