Old Man With Enormous Wings Literary Analysis

In this world everyone has their own beliefs. Some believe in karma in discipline, in prayer or in magic. Then in desperate times of need we have those who go out of their beliefs to solve the problem. In “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings,” Gabriel Garcia Marquez uses the power of magic to show how it can affect someone’s perspective.
Since the beginning of the story the characters appear to fall into the magic that seems to be going on. It all started when an old man with enormous wings was found. In the story and even on the real world if a situation like that were to happen everyone would think there’s something magical about it.
The first theory was made by Pelayo’s neighbor. She quickly stated, “He’s an angel,” (Marquez 1). Her immediate

“A poor woman who since childhood has been counting her heart beats and had run out of numbers,” (Marquez 2). Julia Hannafin helps the reader understand how “the woman has no known device to continue counting” (Genius 3). Then “a portuguese man who couldn’t sleep because the noise of the stars disturbed him” (Marquez 2) of course “this man cannot control the force of nature with his own ability “ (Genius 3). The portuguese man goes to the angel in hopes that he can get that absurd control. At last the “ sleepwalker who got up at night to undo the things he had done while awake” (Marquez 2) like the many others he “does not have access to a particular side of himself” (Genius 3). The crowd wants the angel to make magic happen in order to solve their problems.
Like the old man to the people as magic to the real world. Magic is viewed as out of this world and the old man with enormous wings is being seen that way. They think he is “something beyond their earthly reality to save them” (Genius 3). Then the people represent the real world . In the real world we have problems and majority of the time we seek for ways to solve them. Most of the time something that’s out of this world. The angel was their magical

Even at the time the people bothered the angel so much the reader can see that the angel still had so much power over them. It all started when “the cripples pulled out feather sto touch their defective parts parts with, then even the most merciful threw stone sat him, trying to get him to rise so they could see him standing” (Marquez 2). The angel’s final point was when “they burned his side with an iron for branding steers” (2). He “brought on a whirlwind of chicken dung and lunar dust and a gale of panic that did not seem to be of this world… from then on they were careful not to annoy him” (2). All the flapping of his wings and throwing earthly objects seemed to have made him even more powerful than before. People respected him but after this the angel’s popularity seemed to be decreasing.
Another magical attraction appeared in the story which seemed to compete with the angel. The spider woman, as the public called her, had disobeyed her parents and resulted in turning into a spider. The way she transformed into a spider was completely magical and out of this world. With this the people had two magical images to compare and they realized how magical the angel