A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings

I thought that this story by Gabriel García Márquez was a little strange.  I was confused as to what the man with wings was.  At different points of the story he was described as a different thing.  It ranged from an angel to a trick from the devil.  He was kind of reborn in the end, with his wings growing back in.  I'm interested to know what type of world this was set in, because it doesn't seem like ours.  It describes a man with wings who suddenly is 'reborn' and a girl that has the body of a giant spider.

This story spoke a lot towards human nature.  The family took advantage of this winged man.  They kept him in terrible conditions and profited from him staying on their property.  He was described as a captive that the family got rich from.  I also saw some aspects of human nature in how the Father responded to the situation.  He looked to the people in a higher powered position to give him the answers.  I think that people tend to do that a lot in real life.

The story was also about religion.  I found it interesting how the man with wings was considered divine because he matched the description of an angel, but the woman with the body of a spider was just a carnival attraction.  This man could have been like the woman, but since the wise woman and Father said that he was from heaven the people thought that as well.

By the end of the story I'm still wondering where the story takes place (time, city, 'world'), what the man with wings actually is, and what brought about his miraculous recovery.