A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings Summary
In Case You Were Wondering Before my Italian exam, just days ago, a student in my class jokingly made a comment about someone jumping out of the classroom window in response to the rumored difficulty of the exam that awaited us. Now, this was not just one meager, sealed window, this window stretched the span of the entire wall, reaching up to the ceiling and down to the floor. Looking at it from across the room, one would imagine finding the grandest view of the San Francisco Bay or perhaps the Hawaiian coast if they were to advance over and peer out. At least, this is what I imagined. Thinking such, I found it challenging to believe that if a student were to charge at that window full speed, it would give – shattering into thousands of minuscule
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Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s unintentional placement of the reader in the protagonist’s role in A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings reveals more about the reader than it discloses …show more content…
In turn, that reluctance makes it challenging for others to understand my thoughts/actions – a conflict that Pelayo and I share. Marquez wrote that “on the following day, everyone knew that a flesh-and-blood angel was held captive in Pelayo’s house.” Later, Marquez continued, stating that, “Pelayo watched over him...armed with his bailiff’s club, and before bed he dragged him out of the mud and locked him up with the hens in the wire chicken coop.” Why captive? This is a man described as only having “a few hairs left on this bald skull and very few teeth in his mouth.” It is difficult to believe that such a man is required to be held captive, rather than cared for as a guest. Granted, allegations of a higher power have crept their way into Pelayo’s mind, believing the man to be a possible angel, but, even then, what person in their right mind would think it wise to hold an angel captive. What person would arm themselves, then proceed to stand guard over this helpless, frail man, later dragging the man through the mud and chaining him up in a chicken coop like an animal? Even as someone who contains their conflicts internally, thus recognizing the unknown qualities of Pelayo making his actions especially troublesome for me to understand, his actions bewilder
Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s unintentional placement of the reader in the protagonist’s role in A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings reveals more about the reader than it discloses …show more content…
In turn, that reluctance makes it challenging for others to understand my thoughts/actions – a conflict that Pelayo and I share. Marquez wrote that “on the following day, everyone knew that a flesh-and-blood angel was held captive in Pelayo’s house.” Later, Marquez continued, stating that, “Pelayo watched over him...armed with his bailiff’s club, and before bed he dragged him out of the mud and locked him up with the hens in the wire chicken coop.” Why captive? This is a man described as only having “a few hairs left on this bald skull and very few teeth in his mouth.” It is difficult to believe that such a man is required to be held captive, rather than cared for as a guest. Granted, allegations of a higher power have crept their way into Pelayo’s mind, believing the man to be a possible angel, but, even then, what person in their right mind would think it wise to hold an angel captive. What person would arm themselves, then proceed to stand guard over this helpless, frail man, later dragging the man through the mud and chaining him up in a chicken coop like an animal? Even as someone who contains their conflicts internally, thus recognizing the unknown qualities of Pelayo making his actions especially troublesome for me to understand, his actions bewilder