A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings

Garcia Marquez, Gabriel. A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings.
1968. Print


A man named Pelayo finds a very old man with enormous wings stuck face down in the mud in his backyard. Pelayo’s neighbor, who knows everything, says it’s an angel who was after their little boy, but was struck down in the storm. In turn Pelayo caged the old man, who soon after became a sideshow attraction, which Pelayo earned a lot of money from people who were paying simply to see the angel. Strange miracles did happen while he was there, but eventually the crowd did lose interest in the angel. Time passed by and the cage collapsed, leaving the old man with wings to wander aimlessly until his new feathers grew in; then he began to attempt to fly again, once airborne he was never seen again.

The old man with wings resembles a sacred being, with his strange language he spoke, and the wings so naturally attached to his back. However the religious leader of the community was doubtful, for it did not address him in Latin. Also many people were not impressed, and consistently taunted him in different ways, due to his lack of interactivity with them. Many people like to think of themselves as open minded but this lack of disrespect and doubt portrays the cold reality of the closed minded attitude of the common man.