A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings - Essay Example

A VERY OLD MAN WITH ENORMOUS WINGS: A TALE FOR CHILDREN GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZ A modern Gabriel Garcia Marquez, has mesmerized me by carefully jelling down the unconscious, unbelievable and super natural events with a routine and natural life in his story, "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings."  The story revolves around the literal postmodern philosophy and depicts that the world is disordered and frenzied and there exist no universal truth or perfect meaning of anything. Descriptions and perceptions vary from person to person and thus there can never be a definite meaning of anything. The prose is a mixture of crests and troughs resulting in a very unique rhythmic flow of lessons. Marquez has served as an intelligent teacher who has communicated a very broad moral using highly simple yet involving vocabulary. The choice of words and the train of thoughts are so tactfully arranged that it keeps the reader’s interest alive till the very end. The story is a blend of inspiring hope and hopelessness both. The callousness and cruelty with which the winged man treated brought tears to the heart and at the same time the freedom he won over all the sufferings and poor treatment is commendably instigating. It is a reflection of a true common man thoughts and behavior to a foe, parents with believe that that the angel is to take away their sick child disgraced the visitor and consider him as a burden rather than a source provided by the god to help and eliminate the calamites of the poor and suffering family. POSTMODERN REVIEW OF THE STORY Before Postmodern era, during modern age ideas, prose, poems, paintings, architecture, music, arts and crafts tend to be reader oriented. Reason was the core of all, weaved in the threads of universality. The authors, philosophers, poets, scholars, architects and artists use to have a widely accepted reason behind their creation. The postmodern philosophy has removed the glass ceiling of the idea “fit for the most” and now things are more personal and individualistic rather than general. Ideas, concepts and creations are now the thinker oriented rather than the viewer oriented. Postmodern literature is prose in which reality is embedded with imagination and in the story; A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings, Marquez combines old with new, ordinary with extraordinary. He is startling ideas; words and realities on the readers making them move out of what is expected and believe in unpredictable to happen. But despite of the use of the conventional elements in a bold manner, Marquez focuses on the ability of the people to interpret. The story brings in to notice the way human make sense of things and events around them. Besides this the story also highlights that how superstitious beliefs and thoughts lead our society and how easily people are moved with blind faith. It is clear from the prose that the very first thought that came to the mind of the most intelligent and intellectual person was that the old man is an inhuman creature, he might be an angel sent by God to take the child who was ill. At this point it is also clear than humans tend to think negatively more than remaining positive. The person could have said that may be the angel was sent by God to cure and protect the ill child but he didn’t. The story tells that human is the most intelligent creature and use reason to establish grounds. May be his reasoning is illogical but unlike any other creatures it at least give a thought. In the tale people treated the winged man as peculiar but not a complete supernatural oddity. The old man was not considered anything more than a feeble winged human, and thus it is debatable that whether the old man was an angel or not. According to the father, Gonzaga, the winged man is not an angel because lacks dignity and majesty. Now the question is whether the old man lacks intrinsic dignity intrinsically, or the in dignified treatment, as he was caged, was the cause of lack of dignity. Since the story is a magical realism it discusses two supernatural occurrences; one is the finding of the winged man and the other one was the girl transforming into the spider woman. These two points reflect the very human nature of getting bored and need of seeing; listening and experiencing new things. As soon as the spider was discovered the interest of the people towards the supposed angel reduced. The character of Spider-Girl is in complete contrast to the Old Man. The diversion of people to towards the story of the Spider-Girl that she has turned into a spider because she disobeyed her parents shows the tendency of people to not only get delighted but also accept mystical explanations for simple tales but to straight forwardly oppose in the case of old man which was a bit complex and may be mocking. Like when the wings of the initially believed angel were examined by the doctor surprised him that having wings is so much natural and innate that all men should posses such wings. Similarly, though the angel was week and dirty, covered with dirt and insects but still people were eager to see him with the belief that he is an angel though the very concept of the angel is that he possess certain divine powers and his authorities and powers are beyond humans. But on the other hand Marquez shows that the angel has divine powers through which he is helping people and doing miracles like growing teeth to the old blind man and the paralytic winning the lottery. The characters in the story however lacks admirable qualities except the priest, Gonzaga who tried to explore the nature of the winged man and protect him unlike the other townspeople who were more eager to visit the old man with the curiosity about angels existence and nature. Even Pelayo and Elisenda appear greedy because they were charging fees from the visitors to see the old man who was kept in the chicken cage. Since the story is an account of the extraordinary patience of the winged man who did not make any complain for the poor treatment of Palayo and his wife and yet the bankrupt family turned in to rich reflects Hebrews view the being grateful rather than being regretful to entertain the strangers can lead to happiness and enrichment. And this is evident that the financial condition of the couple improved to a great extent however there was no improvement on the spiritual side. According to me its unlikely that an angel can only bring monetary benefits to a family and not improve the spirituality. There is a vivid connection between super natural and natural elements conflating supernatural into everyday. Pelayo was unable to differentiate between a natural strangeness that is the crabs entering into his house and the supernatural one like the winged man supposedly angel entering his house and Pelayo built a masion for both of them and treated them equally like nuisances. Furthermore, the old man’s wings were described in sickening, vivid details, which were described as crippled with mud initially. At one place the angel is described as a senile predator kept as a huge decrepit hen in the crowd of fascinating chickens. Marquiz also mentions that the old man was treated as a new animal in the circus instead of a supernatural creature which is blurring the difference between the natural and supernatural. The prose also reflects the tendency of readers to see things as the author wants them to see, read what the author tells and believe what the author wants them to believe which is the drawback of the post modern literature. Authors are tend to inject so much of their imagination that people are unable to differentiate reality and get extensively involve in something which is mere misleading and deviating. The story is constantly vague, uncertain and ambiguous as Masques complicates the reader by using a rapidly varying narrative voice. Initially he used a third-person viewpoint and than he gradually divulges opinions by supporting some characters and accusing others at certain levels. The story depicts how humans have an innate tendency to interpret lifes events. Every character has there very own way to interpret happening of the strange event. Everyone sees and interprets things through their own eyes and thus existence of a universally acknowledged affair is something inevitable. And this is the core of Post Modernism, everyone has its own way to understand and express things, no one is bound to assimilate others point of view and alter their believes as per others connotations. REFERENCES Baugh, A. C. and Thomas Cable, (2002), A History of the English Language. 5th edition. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall Read More