This To Shall Pass

In “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings”, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, religion ultimately plays a big part. The symbolism of the main character, introduced in the first paragraph, establishes a magical realism during the story.

Throughout the story the old man is “held captive in Pelayos’s house”(452) for the entire town to see. The neighbors and community scold him because he is not their ideal view of an angel. So because he doesn’t speak the language of their God or look like he is from the heavens, in other words they couldn’t put in identity to him, they lose faith in what he really is. Because he did not fit their expectations, their first instinct was to exploit him. Unaware of the consequences it would have to them if he really were an angel. In the end some try and rationalize their actions to save themselves.

It annoys me a little that most times when God doesn’t answer peoples calls they criticize him and talk about how they have lost faith because he has not come to give them what they asked or saved them from something they got themselves into. But when their gift or blessing is in front of their face they can’t manage. It is too much for them to handle or deal with. I say this because at the end of the story when the man is strong enough to fly away the mom, “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” (455). She looked at him as something annoying. This tells you right there her faith is lost. She does not care whether or not the being was an angel or not. She just wanted him out of her house and out of her life. Sad enough a lot of people feel this way about religion. And in the end, there will always be a question about the role of faith or religion plays.