Avery Old Man with Enormous Wings: a Tale for Children - Theme

AVery Old Man With Enormous Wings: A Tale for Children - Theme A very old man with enormous wings focuses on how the characters, but also humans in general respond to people who are weak, have a weakness, dependent, and different from either our perception of how those in society should be or the perception of someone else. The theme of this story which is inferred by the text is the coincidence of compassion and cruelty, through the main characters actions and thoughts. In the short story there are times of cruelty, insensitiveness and minor compassion. But somehow Garcia Marquez has managed not only to put them all together in one story, but some all into one action. In the text it brings out 3 key points; held captive, they did not have the heart to club him to death, and dragged him out of the mud and locked him up with the hens in the wire chicken coop. Insensitiveness is one of the first elements shown in this story, through when the town had known that an angel was “held captive” in Pelayo’s and Elisenda house. Although this strange “creature” was on their property, to hold someone captive whether believing their an angel or not is wrong. Which shows that they were insensitive to his condition of a battered angel but as a elderly man as well. But the fact that in the begging of his finding of him, he kept him captive in his house which shows a bit of compassion and consideration of his state at the same time. This act of insensitiveness also shows an ulterior motive of Pelayo and Elisenda, which in turn turned out to be as using him as their own personal profit. The element of compassion is introduced in the sentence where the judgment of the neighbor woman was given but contrary to her advice “they did not have the hearty to club him to death.” One of the definitions of compassion is the strong desire to alleviate the suffering of another, to me when I hear the word compassion I think of heartfelt desires, so seeing as how they didn’t have the heart