1. A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings: a Tale for Children Is A story about a couple, Pelayo and Elisenda who came across and old man with wings. They have a child who is sick and at first, according to their neighbor, ‘”He’s an Angel,’ She told them. “He must have been coming for the child”. But the local Priest came and “logically” explained how this creature could not be an angel because it did not respond when the father said good morning in Latin, being that Latin is the language of God, and the creature did not know how to greet the minister. Therefore he was deemed not an angel. They had locked the creature up in the chicken coop and many people had noticed and began to interact with the creature. “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.” Many people from far away started coming to see the creature because the news was spreading. Elisenda got the grand idea to start charging five cents admission to see the creature. This made the couple gain much wealth. This whole time the creature never really showed much arousal except for the time they burned him to try to get him to do something, he only seemed to react out of pain rather than anger. He was a prisoner for quite a while and “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…” After more time passed it seems as though they were getting tired or annoyed with having the angel around. At one point Elisenda “shouted that is was awful living in that hell full of angels.” It wasn’t until one day when she was looking out her window she saw him begin to work on his flying until he finally gained in altitude. “Elisenda sighed out of relief, for herself and for him, when she saw him pass of the last houses…” He flew away and he was “no longer an annoyance in her life but an imaginary dot on the horizon of the sea.”
2. In this story we never get a full understanding of why the family kept the angel around. Other than him making them rich, in all other instances they seem, especially Elisenda, to be annoyed and irritated with him being around. She feels like it is a living hell with him around and she breathes a sigh of relief when she sees him fly off. But why do they keep him around? Why do they not do something else with him?
3. I believe the underlying theme of this story is that things are not always what they seem. We never really get in the story what the angel was actually there for. I believe we never understand what he is there for because the couple never really looks into it. It makes you wonder what would have happened if they did not keep him as a prison but instead opened up their house to him, made him feel welcome, and nourished him since he was obviously run down and tired. It just seems like that if an angel has popped into your life, there might, and likely is, a reason for it. However, all they did was use and abuse him for their own personal gain.
4. The angel was obviously not malicious and was of poor health. “He had to go very close to see that it was an old man, a very old man, laying face down in the mud, who, in spite of his tremendous efforts, couldn’t get up, impeded by his enormous wings”. “… his pitiful condition of a drenched great grandfather had taken away any sense of grandeur he might have had”. “His only supernatural virtue seemed to be patience. Especially during the first days, when the hens pecked at him…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 hours that they thought he was dead”. Where I believe they first went wrong was when they originally decided to put him on a raft and send him away with food for about three days, but then changed their minds when “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”. For some reason. That made them decided to keep him as a prisoner, instead of sending him out on his own.
5. Because of the way that they handled the situation, technically finding him was one of the “best things” that could have happened to them because of all the money that they made. However, on the flip side, Elisenda seemed to have played with massive amounts of annoyance and frustration, even to the point where on their new mansion, she put bars on the windows in order to keep angels out. The mind can only wonder if they would have done things differently and befriended the angel, maybe tried to learn his dialect, showed him kindness and hospitality, what could have come from that friendship. I like to believe that he had some great power, blessing, or gift that he could have given to them, that would have been worth more than the money they otherwise accumulated. I also believe that we should not judge so much based on the looks of someone. His old looks could have meant that he had great wisdom to share and that he had done so much, as an angel, within the span of his existence. Coming from a spiritual background, his state of being tired, worn down, broken, and shabby-looking, could have meant that he was returning from a great battle or war in which he fought honorably and with noble character, fighting and good fight for a good a righteous cause. I can understand not opening your home to a complete stranger that is a creature that you are not used to, but to go to the opposite extent, and throw him in a chicken coop, does not seem right. All in all, they could have handled the situation differently, even if they did not want him in their home, they could have handled the situation with better grace and integrity.
