A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings: A Tale For Children (1968)

Why is the story titled “Very Old Man” instead of “Angel”?

It is left ambigious. He is at least a human being at minimum

Why is the story subtitled “A Story for Children”? For children of whom? Is the subtitle ironic or
satirical?
It was written as a fairy tale, to teach children. It could be argued that it’s not really for children. In a
certain sense, aren’t we all children? We all have parents. Perhaps it is a fairytale for everyone

Does the story suggest a course of behavior?

Themes:
Faith in religion
Monetizing religion
Treatment of the elderly/outsider
Magic realism
The truth hurts
Storytelling

Faith in religion:

The story is satirical parable suggesting people that have a great abstract respect for religion but
don’t respect religion “in the flesh.”

Religion doesn’t make the people kinder.

Irony in, “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.”
They deliberately set aside religion and come up with a reason to treat him like a human.

“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 to the angel but to
drive away the dungheap stench that still hung everywhere.”
Holy artifacts that are treasures lose their value.

“with iron bars on the windows so that angels wouldn't get in”

“…the exasperated and unhinged Elisenda shouted that it was awful living in that hell full of angels”
Irony: Hell full of angels.
Only once he leaves does she becomes happy. She doesn’t have to physically deal with religion
anymore

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

Why mention, “But Father Gonzaga, before becoming a priest, had been a robust woodcutter.”
He wasn’t always devoted to God.
“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.”
The first thing he does is look for an excuse to say that he is not an angel

“Those meager letters might have come and gone until the end of time”
Why wouldn’t they just send someone. As long as there is no definitive prove, they don’t have to do
anything different.

Does this suggest rationality? Does this suggest fanciful philosophy instead of rationality?
“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 on earth a race of winged wise men
who could take charge of the universe.”
“…the few miracles attributed to the angel showed a certain mental disorder…”

Monetizing religion:
Elisenda charges admission
Objection to branding. The villagers don’t “brand” him because he is a “cataclysm in repose.” In other
words, branding leads to cataclysm.
She doesn’t respect the angel, she turns him into a product.

Religion is fine when just faith, but when split and branded, it is asking for disaster.

Treatment of the Elderly or stranger:

Described in human terms:

“He was dressed like a ragpicker.”
“…his pitiful condition of a drenched great-grandfather took away any sense of grandeur he might
have had.”
“…seen close up he was much too human”
“They seemed so natural on that completely human organism…”

Treatment of the outsider:

Monetize it (Elisinda)
Categorize it (Father Gonzaga)
Kill it (old neighbor woman)
Oogle it (the villagers)

Resisted the urge to club the old man with a bailiff’s club, suggesting that the old man was a criminal.
“…before going to bed he dragged him out of the mud and locked him up”

“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…”
They call the doctor to take care of the child but not the old man.

“even the most merciful threw stones at him”

“…extended him the charity of letting him sleep in the shed…”

The truth hurts:
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger: “And yet he not only survived his worst winter, but seemed
improved with the first sunny days.”
Rejection of the possibility that the old man is an angel
The truth of religion: can be dirty and violent yet still respected

Storytelling:
The old man is ambiguous, enigmatic. The spider girl has a clear, accessible tragic story that draws
sympathy.
“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 angel who scarcely deigned to look at mortals.”

Perhaps the story pits the author of the complex and challenging (the old man) against the author of
the simple and straightforward (the spider-girl) and suggests the reader’s (the villagers) perspective of
both.

The spider girl tells her story and thus people are more interested to her. People gravitate to what
explain itself that doesn’t require effort or analysis.

Magic realism:
Intrusion by crabs paralleled to intrusion by old man
The spider woman: “She was a frightful tarantula the size of a ram and with the head of a sad
maiden”
the blind man who didn't recover his sight but grew three new teeth… and the leper whose sores
sprouted sunflowers