an unlikely angel
...e anything more than a “ragpicker”. Instead of possessing angelic wings he had those that resembled a “huge buzzards” (233), and did not use “the language of god” (234). Pelayo and Elisenda treat the old man as an animal or pest. Not aware of the possibility of a human having wings, they simply dispose of him in a chicken coop because he is viewed freak and an “annoyance” (236). The mere fact that the old man has wings would send most people to their cellars because of a fear that the end of the world is near. Nevertheless, the actuality that the townspeople would treat the fallen angel/ old man with such cruelty is ridiculous. Not only do they lock the elderly angel up, they poke at him like a “circus animal” (243). Then, shortly after they instead take more interest in a less expensive, real circus-esque spectacle--a girl who had mysteriously turned into tarantula for disobeying her parents. Marquez hits on the ignorance of the townspeople on the way in which they toss aside a “haughty angel” for a carnival freak because she was so full “of human truth” (236), and they had no desire to find the truth within this angel. Never once did Pelayo and Elisenda come to realize that the crabs stopped rotting, their child’s health improved, and because of the angel they were able to build a “two-story mansion” because of the charged admission. Yet even though the old man with enormous wings was responsible for this fortune they still placed “iron bars on the windows so that angels couldn’t get in” (236). Elisenda also finds her new life to be q...