Special Entry

"A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings:A Tale for Children" by Gabriel Garcia Marques, captivated my attention right from the title. I am an elementary education major so the 'children' part grabbed and pulled me in. This story seemed most applicable to me in a personal way. I read and reread this piece. Each time I reread it, I tried more and more to put myself in a child-like state of mind. I would ask myself, "If I was hearing this as a ten year old little girl, what would I think? What would I think this means? What is the moral of this story?" I also tried to put myself in the position of a future teacher reading this piece to her class. "What would I want my class to take away from this tale? What do I as an educator of young children think about this story?" There are various roads of interpretation that can be ventured on with this piece, so I chose one that I thought most appropriate for me and that I thoroughly enjoyed exploring.
One road on interpreting that I explored in "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings:A Tale for Children" is selfishness. This is a great lesson that elementary age kids should learn. This theme is really apparent in this story and is pretty easy to pick out.
The story starts off with describing how bleak and dismal life is for Pelayo, his wife Elisenda, and their very sick child. "The world has been sad since Tuesday." The continuing storm had been washing crabs into the family's courtyard. Poor Pelayo was constantly picking up the crabs and throwing them back into the ocean because of the awful stench of the rotting crabs. While doing this one day, he stumbled upon a very old man with enormous wings. The description of the sight of the poor old man is quite disturbing; pretty much a dirty, ragged old man with one hair on his head and parasite infested wings. Confused and not knowing what to do, Pelayo and Elisenda asked their neighbor what this sight could be. "He's and angel," she told them. Still not understanding what to do, they put him up in the wire chicken coop.
The next morning their child woke with no fever. They were so happy that they decided to just stick the angel out to fend for himself at sea. But, when they went out to get the poor soul, he was surrounded by the whole neighborhood. Everyone was curious about the angel, but no body treated him like a supernatural being, but treated him like a circus animal.
At one point, Father Gonzaga, the town priest, came to put his two cents in about the creature. He ruled out that he was an angel right away because he could not speak Latin, the language of God. He said that "He is much too human." Gonzaga wrote a letter conferring this matter with his Bishop. Gonzage simply viewed the angel as a pain of the town that should be eliminated.
This old angel did create quite a stir in the neighborhood. Everyone gathered to see what they might get from the angel. Pelayo and Elisenda then got the clever idea to start charging individuals to see the heavenly angel. They quickly made a large fortune. Everyone wanted to take a poke at the winged man and get a blessing in return.
Eventually a traveling carnival came through town and quickly tore the attention of the community off the angel and re focused it to a girl who was turned into a spider because she had disobeyed her parents. Unlike the angel, she was easily understood and had a clear moral. She could talk and would openly answer questions about her condition. People loved her and forgot all about the poor angel man. Besides some weird off beat miracles, he didn't really offer them anything.
Pelayo and his family had made enough money off of him that they could build a new house and purchase extravagant clothing for Elisenda. They made their house crab and angel proof in the process. But they did not bother to rebuild the old worn out chicken coop. They left it in shambles. Eventually, it collapsed and Pelayo offered him the shed. At this point the angel seemed to be in declining health. He would just hobble about from here to there and appear at places randomly.
All the while their child continued to grow and become curious of the old angel. He began to play with him and quickly built a lasting friendship. They even came down with the chicken pox at the same time.
Then the angel started to distance himself as he grew some new feathers and began to regain his strength. And then one day, he flew away. Elisenda watched as she cut onions, the sight of the very old man with enormous wings flying off. She of course breathed a huge sigh of relief.

The themes of selfishness is everywhere in this piece. The first big act of such was in sticking the old man in the chicken coop. Pelayo and Elisenda didn't even care for the old soul. He was considered a hassle, not a blessing.
The next morning after he was found, their child has been healed of whatever infirmity he had had. Instantly Pelyao and Elisenda were so happy that they were ready to send the angel to sea! It seemed to say that they got what they wanted, that is what the angel was probably here for anyway, so he doesn't need to be here anymore. "You gave us what we needed, now it is time for you to get out of our hair!" - is what I could see Elisenda saying. The text says "Then they felt so magnanimous and decided to put the angel on a raft out at sea with fresh water and provisions for three days and leave him to the fate on the high seas." Not very hospitable; kind of selfish. I could see a ten year old saying - "That's not very nice."
But by the time they decided to do that, he was enveloped in a sea of people staring at him. Everyone wanted something; wanted to see what the angel might give them or bless them with. The town had no idea who he was, they didn't understand him, but tey were willing to use him. They didn't even treat him with respect. "But when they went out into the courtyard with the first sight of down, they found the whole neighborhood in the front of the chicken coop having fun with the angel, without the slightest of reverence."
"The curious came from far way." It reminds me of when a car accident slows traffic down because peole are 'curious' and slow down to stare as they drive by the scene. They don't care about the people in the accident, they are just nosy (in most cases that is). Elisenda and Pelayo began charging people money to see the angel. His too was extremely selfish. They give him nothing, and he gives them so much! They put him in a chicken coop and show him off.
"Besides, the few miracles attributed to the angel showed a certain mental disorder, like the blind man who didn't recover his sight but grew three new teeth, or the paralytic who didn't get to walk but almost won the lottery, and the leper whose sores sprouted sunflowers." What the angel did give the community, they didn't appreciate. All the miracles seemed to give off an air of hope, but nobody thought anything of them. He wasn't up to par with angel standards.
Soon after, they lost interest anyway. They all gained interest in the girl turned spider. They could understand her far more than they could understand the angel.
And after all of the money Pelayo and Elisenda made they were able to rebuild their house, and buy Elisenda extravagant clothing. But, they did not bother to rebuild the chicken coop. Instead they made their house crab and angel proof. The angel, who earned them all of this, recieved nothing, not even the slightest gratitude.
I think the most beautiful thing about the story is the ending. After the first selfless act is portrayed, the angel flies. Only one character in the story, the child who had been healed, befriends him; they become close. Then he just flies away one day. The young child and his selfless, nongreedy friendship with the angel seems to corrolate to the angels getting better and growing new wings; it made him stronger. Selflessness is a powerful thing. All of the wrong done to him seems to be redeemed in one act of love.
I thoroughly enjoyed this story and would love to one day read it in my future classroom, and talk about not being selfish and how the most unseemly things in life can bless us if we let them.