This week I chose to write about the short story “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings”. This story was one of the shorter story we have read with it only being 5 pages long. The story begins with crabs (which was a bit unusual for me) and how they are becoming a bit of a nuisance. I was not sure what the crabs were supposed to represent in the story or if there was meaning behind them. They seemed like an important aspect, but I couldn’t figure out their purpose. The story continues to reveal that the couple (Pelayo and Elisenda) in the story’s child has come down with a fever, which I assume in those days would be very concerning due to lack of healthcare and medicine. Pelayo then finds an old man who was stuck lying face down in the mud.
He had to go very close t see that it was an old man, a very old man, lying face down in the mud, who, in spite of his tremendous efforts, couldn’t get up, impeded by his enormous wings.
The man is thought to be an angel who is coming for their sick child, but it also gave me the impression of a fallen angel (Lucifer), but given the rest of the story I am not sure if the author was taking that route or not. After the “angel’s” arrival the child’s health improved, but this is the only miracle that seems to happen during the stay of the supposed angel. Pelayo and Elisenda did come into money after allowing people to view the creature, but that was the most positive impact that was had. I will say that I did feel bad for the creature since it did not have choice. It seemed that there was a lot of greed and I also noticed that there was not much focus on the child that was sick once the angel arrived.
Pelayo and Elisenda were happy with fatigue, for in less than a week they had crammed their rooms with money and the line of pilgrims waiting their turn to enter still reached beyond the horizon.
It is safe to say that this story did confuse me a bit with what it was representing or trying to say. I do believe that it is possible that the man could have been an angel, but even if not it is clear that he represented something supernatural and fantastic. It was kind of hard for me to connect with the meaning of this story, but I do think that maybe a lot of the people’s more negative qualities came out. Greed, selfishness, judgement, etc. These traits did not seem to change throughout the story, but I do think it shed a light on them so that we were able to identify them.