A Very Old Man with Wings
A very old man with enormous wing by Gabriel Marquez is a captivating story that describes a story of an old man that appears to be an angel. However, this angel is not treated as a typical angel as one would expect. This angel is portrayed to be in a pitiful condition because despite being an unknown creature, people saw him as a peculiar animal. The old man is not fully accepted within society. He is poorly treated literally because he is perceived as a mediocre and subservient object. In this story, Marquez tacitly demonstrates a quintessence of magical realism with an absolute aim of infusing magical realities with realistic elements. He is concerned with divulging how human beings relate with each other daily. According to Marquez, we should treat others the way we would like to be treated. As human beings, however, we often see others who are different from us as odd beings. For this reason, we find ourselves treating them in a manner we would like to be treated.
The story is deeply rooted in depicting how human beings can be very selfish and equally uncaring to those that differ from them. For instance, the old man is said to have lived in a chicken coop and no one seemed to be bothered with his comfort. People vexed him even more by throwing stones at him because they wanted to observe his reaction. Others even escalated their torments to extreme heights of burning his wings. Basing our argument on these discomforts experienced by the old man with buzzard wings, we discover that it is purely immoral to treat others inhumanely. The story implies people often express this undiplomatic vice when dealing with each other and not just to animals.
The whole idea of human interaction in magical realism is clearly explained by the repulsive nature of the people in society to put off those who are different from them because they view them as abnormal. The old man was a human being if it were not for the huge buzzard wings. Chances are that if Pelayo and Elisenda had found the old man in the same condition but have no wings, they would have treated him better. Unluckily, the presence of wings made him look bizarre and different from them despite being human in all other aspects. Marquez tries to relay the mob mindset and people’s general expression on something unlikely. The moral aspect emanating from theses occurrences suggest that we should treat each other with empathy and compassion without seeing them as ineffectual because what they can offer can be of great benefit to us.