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“A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez in 1968 is a magical realist text, which falls into the category of a short story, depicting the contrast between good and evil through the use of religious symbols to emphasize societal views of faith. I chose this story because I want to understand more about the author’s life and influences through the investigation of his work. Through the use of the formalist approach, I will discuss the role of religion in the text, and observe the dualities between the natural and supernatural culturally in this text. I will focus on the narrative and discuss the characters as they relate to the development of the story, in interpreting and further understanding the story. I hope to discover the author's method in manipulating the text to allow his readers to independently and personally identify with the message of the story, as well as investigate what may have influenced the plot. Also, through the utilization of one most recurring symbol of the text, and one prominent motif to further serve as evidence that both culturally and socially during this time religion heavily influenced society, these elements all come together to symbolize the irony of society's hypocritical practices and ideologies.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez was born in 1927 in Aracataca, Colombia. Marquez spent the first eight formative years living with his maternal grandparents, where he grew independent and well as an interest in writing and various other creative outlets (Pelayo, 2001). Being around such an older generation, storytelling was very important during Marquez’s formative years. This short story, published in 1968, utilizes the foundation of religious ideologies, more specifically, Catholicism or Christianity to show both societal and cultural practices during this time in South America. Marquez’s way of communicating through the most recurring symbol in the story wings, and the most prominent motif being prosperity, further emphasizes both waging sides of heaven and hell of God and the devil.
Wings symbolized to me as being free and limitless, others may argue that wings have more significance than that and may go as far as to say that it is trying to communicate to the readers the dualities of the war between heaven and hell or good and bad. Christian or not, it is a known tale that the devil is a fallen angel who once resided in heaven and was one of God's favorite angels, but due to his stubbornness and his separate agenda, he and thousands of other angels were expelled from heaven due to their rebellious ways. So, even at one point in time, even the devil had wings. Yet Marquez in a way manipulated how Christians or those knowledgeable of the Christian faith perceive angels and wings, Marquez portrays the theme of this story not as actual angels but rather as the wisdom of the old man. In the text, the old man has a visit to the doctor, during the examination the doctor is truly amazed at how naturally the wings complimented the man's natural shape and physical structure. “They seemed so natural on that completely human organism that he couldn’t understand why other men didn’t have them too.”(Marquez, 455). Despite the wings fitting perfectly the man still had few issues physically, the wings were dirty and bare, and although they still attracted the attention of crowds it was not typical wings that one would imagine when thinking of an angel from heaven.
“All he had left were the bare cannulae of his last feathers.”
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