1. “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings: A Tale for Children”
by Gabriel García Márquez

2. A “theme” can be defined as a “comment about life” that an author expresses in a story. It is through the theme that most of us can relate to a story.
Every Essay 1 probably will explain
a character or characters
a conflict
a resolution

3. Magical Realism
Magical realism = “a literary or artistic genre in which realistic narrative and naturalistic technique are combined with surreal elements of dream or fantasy.”

4. What did you notice the most about this story
What did you notice the most about this story? What did you find interesting, confusing, or disturbing?
A team with no name says, As I was reading the story I found it very irritating because the old man with the wings is a vague character. There is little information given about him leaving him as a mysterious character. I just wanted to find out more about him but when he flies away at the end it leaves the readers with the biggest cliff hanger. Where did he go? Who is he? Was he really an angel or not?

5. How would you describe the way the characters in the story behave toward the old man with wings? Why do you think they behave in this way?
Team A says, The characters in the story were disrespectful and inhumane in the way they treated the old man. At first, after Payelo and Elisenda saw the angel, they were frightened. This fear explains why they kept a watch on him and threw him into the chicken coop. However, as the days went on, the old man did not attempt to cause any harm to anyone around him. He did not even retaliate when “they burned his side with an iron. . . for he had been motionless for so many hours that they thought he was dead” (Marquez 365).

6. How would you describe the way the characters in the story behave toward the old man with wings? Why do you think they behave in this way?
Team A says, continued, To treat anyone in this way, dangerous or not, is inhumane and morally wrong. Once the couple began to take advantage of him by charging admission fee to see the old man with wings, one can understand why they continued to behave in the way they did: confining him to a closed space and only letting him stay in the shed because the chicken coop had collapsed. However, the rest of the people who came to see him were either amused or were hopeful that the angel could help them.

7. How would you describe the way the characters in the story behave toward the old man with wings? Why do you think they behave in this way?
A team with no name says, The people who found him, and the towns people treat him as an oddity, something so fantastic, other worldly that they call their priest to investigate the legitimacy of the old man with the wings. Father Gonzaga advices the town spectators, “the devil had the bad habit of making use of carnival tricks in order to confuse the unwary.” However, the townspeople were more interested in tormenting this new curiosity.

8. How would you describe the way the characters in the story behave toward the old man with wings? Why do you think they behave in this way?
GRAPE? says, The characters in the story are afraid of the old man at first and then start to take advantage of him and at the end of the story the wife is relieved that he is gone.

9. What evidence in the story supports the interpretation that the old man with wings really is an angel?
Team A says, The wings, the dialect and the fact that he flew away at the end of the story suggest he could have been an angel. Also, he had “supernatural patience” when the people were harassing him.

10. Why do you think that the subtitle of this story is “A Tale for Children”?
Team A says, It might be a play on the words or the idea. Most children’s stories have to do with supernatural or fantasy themes.

11. Why do you think that the subtitle of this story is “A Tale for Children”?
A team with no name says, I think the subtitle is meant as a reference to how people treat things that they do not know, things that are unfamiliar, unusual, they act like children with a new toy, poking it, getting a reaction from the toy. Seeing what it will do. No urge to help or assist the being at all.

12. Why do characters think that the old man with wings is not an angel?
The old man’s appearance
The old man seems not to know Latin (Father Gonzaga)

13. What evidence in the story supports the interpretation that the old man with wings really is an angel?
During the night after the angel arrives, “the rain stopped” and Pelayo and Elisenda’s child “woke up without a fever and with a desire to eat” (363).
“[I]n less than a week,” Pelayo and Elisenda “had crammed their rooms with money” from charging people to see the angel (365).
The narrator repeatedly refers to him as an angel.

14. Two Quotations from the story that seem Important
Father Gonzaga “reminded them that the devil had the bad habit of making use of carnival tricks in order to confuse the unwary” (364).
The narrator says, “The angel was the only one who took no part in his own act” (365).

15. A “theme” is the “comment about life” expressed in a story
A “theme” is the “comment about life” expressed in a story. It is through the theme that most of us can relate to a story. What does this story tell us about life? ?

16. Possible Topics Ideas (but just some suggestions!)
How poorly the characters treat the old man.
Why the characters do not believe the old man is an angel.
Suggestions that the old man really is an angel.
What the story seems to say about people through its portrayal of the treatment of the angel.

17. Anything Else?

18. A final thought . . .
Excellent work!