Special Post: A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings

I chose to write about A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings for this blog entry. This is a very odd story, but quite interesting at the same time. As we discussed in class, some stories don’t always have a single theme or moral; this story definitely fits that category. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the author of A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings, has my respect and adoration for the talent put into this story.
A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings begins with Pelayo, one of the main characters, sweeping up crabs outside of his house on a very rainy day. While doing this, he finds a very old and dirty man lying stuck in the mud. This man has enormous wings and speaks an unfamiliar language. After Paleyo talks to his neighbor, he and his wife, Elisenda, put the old man in their chicken coop. The only rational conclusion they can come up with as to why that “angel” landed in their yard was to come and retrieve their very sick son, who soon after gets better.

A crowd soon gathers to come and see the old man. The couple decides to charge the crowds to see the old man, and they make a ton of money very quickly. The local bishop says the old man couldn’t possibly be an angel because he is filthy and doesn’t speak Latin. However, the local doctor says the wings are attached so perfectly that he doesn’t see why all humans have wings. However, the attention is quickly diverged from the old man to a spider woman, once the crowd was attracted to her popular sad tale.

With all the money Paleyo and Elisenda have earned from charging the crowds, they build a bigger house to keep the crabs away, but keep the old man in the same dirty old chicken coop. Sooner or later, their son begins to interact with the old man, but he doesn’t react any differently to him than he did with the crowds. Eventually, the chicken coop crumbles and the old man stays in the shed, moving around more, sometimes in the house. This annoyed Elisenda, but not for long. After some time, the old man’s feathers begin to grow back and he regains some strength. One day he stumbles but manages to fly off into the horizon; relieved, Elisenda watches him until she can’t see him anymore. Finally, the thorn in her foot is gone.

Now reading through this story the first time around, you may think “Ok, this is just a weird story that doesn’t have an obvious theme.” Believe it or not, you’re right. This is a weird story. And the theme to the story is not very obvious. Reading through the story again, I realized there could be many morals interpreted from this story.

The meaning that I got out of this story is probably best displayed in one scene of the piece. That would be when the crowd’s attention was distracted from the old man because of a spider woman with a sad story. Before, people were bringing their odd ailments to the old man in hopes that they could be healed. They wanted to benefit from this “angel” and use him for what he was worth. However, when the spider woman came along and presented her touching story, the crowd was moved with emotion and drew their attention to her instead. How many times do we use people only for what we can get out of them?

That is the question that came to mind as I read this story. The old man was a nuisance to Elisenda and Paleyo until they realized they could make money off of him. The crowd was so impressed by him until their attention was attracted somewhere else. I am guilty of this same crime. I will form a friendship with someone because I see what I can get from them. I’ll be nice to a coworker only to get their help in return. I’ll try to be courteous to a special needs student, but some days my patience only goes so far. Is selfishness supposed to be our dominant characteristic? I highly doubt that. I think this story does a good job at just displaying the egotism of humanity. We can be so self-centered that we stop caring for the less unfortunate, even if by accident.

Like I said, this story can have many themes and morals, but that one just stuck out to me the most so I felt like sharing it. So why does this moral matter to us? Imagine a world full of self-centered, egotistical human beings. I know what you’re thinking: news flash, our world is already full of them. But I want you to think of it to an extreme. Think of all the selfish crimes out there: theft, rape, burglary, murder, deception, etc. If we let these acts go on without speaking out against them, they would occur much more often. And then ultimately, everyone loses.
I have purposely not talked about this with Christian lingo. Although I feel like that is the best way to stand against evil, I also try to look at things from a secularist’s perspective every now and then. I feel like doing this can help us to see where they are coming from, which in turn will help us to know how to minister to them. Nobody likes selfish people, but we often don’t see our own selfishness. I think the story helped to display that for its readers. Perhaps this was the purpose behind Marquez’s beautiful piece.

A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings

When I read the title, I thought it looked familiar. As I was read more, I then remembered that I read this for my Comp class at my last college. Reading it this time around though, helped to bring more understanding to the text. Maybe it's just me because we have been talking about the mentally disabled, but I felt that this story was closely related to that topic: the weak.

I don't really understand why the author wrote this story the way he did, it's really kinda weird. But nonetheless, I think he got his point accross about the annoyance we feel with the dependent people in the world. I think it is interesting that he chose to describe the character the way he did. First of all he was old and sick. He couldn't fly. He was an angel. I interpreted this as a very dependent being, who couldn't live without help, but yet was very valuable. Unfortunately, it didn't seem like the family he was with saw his value. The only reason they took care of him was because they felt obligated to incase his presence had anything to with their sick child.

The family took what they could get out of him. They put him on display so they could make money off of him. They didn't once think about how he felt about living in a chicken coop and being put on display to be stared at and harmed by strangers.
Does any of this sound familiar? I think in some ways, and not for every circumstance but with some, this is how the mentally challenged, elderly, or physically handicapped can be treated. I'm not talking about putting them on display, but more about them not being valued. Their value is stripped because they aren't fully "human" in our eyes.

The first time I read this story a couple years ago I didn't understand it or even care what it may have meant. It was just a weird story that I read for class. Well now this story is still weird, but I tried to find the meaning behind it. I think the other stuff we have been reading just kinda helped to open my eyes to this story. I'm glad I ended up reading this again!

AFI and Boys Next Door

I wasn't able to make it to the AFI this morning with class, but I'm hoping to make a trip out there. I remember going to an AIDS hospital when I was on a missions trip in New York, and I wonder if that would be similar in any ways. That experience really touched my life and is something I will never forget.

The Boys Next Store was much different than I thought it would be before I started reading it. First off, I had no clue it would be about adults, or about people with mental disorders. I have a feeling when I go to see the play it is definately going to be a tear jerker! I feel like this is a good story to understand the mentally challenged to be people, not just brain dead bodies. These men have feelings and emotions, can tell jokes and experience pain. They can love and they can hate.

I hate that we seperate people because of who they are. I do it myself, so I'm not pointing the finger. It's just like demoninations.."well since they are Baptist, they will never go all out for God" or "Catholics can't really be saved, they are too ritualistic." Why do we do this??? The Bible says that the body is made of many parts. Each part has a different function and certain talents and abilities that they can perform according to their jobs. It doesn't say anything about the hand being better than the femur because it has opposable thumbs! Thats just rediculous. So why do we say one demonination is any better than the other because they do or don't things the way we do?

Anyways, I'm done talking about that lol. I don't wanna go off on a long bunny trail, just a short one ;) Like I said, I'm looking forward to this book. I love anything that has to do with elderly people and mentally challenged people, because they have the best hearts on this planet. I can't wait to go see the play tomorrow! =)

A Day at the Museum

"I'm a Survivor"

My eyes tell a story
from a life of many years;
A tale with deep meaning,
but is landing on deaf ears

The wrinkles on my face
come from many smiles and frowns;
mostly from troubled times,
times that'd bring most people down

Would your life be different
if you knew my story well?
if you felt my sorrows
and experienced my hell?

Was my life lived in vein?
or will someone out there see
the lessons to be learned
from an old woman like me?

Take a minute, sit down
you just listen while I talk
before my time runs out
and I take the Northern walk

Because I'm a survivor.

"I went to the Polk Museum of Art and stayed for at least forty minutes." My favorite part about the museum was by far the student gallery. I can't believe some of the talent that these high schoolers have! I was absolutely blown away. There were photographs, sketches, paintings, and 3-D models, and all of them were spectacular. I love how the pieces showed what our youth are thinking. They got to express themselves and use their painting as their voice to the public. Some wanted to tell us about their pain, some about happiness, some about poverty, and some just wanted to show their creativity. It was very encouraging to see the talent of our generation.

There were some other exhibits as well; the new exhibit was one of the Japanese culture. The paintings were really cool. Most of them had explanations underneath them to explain why the painter added certain objects to the painting, or dressed the women a certain way. I learned a little bit about the Japanese culture just from reading the description under the paintings. They also had some of the embroidered clothing that the Japanese men and women wore. They were hand made and beautiful.

Another exhibit had pottery and other 3-D art from all over the world. It was kind of cool to see how the art differed from country to country. At first it was hard to tell the differences, but once I stayed in there for a little but longer, I started paying attention to the detail and sizes of the art.

Overall, I had a good visit. I stayed for about an hour and it was nice to get off campus for class. I enjoyed this trip and am looking forward to some more!

Reading and Connecting with Poetry

I enjoyed reading this piece from Francis McAloon. The way he described his process of lectio divina was really cool. I know lectio divina is all pretty much the same, but when reading that tonight, I was inspired to try lectio divina this week. And now that I have said lectio divina four times in just four sentences, I'm going to stop saying it ;)

I agreed with Francis when he said that poetry is about engaging the reader into responding. But I also believe the responsibility isn't solely on the poet. I think it is also up to the reader to respond. I can be close minded a lot when reading, and I therefore don't grow or respond when reading a piece of work. The work itself can be great, but that doesn't necessarily mean I will respond. Than again, if a work is great enough, will it have the capability of capturing any audience?

Darkness and Hope

Wow, this piece has so much to it that I have too many thoughts in my head and don't feel like I can organize them into a blog haha. I must say, well done Professor Corrigan. I feel like there was a lot of truth to what you said and a lot of stuff I didn't fully understand as well. But all in all, I left with a lot of food for thought.

This piece got me to thinking of all the ways darkness can enter our lives, kind of like how Corrigan expressed in his work. Darkness can be self-inflicted or could come from an outer source. But I love how Corrigan linked it to hope...and also doubt and faith. It is all a matter of how we respond to our darkness or doubt that will determine our hope and faith.

The question “Where is God?”
is much different from “Where is God in the
darkness?”

I like that statement. I think we can get so trapped in giving the Christian answer. But if we take the time to actually ask ourselves these hard questions and think about them before responding, we will learn to be much more truthful with ourselves and with God. I am one of those people who likes to avoid the hard questions. During my God time, I will sometimes have music on when I know I need to just turn it off so I can really think. It is so easy however, to just keep the music on, or to stay on Facebook, or talk on the phone, than it is to stop everything and simply think. Simply listen. Simply pray.

God must be burning to have His children just stop. That is something I am going to focus on this week, to just stop and think. stop and listen. stop and pray.
Thank you Professor Corrigan for sharing your thoughts!