"A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings"

Gabriel Garcia Marques uses irony by demolishing our expectations of a beautiful and debonair angel by, instead, illustrating the old, bald, and featherless angel sent to Peloya and Elisenda. We expect Peloya and Elisenda, a very poor and overworked couple, to accept the dishevelled angel despite his appearance because he is able to preform miracles and cure their sick son; but they sell his mutant wings for profit to their community. The townspeople, and even the Parish priest, are deceived by their eyes, and are unable to look past the angel’s appearance to see him for what he really is. Marquez uses irony in his short story “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” to show us how we judge and categorize people without knowing their true character. 

            Upon receiving an angel, Peloya and Elisenda are unable to see past the angel’s appearance and see the miracles he can deliver because he does not fit their conventional idea of what an angel should look like. Marquez sets up his story by giving a poor couple an angel who cures their sick son. But, rather than praise the angel for the wonders he has done they exile him to the chicken coop to be victim to the chickens, the weather, and the visitors. The angel’s “few faded hairs… [And] few teeth in his mouth, and his pitiful condition of a drenched great-grandfather” blind Peloya and Elisenda (p. 1). Marquez sets the tone of the story by giving an angel to the one couple that needs a miracle, and destroys our expectations for the couple, we are supposed to pity, as they sell the angel’s ironic appearance for profit.

            The townspeople use their physical expectations of an angel to judge, and when those expectations are letdown they treat the angel with utmost severity. Marquez shows us the community’s disappointment as their confusion leads to complete disarray and causes them to react with violence towards the angel. Marquez ironizes the story as “cripples pulled out feathers to touch their defective parts with, and even the most merciful threw stones at him” (p. 2). He is showing us that even the people who should be the most empathetic towards the angel participate in the torture.

            But the most ironic part in the story is when the Parish priest deems the angel ungodly. The role of the priest, in a heavily catholically influenced society, is to stand for everything just and moral. He is supposed to be the one who finds the broken and damned and see the light in them and then brighten this light by showing them to Jesus. But in Marquez’s story he “[has] his first suspicion of an imposter when he [sees] that he [does] not understand the language of God” (p. 2). The Parish priest goes against what he stands for by denying the old man’s angelic truly nature because he did not pass one test; he did not understand the sophisticated language of the Catholic Church.

            Marquez then further blinds the townspeople by making them completely unresponsive to the miracles the angel preforms. The angel is attributed to “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” (p.3). The angel does wonders in these people’s lives but never gets any recognition because he didn’t fix their biggest problems. Marquez is toying with our expectations of an angel swooping in and fixing all of our most potent problems, so as soon as the angel fixes only minor problems he is no longer considered supernatural. These weak miracles are seen as useless and unwanted because the blind man, the paralytic, and the leper did not even want them because the gifts were not nearly enough. We see a community of people who are so enveloped in the deformity of his wings that the only positive characteristic he is ever given is his amazing ability to be patient through the torture and lack of recognition and credit. 

            Ultimately, the very old man with enormous wings is able to endure the winter, grow his feathers back, and fly away proving himself an angel. In the very last line, Peloya “kept watching him… and she kept watching until it was no longer possible for her to see him, because then he was no longer an annoyance in her life.” Peloya is proven completely wrong when the very old man takes flight, instead of being regretful or ashamed in the way she had treated him she is glad to see him go because only then was he “no longer an annoyance in her life.” Marquez sets up this last opportunity for Peloya to prove that she is not heartless, but instead she is glad to see him go because he was no longer a burden.

            Marquez writes this story to show us how quick we are to judge others strictly on physical appearance. He is making us more aware to us that we have been hardwired to judge and categorize people from the instant we meet them; even those of us who are the parish priest, the ones who have the reputation of not being able to say a bad word about another still fall victim to this. By doing this we are choosing to ignore their true character and denying people the room to grow and become someone different because we will forever see them in one light. Marquez uses our insight into the angel’s miracles to ask us what we are ignoring or not seeing from the people in our own lives. 

"A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" outline and introductory paragraph

     Gabriel Garcia uses irony in explaining the appearance of this old, bald, and featherless angel instead of the soft, white and ethereal angel we would expect. The townspeople’s reaction in seeing this angel is to deny what it is because it does not fit their conventional idea of a God sent angel. This conflict between what we think the characteristics of what an angel should look like and the angel sent causes confusion and difference opinions on the treatment of the angel. Because the angel is unknown and foreign, they assume the worst in him, and treat him accordingly. In the short story “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” Gabriel Garcia uses our expectations to instill irony in the disheveled appearance of the old angel and shows us how our eyes determine the fate of the angel rather than his character.

Upon seeing the angel Peloya and Elisenda deny what he is because he doesn’t fit their conventional idea of what he should look like.

          “There were only a few faded hairs left… [and] few teeth in his mouth, and his pitiful condition  of a drenched great-grandfather took away a sense of grandeur he might have had

·                               “They skipped over the inconvenience of the wings and quite intelligently concluded that he was    a lonely castaway

Because the angel is very old man with enormous, almost featherless, wings the townspeople go into disarray, unable to identify the foreign creature.

·      “Others of a sterner mind felt that he should be promoted to the rank of five-star general in order to win all wars”

·      “The parish priest had his first suspicion of an imposter when he saw that he did not understand the language of God or know how to greet His master”

·      “He argued that if the wings were not the essential element in determining the different between a hawk and an airplane, they were even less so in the recognition of angels

·      “[He] would write to the Supreme Pontiff in order to get the final verdict from the highest courts.”

The appearance of the angel prevents the town’s people to see him simply, and treat the angel like a criminal because he does not fit their expectations.

·      “Before going to bed he dragged him out of the mud and locked him up with the hens in the wire chicken coop.”

·      “Hens pecked at him, searching for the stellar parasites that proliferated in his wings, and the cripples pulled out feathers to touch their defective parts with, and even the most merciful threw stones at him”

Ultimately, despite his poor treatment he heals his wings and takes off, proving he was an angel all along.

·      “Stiff feathers began to grow on his wings”

·      “Then she went to the window and caught the angel in his first attempts at flight. They were so clumsy that his fingernails opened a furrow in the vegetable patch and he was on the point of knocking the shed down with the ungainly flapping that slipped on the light and couldn't get a grip on the air. But he did manage to gain altitude.”

Eveline

     James Joyce uses symbols and larger ideas to characterize Eveline. He uses family morals and “leaving” being a kind of death to make the decision to stay or go with Frank for her. This idea of leaving has always been the worst thing Eveline could do to her family and have it become the only thing she is remembered by. In “Eveline” by James Joyce the symbol of “leaving” characterizes her as it envelopes every aspect of her life trapping her and forcing her hands to give up the reigns in her life, letting someone else drive the boat. 

Born Too Late?

     I think that E.A. Robinson portrays Miniver Cheevy as a character "who wept he was ever born"to show prove to us that we cant fall victim to what we cant control. Miniver Cheevy has no control over what time period he was born in, and even though he can fantasize about what his life could have been like in another time he can't know for sure his life would be any better than it is now. Instead of drinking his life away, he should try and make is life out to be like the one he wants to the best of his ability. We have control over our own lives in our own happiness!

Isn't It Ironic?

     In "Once Upon a Time" by Nadine Gordimer irony is used to show that the parents are more dangerous to their son than the "unlawful and crime ridden suburbs" beyond the fences. All they want is to keep their son safe, but all the protections they put up are, knowingly, dangerous for those that are trying to get in, and ironically those they are trying to protect. Gordimer uses dramatic irony in describing how potentially dangerous the security is, highlighting the parents stupidity in not seeing the defenses for what they really are.
     I think that this is an extremely effective way of illustrating overbearing parents because it gives us the extreme so we can set boundaries accordingly. Instead of giving us the life lesson at the end of the story, we see the danger all along and hope and pray it doesn't get worse (it does). So when the final defense kills their son, we've frustratingly seen it coming all along, not to say it doesn't make the ending any less tragic.

Welcome to Kateland: The Land of Kate!

     Im glad to put the childhood name my Aunt Beth gave my own little world to some use and invite you to become a part of it. 

     The summer text I most related to was "Barbie Doll" by Marge Piercy it speaks directly to every teenage girl's insecurities. With all the pressure to be unrealistically, and impossibly perfect like a Barbie Doll some girls will go to the extremes to try fit the ambiguous definition. 

      No matter how many times I read her tragic ending, I want to jump through the text and time and tell that girl she is beautiful until she really hears me and before it takes her life. But the heartbreak in this story is that leaving this world gave her what she wanted. Only when it was too late for her to hear it herself, she was beautiful. 

"A penny for my thoughts, oh, no, I'll sell 'em for a dollar

They're worth so much more after I'm a goner

And maybe then you'll hear the words I been singin'

Funny when you're dead how people start listenin'"

-If I Die Young, The Band Perry