Monday, December 16 A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings Gabriel Garcia Marquez Day 1

Learning targets: 

• I can analyze the development of themes across multiple texts
• I can analyze the impact of specific word choice on meaning
• I can analyze the impact of narrative perspective
• I can identify and analyzing the literary devices used within the short story form
• I can analyze how an author develops theme through literary devices
• I can write a literary analysis essay
• I can cite evidence from the text to support claims
• I can fluid explanations

Note: if you are absent on the field trip on Monday, make sure you have read this story over the weekend. 

coming up: assessment on Tuesday."A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings". You will use the story we have read as a reference. (same format as the last two).  Wednesday / Thursday...text to self response. Again, this is the same format as the last two. Friday is a makeup or game day.  

Start the new year and last three weeks of the marking quarter strong. Make sure you are completely up-to-date on all wo"rk.
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In class: please collect your notebooks. After we have read the story, write an MLA heading with the title "Wings".  Write a synopsis of the story in a minimum of 6 sentence, making sure to vary your sentence structure. Please check for language conventions.  Thank you.
Gabriel García Márquez (1927-2014) was a Columbian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter, and journalist. He is considered one of the most influential writers of the 20th century and received the 1982 Nobel Prize in Literature. In this short story, an old man with wings disturbs a quiet town after crashing into a family’s yard.

What is Magical Realism?

Just as realism was a response to romanticism, magical realism was a reaction to realism. The term magical realism was introduced by Franz Roh, a German art critic in 1925. When Roh coined the term he meant it to create an art category that strayed from the strict guidelines of realism, but the term did not name an artistic movement until the 1940s in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The story must be set in a realistic environment with magical elements. Part of the draw of magical realism is that it blurs the line between realistic fiction and fantasy by adding in elements like the presence of dead characters in Toni Morrison's Beloved or the fluidity of time in Gabriel Garcia Marquez's 100 Years of Solitude.

Unlike in fantasy novels, authors in the magical realism genre deliberately withhold information about the magic in their created world in order to present the magical events as ordinary occurrences, and to present the incredible as normal, every-day life.

A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings By Gabriel García Márquez 1972

      On the third day of rain they had killed so many crabs inside the house that Pelayo had to cross his drenched courtyard and throw them into the sea, because the newborn child had a temperature all night and they thought it was due to the stench. The world had been sad since Tuesday. Sea and sky were a single ash-gray thing and the sands of the beach, which on March nights glimmered like powdered light, had become a stew of mud and rotten shellfish. The light was so weak at noon that when Pelayo was coming back to the house after throwing away the crabs, it was hard for him to see what it was that was moving and groaning in the rear of the courtyard. He had to go very close to 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. Frightened by that nightmare, Pelayo ran to get Elisenda, his wife, who was putting compresses on the sick child, and he took her to the rear of the courtyard. They both looked at the fallen body with a mute stupor. He was dressed like a ragpicker. There were only a few faded hairs left on his bald skull and very few teeth in his mouth, and his pitiful condition of a drenched great-grandfather took away any sense of grandeur he might have had. His huge buzzard wings, dirty and half-plucked, were forever entangled in the mud. They looked at him so long and so closely that Pelayo and Elisenda very soon overcame their surprise and in the end found him familiar. Then they dared speak to him, and he answered in an incomprehensible dialect with a strong sailor’s voice. That was how they skipped over the inconvenience of the wings and quite intelligently concluded that he was a lonely castaway from some foreign ship wrecked by the storm. And yet, they called in a neighbor woman who knew everything about life and death to see him, and all she needed was one look to show them their mistake.

“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.”

 Stupor (noun): a state of near-unconsciousness or insensibility

Ragpicker (noun): a person who picks up rags and other waste material on the streets for a livelihood

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      On the following day everyone knew that a flesh-and-blood angel was held

captive in Pelayo’s house. Against the judgment of the wise neighbor woman, for 

whom angels in those times were the fugitive survivors of a celestial conspiracy, they 

did not have the heart to club him to death. Pelayo watched over him all afternoon

 from the kitchen, armed with his bailiff’s club, and before going to bed he dragged 

him out of the mud and locked him up with the hens in the wire chicken coop. In the 

middle of the night, when the rain stopped, Pelayo and Elisenda were still killing 

crabs. A short time afterward the child woke up without a fever and with a desire to 

eat. Then they felt magnanimous and decided to put the angel on a raft with fresh 

water and provisions for three days and leave him to his fate on the high seas. But 

when they went out into the courtyard with the first light of dawn, they found the whole

neighborhood in front of the chicken coop having fun with the angel, without the 

slightest reverence,tossing him things to eat through the openings in the wire as if he 

weren’t a supernatural creature but a circus animal.

     Father Gonzaga arrived before seven o’clock, alarmed at the strange news. By 

that time onlookers less frivolous than those at dawn had already arrived and they 

were making all kinds of conjectures concerning the captive’s future. The simplest 

among them thought that he should be named mayor of the world. Others of sterner 

mind felt that he should be promoted to the rank of five-star general in

order to win all wars. Some visionaries hoped that he could be put to stud in order to 

implant the earth a race of winged wise men who could take charge of the universe. 

But Father Gonzaga, before becoming a priest, had been a robust woodcutter. 

Standing by the wire, he reviewed his catechism in an instant and asked them to 

open the door so that he could take a close look at that pitiful man who

looked more like a huge decrepit hen among the fascinated chickens. He was lying 

in the corner drying his open wings in the sunlight among the fruit peels and breakfast 

leftovers that the early risers had thrown him. Alien to the impertinences of the

world, he only lifted his antiquarian eyes and murmured something in his dialect 

when Father Gonzaga went into the chicken coop and said good morning to him in 

Latin. The parish priest had his first suspicion of an imposter when he saw that he

did not understand the language of God or know how to greet His ministers. Then he 

noticed that seen close up he was much too human: he had an unbearable smell of 

the outdoors, the back side of his wings was strewn with parasites and his main 

feathers had been mistreated by terrestrial winds, and nothing about him measured 

up to the proud dignity of angels. Then he came out of the chicken coop

and in a brief sermon warned the curious against the risks of being ingenuous. He 

reminded them that the devil had the bad habit of making use of carnival tricks in 

order to confuse the unwary. He argued that if wings were not the essential element 

in determining the different between a hawk and an airplane, they were even less so 

in the recognition of angels. Nevertheless, he promised to write a

letter to his bishop so that the latter would write his primate so that the latter would 

write to the Supreme Pontiff in order to get the final verdict from the highest courts.

 fugitive- a person who has escaped from a place or is in hiding

 baliff-an officer

 magnanimous (adjective): very generous or forgiving

stud- being bred for offspring

catechism-a summary of the principles of Christian religion in the form of questions and answers, used to instruct Christians

decrepit (adjective): worn out or ruined because of age or neglect

impertinence (noun): lack of respect; rudeness

antiquarian- relating to or dealing in antiques

ingenuous (adjective): innocent and unsuspecting

12.primate (noun)- the chief bishop or archbishop of a province

13. supreme pontiff- the highest college of priests

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     His prudence fell on sterile hearts. The news of the captive angel spread with 

such rapidity that after a few hours the courtyard had the bustle of a marketplace and

 they had to call in troops withfixed bayonets to disperse the mob that was about to 

knock the house down. Elisenda, her spine all twisted from sweeping up so much 

marketplace trash, then got the idea of fencing in the yard and charging five cents 

admission to see the angel.The curious came from far away. A traveling carnival 

arrived with a flying acrobat who buzzed over the crowd several times, but no one 

paid any attention to him because his wings were not those of an

angel but, rather, those of a sidereal bat. The most unfortunate invalids on earth 

came in search ofhealth: a poor woman who since childhood has been counting her 

heartbeats and had run out of numbers; a Portuguese man who couldn’t sleep 

because the noise of the stars disturbed him; a sleepwalker who got up at night to 

undo the things he had done while awake; and many others with

less serious ailments. In the midst of that shipwreck disorder that made the earth 

tremble, 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.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 (confused) 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 penitents 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 hero taking his ease but that of a 

cataclysm (a large scale violent event) in repose.

     Father Gonzaga held back the crowd’s frivolity (silliness) with formulas of 

maidservant inspiration while awaiting the arrival of a final judgment on the nature of 

the captive. But the mail from Rome showed no sense of urgency. They spent their 

time finding out if the prisoner had a navel, if his dialect had any

connection with Aramaic(language from the near East), how many times he could fit 

on the head of a pin, or whether he wasn’t just a Norwegian with wings. Those 

meager letters might have come and gone until the end of time if a

providential event had not put an end to the priest’s tribulations.

prudence (noun): cautiousness

sterile (adjective): lacking in stimulating emotional or intellectual quality

. sidereal- coming from the stars

. sacramental- relating to a religious ceremony or act of the Christian Church that is regarded as a visible sign of spiritual divine grace

 papal (adjective)-relating to a pope or the Roman Catholic Church

 penitent –(noun)a person who confesses sin and submits to a penance

 hermetic (adjective)- relating to the mystical. 

gale (noun): a noisy outburst

. providential (adjective): occurring at a favorable time

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     It so happened that during those days, among so many other carnival attractions, 

there arrived in the town the traveling show of the woman who had been changed 

into a spider for having disobeyed her parents. The admission to see her was not 

only less than the admission to see the angel, but people were permitted to ask her 

all manner of questions about her absurd state and to examine her up and

down so that no one would ever doubt the truth of her horror. She was a frightful 

tarantula the size of a ram and with the head of a sad maiden. What was most 

heartrending, however, was not her outlandish shape but the sincere affliction with 

which she recounted the details of her misfortune.

     While still practically a child she had sneaked out of her parents’ house to go to a 

dance, and while she was coming back through the woods after having danced all 

night without permission, a fearful thunderclap rent the sky in two and through the 

crack came the lightning bolt of brimstone that changed her into a spider. Her only

 nourishment came from the meatballs that charitable souls chose

to toss into her mouth. A spectacle like that, full of so much human truth and with

 such a fearful lesson, was bound to defeat without even trying that of a haughty 

(disdainful) angel who scarcely deigned to look at mortals. Besides, the few miracles 

attributed to the angel showed a certain mental disorder, like the blind man who didn’t 

recover his sight but grew three new teeth, or the paralytic who didn’t get to walk

but almost won the lottery, and the leper whose sores sprouted sunflowers. Those 

consolation miracles, which were more like mocking fun, had already ruined the 

angel’s reputation when the woman who had been changed into a spider finally 

crushed him completely. That was how Father Gonzaga was cured forever of his

 insomnia and Pelayo’s courtyard went back to being as empty as

during the time it had rained for three days and crabs walked through the bedrooms.

     The owners of the house had no reason to lament. With the money they saved

 they built a two-story mansion with balconies and gardens and high netting so that 

crabs wouldn’t get in during the winter, and with iron bars on the windows so that 

angels wouldn’t get in. Pelayo also set up a rabbit warren close to town and gave up 

his job as a bailiff for good, and Elisenda bought some satin pumps with

high heels and many dresses of iridescent silk, the kind worn on Sunday by the most 

desirable women in those times. The chicken coop was the only thing that didn’t 

receive any attention. If they washed it down with creolin and burned tears of myrrh 

inside it every so often, it was not in homage (respect) to the

angel but to drive away the dungheap stench that still hung everywhere like a ghost 

and was turning the new house into an old one. At first, when the child learned to

 walk, they were careful that he not get too close to the chicken coop. But then they 

began to lose their fears and got used to the smell, and before the child got his 

second teeth he’d gone inside the chicken coop to play, where the wires

were falling apart. The angel was no less standoffish with him than with the other 

mortals, but he tolerated the most ingenious infamies (innocent sins) with the 

patience of a dog who had no illusions. They both came

down with the chicken pox at the same time. The doctor who took care of the child

couldn’t resist the temptation to listen to the angel’s heart, and he found so much 

whistling in the heart and so many sounds in his kidneys that it seemed impossible for

 him to be alive. What surprised him most, however, was the logic of his wings. They 

seemed so natural on that completely human organism that he couldn’t understand 

why other men didn’t have them too.

warren (noun)-an enclosed piece of land for breeding rabbits

creolin (noun)-  a disinfectant

myrrh (noun) a natural resin extracted from thorny trees and mentioned in the Old Testament

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    When the child began school it had been some time since the sun and rain had 

caused the collapse of the chicken coop. The angel went dragging himself about here 

and there like a stray dying man. They would drive him out of the bedroom with a 

broom and a moment later find him in the kitchen. He seemed to be in so many 

places at the same time that they grew to think that he’d be duplicated, that

he was reproducing himself all through the house, and the exasperated and 

unhinged Elisenda shouted that it was awful living in that hell full of angels. He could 

scarcely eat and his antiquarian eyes had also become so foggy that he went about 

bumping into posts. All he had left were the bare cannulae of his last feathers. 

Pelayo threw a blanket over him and extended him the charity of letting

him sleep in the shed, and only then did they notice that he had a temperature at 

night, and was delirious with the tongue twisters of an old Norwegian. That was one 

of the few times they became alarmed, for they thought he was going to die and not 

even the wise neighbor woman had been able to tell them what to do with dead 

angels.

     And yet he not only survived his worst winter, but seemed improved with the first 

sunny days. He remained motionless for several days in the farthest corner of the 

courtyard, where no one would see him, and at the beginning of December some 

large, stiff feathers began to grow on his wings, the feathers of a scarecrow, which 

looked more like another misfortune of decreptitude. But he must

have known the reason for those changes, for he was quite careful that no one should

 notice them,that no one should hear the sea chanteys that he sometimes sang 

under the stars. One morning Elisenda was cutting some bunches of onions for lunch 

when a wind that seemed to come from the high seas blew into the kitchen. Then she 

went to the window and caught the angel in his first attempts at flight. They were so 

clumsy that his fingernails opened a furrow in the vegetable patch and he was

on the point of knocking the shed down with the ungainly flapping that slipped on the

 light and couldn’t get a grip on the air. But he did manage to gain altitude. Elisenda 

let out a sigh of relief, for herself and for him, when she watched him pass over the 

last houses, holding himself up in some way with the risky flapping of a senile 

vulture. She kept watching him even when she was through cutting

the onions and she kept on watching until it was no longer possible for her to see 

him, because then he was no longer an annoyance in her life but an imaginary dot on the horizon of the sea.

 cannulae are the tubular pieces that attach feathers to the animal’s body.

decrepitude (noun): the state of being old and in bad condition or poor health

chantey- a sailor’s song

furrow- a narrow trench

senile (adjective): having or showing the weaknesses of old age