Summary Of A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings

Comparison-Contrast: A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings In his short story Gabriel García Márquez wrote “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” which is a story about how an angel suddenly appears in a sea town. Márquez’s story is also adapted in a play by the Little Angel Theater (LAT). In Márquez’s original work, the story is told by a narrator, while the LAT play is puppets and in the trailer there is no sound and only visual effects provided by the puppets. There are many similarities between Márquez’s original work and the LAT trailer; however, there are differences between the two stories that might change the meaning by the end of the story.

Similarities

In both Márquez’s original version and LAT’s trailer version of “A Very Old Man

590) with very little hair and few teeth remaining. His wings were also described as “huge buzzard wings, dirty and half plucked, were forever entangled in the mud” (Márquez, p. 590). Quite a different spectacle in the LAT version of the story. The old man’s wings seemed to be quite together and he was able to use them. In reality, the visual of the puppet old man with his large wings, caved in face casting darkness in his eyes is quite sinister looking; meanwhile, the vison I have of the old man in Márquez’s story is quite different. From the beginning of the story until the end, it seems he is more docile and seemingly harmless. At one point when the boy, quite young, entered the cage where some wire was opened. The parents had tried to keep the boy away from the chicken coop but they “began to lose their fears” (Márquez, p. 593) and let the boy enter the coop. As the narrator stated the angel did not particularly show a great interest in the lad, but tolerated the boy with “the patience of a dog who had no illusions” Márquez (p. 593). There is quite a contrast in the LAT version, as the boy and the old man are very curious of each other, with the old man even reaching to the boy with his wings. In one particular LAT scene, the old man literally took the young man under his wing. It does seem that in both the play and the original story, Pelayo and Elisenda not

The stories begin very much the same, however, there are some key differences in the storylines from the Little Angel Theatre company which make the stories ending seem quite different than the original story created by Márquez. I believe the differences are because the puppet adaptation needed to have a little more action in it than the original play. The old man in Márquez’s version pretty much stayed in the chicken coop, until it was destroyed by weather. Pelayo and Elisenda reluctantly took him into their home until they were fed up with him and “extended him the charity of letting him sleep in the shed” Márquez (p. 594). As a writer, Márquez is able to describe details about things in a much different way that in a play, particularly a play with puppets, would require that the puppets have striking features and be more active than what was portrayed in the original story. One final difference was the ending. In Márquez’s original version, it was Elisenda who watch the old man with sprouted wings begin to fly and as he gained altitude Elisenda “let out a sigh of relief for herself and for him” (Márquez, p. 594) and she continued to watch him until he was far away. In the LAT version, it appears that the man flies off in the middle of the night, while Pelayo is lying motionless, hopefully sleeping. Other than