special post

I chose to write about The Very Old Man with Enormous Wings for my special blog post. After first reading the story, I was not completely sure what my exact thoughts were on it.  The entire text was extremely odd from the beginning to end. In class we learned that not all literature has a specific theme or point that the author is trying to convey. Rather, it is up to us as readers to get something out of the text. The first time I read The Very Old Man with Enormous Wings I was looking for  some hidden theme or message that the author was wanting his readers to get. After discussing the text more in class and learning how not every story has a specific theme, I was able to view the text with a new perspective. I realized that it was up to me to take something from the story rather than find a point that the author was trying to make. 

The story begins with the main character, a man named Pelayo, throwing back crabs into the ocean. Pelayo’s newborn baby is very ill and he and his wife are desperate to take any measure to cure the small child. The couple believe that the crabs have something to do with the child’s illness and are determined to get rid of them. While Pelayo is throwing them back, he spots a very old man face down in the mud. The man appears to be normal except for the large pair of wings on his back. He is unable to get up due to the weight of them. Pelayo and his wife come to the conclusion that  the old man must be an angel. They believe that he was coming for their sick child. The couple decides to keep him in the chicken coop and people from all over gather just to catch a glimpse of the “angel.” He is treated as an object merely for the purpose of entertainment.

My favorite part of the story was the following passage. I was really able to get something out of this paragraph. I’m not sure if it was the theme that the author intended, but I interpreted the story through analyzing these sentences:

The angel was the only one who took no part in his own act. He spent his time trying to get comfortable in his borrowed nest, befuddled by the hellish heat of the oil lamps and sacramental candles that had been placed along the wire. At first they tried to make him eat some mothballs, which, according to the wisdom of the wise neighbor woman, were the food prescribed for angels. But he turned them down, just as he turned down the papal lunches that the pentinents brought him, and they never found out whether it was because he was an angel or because he was an old man that in the end ate nothing but eggplant mush. His only supernatural virtue seemed to be patience. Especially during the first days, when the 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, trying to get him to rise so they could see him standing. The only time they succeeded in arousing him was when they burned his side with an iron for branding steers, for he had been motionless for so many hours that they thought he was dead. He awoke with a start, ranting in his hermetic language and with tears in his eyes, and he flapped his wings a couple of times, which brought on a whirlwind of chicken dung and lunar dust and a gale of panic that did not seem to be of this world. Although many thought that his reaction had not been one of rage but of pain, from then on they were careful not to annoy him, because the majority understood that his passivity was not that of a her taking his ease but that of a cataclysm in repose.

Everything about the angel is human like. He is withered and old, weary and sick. 

The passage states that his one human like quality is patience. This really struck me. I don’t want to be cliche or cheesy by saying I got a spiritual interpretation from the text. Honestly, this passage reminded me so much of when Jesus came as a man to earth. He came in the form as a man, even though he was still fully God. I definitely believe that the character in the story is an angel. But even though he was very human in appearance and health, he had he possessed qualities of something greater. No human would be patient enough to face torture and mistreatment. It reminded me of how Christ willingly paid the price for our sin through suffering on the cross. Christ came to earth as a man. He was very human but at the same time possessed divine qualities only God would have. The angel was treated horribly, as if he had to worth. He was ridiculed and looked upon like an object. In many ways, Jesus faced a very similar scenario at the time of his death. Right before he crucified he was he was placed in the center of a crowd. His clothes were taken from him and gambled away. He was mocked, beaten and harassed. Even though he had the power and ability to stop any human, Christ chose to obey His father and go through with his crucifixion as the price for our sins. He remained quiet and patient throughout the entire process. I found the angel to possess a very similar patience. I could not believe how the angel responded as those surrounding him were gawking and invading his space. His behavior definitely reminded me of Christ’s.