Gabriel Garcia Marquez's short story "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings" is a work written in the author's signature mode of magical realism: the story has the logic of a fable or a dream, even though it is narrated in the most matter-of-fact way possible. In this brief story, told with almost no directly quoted dialogue, we learn of the sudden appearance and sudden disappearance of the title character -- who is, quite literally, what the title describes -- in a small South American seaside village. However I hope to demonstrate through a close reading of several elements of the story -- through the descriptions of the old man (and what is presented as the literal truth of the story), through the reactions of the local priest Father Gonzaga (and the implied religious elements), and through the comparison with the spider girl in the second half of the story...
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