Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings"

I want to begin my critical response by briefly commenting on Flannery O'Connor's "Writing Short Stories"- I found it extremely informative and inspiring. Not that I've read many essays of this type, but the advice and observations she offers could serve a writer for a long time, even if it was the only resource they had. The idea of letting the story surprise its own author is very insightful; I loved her reference to "Good Country People" where she states "I didn't know he [the Bible salesman] was going to steal that wooden leg until ten or twelve lines before he did it..." (Charters 1043).

"A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" is brimming with characters,objects, and settings that can be interpreted both literally and symbolically, but the focus here is on the winged man who enters the story face down in the mud. Every aspect described is unflattering- he's dressed in tatters, bald, and almost toothless. He has "huge buzzard wings, dirty and half-plucked... (334). There is literally nothing "angelic" about him, yet he is pronounced an angel by a neighbor. This is never questioned by anyone except Father Gonzaga and his superiors for the remainder of the story.

The symbolism is there in abundance. The old man could be considered a "fallen angel" or demon. Maybe a satirical Christ-figure or saint in disguise, experiencing some form of martyrdom. He's abused by Pelayo and Elisenda and most of the townspeople, and later exploited as a money-making freak-show attraction. Locked in a coop, he is a "fox in a henhouse", albeit a not very threatening one. I can continue- he symbolizes disease and decay. He lampoons the Catholic faith. He's like the albatross from Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner", or Shelley's "Frankenstein's monster"- in short, a symbolic goldmine.

However, I'm just going to be honest, and with all due respect to Gabriel Marquez- I don't think the character works very well literally, or "on the surface". I see it as a sort of cheap trick; a heavy-handed plot device that serves the author's satire and symbolism well but is totally nonbelievable and unrealistic. For me, Marquez's "angel" is contrived and inane. The later "spider woman" is an even worse example. I guess what I'm lamenting here is that there's no subtlety to the approach. It's more like one of Aesop's fables.

Think of O'Connor's own The Misfit from "A Good Man is Hard to Find" in contrast- a much more menacing, mysterious, and complex character. He is totally believable as a real man while also rich in symbolism. I'm certainly no expert and it is only my humble opinion, but the old man with wings falls quite short when compared to The Misfit.

I welcome some debate on this, and will be very open to a classmate proving me wrong. I wanted to like the Marquez story, but it didn't take flight for me.

Works Cited

Charters, Ann, ed. The Story and Its Writer: An Introduction to Short Fiction. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2011. Print.