Sunday, November 1, 2009

A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings #1

Why does Father Gonzaga have his doubts that the old man is an angel? Do you get the sense that Marquez is viewing the priest-- and perhaps, by extension, the Church-- in a certain way?
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7 comments:

  1. J. KongNovember 2, 2009 at 2:59 PM

    perhaps Father Gonzaga thought that it was a bad omen casted on the poor old fellow. Much like what had happened to the other people, such as the poor woman who had been counting her heartbeats since childhood, or the Portuguese man who had insomnia because of the stars' so called "disturbances", this old man may very well be just as ill as these folks mentioned.

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  2. AnonymousNovember 3, 2009 at 10:14 AM

    In the fourth paragraph Father Gonzaga expresses his doubt of the man being an angel when he makes the following assumption about the supposed angel after he spoke to him in Latin, “he did not understand the language of God or know how to greet His ministers.” The priest also took note of the smell and physical appearance of the man and assumed he was to human like.

    The quote above also shows Marquez’s view of the priest and the church. It shows that the church had come to the conclusion that Latin was the language of God and that angels should address the ministers in a certain manner. In my opinion, to make assumptions such as the ones the priest stated is arrogant and shows the arrogance of the church and the priest.

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  3. dtwelve89November 3, 2009 at 7:31 PM

    I certainly agree with Blogstalker, although a priest is an intermediary between God and the people, he does not have the right to belittle an angel. I suppose Marquez does show some negativity towards the Church. He is possibly commenting on aspects of the Church's structure and its ideas, in which he does not agree with.

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  4. Tsegu KahsayNovember 5, 2009 at 2:55 PM

    Partly I agree to what Blogstalker has said to why the priest has considered the old man a devil for he could not understand Latin language which in the first place is wrong. Assuming Latina as angels' language is painting angels as a flying spirits who only communicate with persons who speak Latin, or, listen to people who speak Latin. Secondly, it is only in our imagination that we have created angles' picture, if it was not for this pure imagination, we don't have a any proof to know what an angel look like or a devil look like. But, assuming that angels have white-pigeon's-like wings, the old man had not a wing like pigeons, but like a bat. Still, from our pure imagination, a devil has a bat-like-wing not a pigeon-like, so, this could be the second reason that a priest could have arrived to a conclusion that the old man was not an angel but a devil.

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  5. Daniel FreemanNovember 6, 2009 at 3:20 PM

    strong response, blogstalker.

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  6. Qi LiNovember 7, 2009 at 4:00 AM

    Like blogstalker and other classmates said, Father Gonzaga have his doubts because the outlocking of the old man doesn't meet people's expectation and imagination of an angel.
    From Marquez description of the Father and the reactions of the Rome, I feel that maybe the church afraid of, or don't want to, or don' know how to appraise the identity of the old man. We can see the 9th paragraph of the story."... But the mail from Rome showed no sence of urgency. ..." It seems like the auther want the reader to ask a question "What the Church really want?" A man with wings should be a importment issue of the church. However, at the end of the story Rome still don't give us a final judgment on the old man.
    I think, maybe the questions about the church that we get from the story are the questions that Marquez wants to ask.

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  7. Isaac7600November 25, 2009 at 8:08 PM

    Father Gonzaga has doubts because this old man with wings is totally opposite of what the Church believes that an angel is like. The church portrays angels as young, strong and full of life while this angel is old, weak and depressed. Marquez aims to criticize the church, since it is an institution that claims it holds the truth. However, Marquez uses the Angel it self as a metaphor of the church. The angel is suppose to be a representaive of God, therefore this angel represents a religion that is old, weak, with not much to offer to people of the earth.

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