In Gabriel Garcia Márquez’s “The Very Old Man With Enormous Wings,” a couple, Pelayo and Elisenda, find an old man with massive buzzard-like wings in their yard around the time of their child’s birth. Despite his haggard appearance, their neighbor deduces that he is an angel who was sent to collect their ill child but was so old that he fell over. “He’s an angel,” she told them. “He must have been coming for the child, but the poor fellow is so old that the rain knocked him down.” (pg 2). The couple proceed to keep him locked up for a number of years — until their child is at least of the age to start attending school.
One of the themes that seems to run through this short story is exploitation. Originally, Pelayo and Elisenda were planning just to set him out on a raft with some provisions. They then see their neighbors and community surrounding the supposed angel in awe, and they quickly turn to charge everyone a fee to observe this creature. They never improve the surroundings of the old man, only bettering their own lives while the old man is left in a dirty cage. Despite his supposed heavenly origins, he is gawked at like he is a circus attraction, and it very much reminded me of when people would exploit those with “deformities” in freak shows. Then, when a girl who supposedly turned into a spider after disobeying her parents takes away attention and the old man loses his novelty, Pelayo and Elisenda neglect him and view him as a nuisance. This fits the theme of exploitation: even if this man is a holy being, due to his being much frailer and older, he was left at the mercy of the couple and their wants. Even after years, when he leaves, all Elisenda does is watch him fly away.
I completely agree about the theme of exploitation. I was also interested in the role of religion in the story. I believe these characters were meant to be Christians, but they completely ignored their priest in favor of some random woman’s insight. They treated the old man, who they believed to be an angel, as though he existed solely for their benefit and with no regard for him at all, even open cruelty. When they didn’t get what they wanted from him, they forgot about him, distracted by a more earthly being (the spider woman). I think this could be a commentary on the way some Christians view god as a miracle machine for them to exploit, who they will throw away if they don’t get what they want out of him, rather than actually trying to follow the religion’s teachings.
I totally agree with your point on exploitation. I definitely feel that the couple had ill intentions throughout the story. When I noticed that they stopped having a focus on the child after the child had gotten better I started to question their character. As the story went on I saw that they were not the greatest people, but the whole town also gave me that impression as well.