Chan 1Derek ChanMs. PadillaEnglish 10 HonorsFebruary 9, 2012A Very Surreal Story with Enormous MoralsIn many myths, legends, and religious contexts, angels have appeared in the plot as glorious creates in a musical realm, but in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ short story “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings”, the angel is portrayed as an old, ugly creature in a real world setting, effecting the overall religious moral of the story. This winged-being’s appearance has affected the significance of its creation by providing events that would most likely occur in our real worldif a so called “angel” where to appear. It shows the ugly truth of our world and how we take things for granted, as the story goes to show how the people disrespect and treat the special beingwith such impertinences, even when the angel is obviously heaven sent. This being shown, it is clear that the author’s moral of the story was that God is always blessing, no matter what we do.Throughout much of the story, the angel has faced much abuse, and is treated like a circusanimal, as quoted in the second segment of the story (Marquez 588). When the priest paid a visit and determined the creature an angel, the amount of people increased. Because of this high amount of publicity, the owners of the land began to charge for admission to see the creature, taking advantage of God’s gift. They proceeded to house the angel in the chicken coop, which is in many ways discriminating and cruel to the creature, symbolizing the way people take good things for granted.Although there was a lot of mistreatment and abuse, the author goes on to give the plot miraculous occurrences, one being the classical biblical miracle of healing. When the angel firstChan 2comes into the plot, the audience is already aware of the land owner’s sick infant baby. Soon after the winged-creatures arrival, the infant is at full health again. Later in the plot, crowds of people from all over the world come in search of the angel’s gift of healing (Marquez 591). Gabriel Marquez writes these scenes with much similarity to the biblical stories of Jesus’ healing,where crowds gather to him to be healed. This relation shows how Marquez uses the winged-creature to represent God’s grace and blessing in comparison to the Bible’s accounts of Jesus being God’s form of grace and blessing.In “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings”, the landowners make use of the angel’s popularity by charging admission to see the creature. Through this, the family gains a lot of profit and is blessed in riches. This occurrence of events is very similar to the biblical stories of riches and wealth given to David by God in that Marquez uses the angel to represent the blessingand the outcome being the surplus of money. In the story, the family with the angel had earned enough money to stop working and to buy a mansion (Marquez 594), which clearly shows that the angel was not just a showcased animal, but a miraculous God sent creature.Even through the harsh treatment people gave to the creature in this story, Marquez writes the outcome of the angel’s appearance to be a mighty blessing. Marquez writes the surreal portions of the story almost synonymously to the biblical contexts of God’s miraculous blessings.This goes to show that Marquez uses surrealism to bring forth the story’s moral of God’s unconditional blessing and grace.Chan 3Work’s CitedGabriel Garcia Marquez, A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings Mark, Matthew, and John, The Holy Bible: New International