A Study of a Very Old Man with Enormous Wings Essay -- essays research

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a master of magical naive realism, twist our minds eye in the story A VERY OLD MAN WITH ENORMOUS WINGS. Our perspectives are lost as we are enchanted with beautiful prose and appaled by peoples actions.Through the use of percpective and magical realism Marquez conveys mob mentality and peoples reactions to something unusual.Through the use of magical realism, Marquez shows us the absurdidity of peoples actions. The large gay with enormous wing converys peoples misunderstanding of the unknown. Although the large man is thought to be an angel, because of his grotesque ports and awkward nature the townspeople treat him poorly. They shame the creature in various ways. This shows peoples inability to look past somethings cover and into what it really is. Upon the entrance of the angel, the one expects some type of epiphany to occur. Early in the story, the people of town along with pilgrims from afar furnish to find miracles in the angel. The angels novelty soon wears off and the angel actually ends up a spectacle to the townspeople. They treat it like a circus freak throwing cast aside of food to it and housing it in a chicken coup. Thoughts even cross their mind such as clubbing him to death (Sic). (Marquez) Through magical realism he separates the angel from the rest of the world in a way which could not be shown without the angel being such an outlandish being. The use of the erratic creature makes the absurd actions and mistreatment of the angel exaggerated. Because of the angels appearance the referee is put into the same position as the characters in the story. The angels wings are said to be huge buzzard wings, dirty and halfpluckedforever tangled in mud. Marquez puts the reader into the same position as the townspeople. We, as readers, question the same things the people of the town. Once again, the absurdidity of the character presented exaggerates the situation.A circus coming to town shows the reader the mentality of the mob. Upon hearing of a tarantula fair sex coming with the circus, the townspeople lose interest in the angel. The mob has gone elsewhere. The once ridiculed angel becomes nothing to them. The people acted as a whole alternatively of individuals when one decided to forget the angel, the whole forget the angel. They move on to the tarantula woman as the spectacle to now admire. The ... ...btitled a Tale for Children, stands as an big piece. The confusing nature of the story definitely does not lend itself to being read by a young audience. Marquez is telling the reader that even as adults, we sometimes act like children. We gawk at the bizarre and push it away from us. We mistreat what we do not understand. Marquez calls us all children and reminds us of the lessons we well-read at a young age and how we need to remember them.Gabriel Garcia Marquezs story A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings makes the reader think about peoples reactions and natural tendencies by distorting our vie ws through magical realism and awkward perspective. The wonder prose and outlandish characters are just a small part of the wonderful story told by the great author. Through the use of percpective and magical realism Marquez conveys mob mentality and peoples reactions to something unusual.http//www.questia.com/popularSearches/gabriel_garcia_marquez.jspAnderson, Perry A Magical Realist and His reality. Natioin, 1/26/2004Mcfarland, Ronald Community and interpretive communities in stories by Hawthorne, Kafka, And Garcia Marquez Studies in Short Fiction, Fall92, Vol. 29 Issue 4, p551