Hi, I'm Rebecca Balcarcel. Let's talk about "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings," a short
story by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It's a very confusing story, and when we get to the end,
we don't know that we've learned anything or that any of
the characters have learned anything. It's not certain whether this creature is actually
an angel. Certainly he's not a Norwegian, which some of the
villagers think. That doesn't make sense to us. But we're not sure even what to make of
it anyway, even though we're so much wiser than these ignorant villagers who have all
these crazy ideas. We're not much better off than they are. So,
what is Marquez trying to say with this story? Well, some of the ambiguity may be the message
itself, that we don't always know what to make of
events in our lives, and they look like good things, but then maybe they're not so good.
Or something that looks like trouble, ooh, a divorce, a break-up, turns out to be good.
Oh, I build a new life, and I'm happy. So part of it may be
that we're not certain what really is happening in our lives, and we're not actually able
to get out of our own lives to have enough perspective to know
whether an event is good or bad. We're not sure how to treat it, and perhaps we treat
it badly when it does come, because we're not wise enough, really, to know how to treat
these events that intrude on our lives. Another idea is that
this very old man with enormous wings is the other, or is the stranger, the person who
comes into our circle, from the outside, so an outsider. So
think of any kind of outsider to a group: folks with disabilities, folks with different
sexual orientations that our own, people who are from another religion. Any group might
be the other for us, and upon that other, we project all kinds
of bad things. So this angel, if it is an angel, comes into their lives, and instead
of being interested and curious about this different person,
no, they persecute it, they exploit it, and this poor creature is treated cruelly. So
perhaps we tend to do that, ourselves, with folks who are outside of our normal experience,
and we try to impose on them what we think they should be,
instead of appreciating who they actually are. A third idea is that Marquez himself
felt like this very old man with enormous wings as he was becoming
a popular writer. He was making a name for himself, and when he wrote this story, he
was pretty famous. And celebrities always struggle with how their fame is affecting
their lives, affecting their creativity, and how they're received
out there. So perhaps the writer feels like, uh, an oddity like this very old man with
enormous wings, a strange creature... He might be attacked, he
might be put on a pedestal. People just can't react to him in the right way, and sort of
like I said with the outsider, people don't appreciate him for what he really is. Instead
they make up all these expectations that they think he should
reach. You ought to be like this: If you're a real angel, you should be white, and you
should have these magical powers, and you should be strong,
and... Nope, that's not what you've got. You know? So maybe as a writer, people were saying,
wait, if you're a famous writer we want you to do this and that, and write like this,
and you should be a spokesperson for this cause, or... Whatever
expectations were pushed on him, he had to say, well, wait a minute, I'm going to do
my art and I wanna do my work, and even if they think I'm
like this very old man with enormous wings and I'm- I'm gross and I'm wierd, well, that's
who I am. That's who I have to be. So that's another idea of how to interpret this story.
Now the story itself is rather strange because none of the
people are nice, none of them are compassionate or humane. They all just exploit the very
old man with enormous wings. They are in their little lives.
They show a lot of ignorance in how they treat him, and their ideas about him. Even the church,
which might be a source of enlightenment, turns out to be more noise and red tape, and
doesn't have anything effective or constructive to contribute,
so I feel like maybe it's the reader who ends up growing and changing as we look at this
story and we see what not to be. Like, we don't want to
be like those people, because they have such a narrow perspective that they don't appreciate
what they have. This fantabulous creature is there, but they don't go to any trouble
to learn more about him or figure out what he is, except
with derision, with fear, with cruelty. They simply say, well, you're not what we ordered.
If you're an angel, well, you're not the kind of angel we
want to have. And they just overlook all of the interesting qualities about him. Now he
is smelly, he is gross, he has bugs in his wings, and he doesn't seem to engage with
people or want to show and share at all. He pulls back. But,
um, after all, they did throw him in a chicken coop, so hey, it's not like he should nice
to these people. Even the child, um, treats him with indignity.
Is- We don't know what they are but... The child is not any more open-minded than the
adults. I feel like as the reader I'm supposed to not be like all those people. And instead,
I'm supposed to realize that I should appreciate creatures
and people for who they are instead of trying to impose my standards on them. And then I
miss out, uh, on this new interesting thing, 'cause I'm all
boxed in. There's more to say as far as the style or the symbolism. We have the angel,
associated with the sea, you know, comes in on the sea, leaves on a sea wind, sings these
sailor songs called sea chanteys, and the sea may always
be a symbol of the possibilities or the endless, boundless nature that is both cruel and giving.
If the angel is a gift from the sea, in a sense, then
they reject the gift, and they don't know what to do with the gift, and it's very awkward.
And finally, thank God, he's able to leave and kind of rescue himself. Did he actually
cause the miracles? Well, the lady who says he's an
angel doesn't have a lot of credibility, 'cause she says all kinds of crazy stuff. Uh, but
then the narrator tells us he's an angel, and talks about
lunar dust and some other things that imply that he really is an angel. So maybe the problem
is that when God, or the Divine, does erupt into our lives, we don't know what to make
of It, and how to treat It, and we don't even recognize It
for what It is. He is mysterious, and maybe that's part of the message, that when the
mysterious comes into our lives, we try to just explain it away,
and we don't enjoy the deliciousness of something mysterious, something we don't understand.
But we can certainly see that, when faced with things we don't understand, human nature
says, let's just be afraid of it, let's stick it in the
chicken coop. Maybe that's how we are with the mysterious in our lives and in the world.
Well, here are some of my thoughts about the story. I hope
you feel like you understand it a little better. I'm still pretty confused about it myself.
I think being confused might be one of the things that Marquez is trying to do, because
when we're certain about things, we tend to get it wrong.
So maybe being in confusion is actually okay. Well, join me another video next time. Bye.