In this short story, Márquez portrays how people respond to the weak and unusual with awe and often with cruelty using incredibly ironic situations. In the first paragraph alone, an angel, normally portrayed as strong, magnificent creatures, has fallen from heaven during a storm and pathetically “couldn’t get up, impeded by his enormous wings” which would normally allow him to fly high above the miseries on earth and give him great power; instead, he is a decrepit, old man too weak to stand and covered in parasites. After a family imprisons him in a dung covered chicken coop and charge spectators five cents to see the creature, people flock to the sight. At first, the crowd is fascinated by him and hopes he can restore their faith; they leave so many oil lamps and sacramental candles that he becomes uncomfortable because of “the hellish heat” (par. 8). However, they soon grow impatient, poking him in the side with an iron branding because he will not stand and leaving him for a spider-woman who tells a sad tale they can relate to after they discover that he can perform only small “consolation miracles” like in the case of “the leper whose sores sprouted sunflowers” (par. 10). The woman who housed him is glad that he grows new wings and flies off in the end “because then he was no longer an annoyance in her life,” despite the fact that she and her husband raised enough money to build a two-story mansion by cooping him with their chickens in inhumane conditions. All these points lead readers to question why the story would be subtitled “A Tale for Children“ in the first place.
I had a really hard time trying to figure out why the author did include "A Tale for Children" also. I'm still not entirely sure. Maybe it was a cautionary tale of sorts. That is, a story revealing the "dark side" of humanity, specifically the greed and inhumane treatment of those that are vulnerable. Although, I could be reading too far into it.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it was a story designed to make children consider how the fantastical would play out in reality. In many childrens'stories the characters'reactions are extreme and are used to differentiate between villains and heroes. A man with wings sounds like something out of a fairy tale but the average wingless humans'reactions are those of the world we know. People do want to do the right thing but are heavily motivated by what benefits themselves.
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