Setting in The Very Old Man With Enormous Wings (Essay Example)

The setting of a story is where the plot happens; this is where the characters live and breathe. Settings can be vital to move the plot forward, like “Lord of the Rings”, or it can even be non substantial, as shown by all the different Cinderella stories. In the case of “The Very Old Man With Enormous Wings” by Gabriel Marquez, the setting helps push the plot forward, personalize the characters, hint to the story’s mystery, and bring in the peaceful resolution.

Because the author is from Columbia, it’s reasonably assumed by many readers that the story “The Very Old Man With Enormous Wings” takes place in a small, coastal, Colombian town. This setting matters and brings about the starting action, climax, and falling action of this short story. Marquez illustrates this with the excerpt: “Pelayo was coming back to the house after throwing away the crabs, it was hard for him to see what it was that was moving and groaning in the rear of the courtyard. He had to go very close to see that it was an old man, a very old man, …impeded by his enormous wings.” The starting action starts off the story with a tropical storm that blows in many crabs, a mysterious sickness of a young couple’s newborn, and surprisingly, a tattered angel. The climax is easily picked out with the sentence: “It so happened that during those days, among so many other carnival attractions, there arrived in the town the traveling show of the woman who had been changed into a spider for having disobeyed her parents.” This sentence shows that with the rural, and seemingly boring atmosphere of the town, the townspeople are easily drawn away from the “haughty” angel. This climax is drawn in by the setting, because if the townspeople were entertained more by their environment they wouldn’t have been so easily led away to the next carnival attraction. The falling action is welcomed in by the brushed off plot twist: “When the child began school it had been some time since the sun and rain had caused the collapse of the chicken coop.” If the characters weren't in such a stormy place, their chicken coop wouldn’t have fallen down. The coop falling down led to the angel wandering aimlessly around Pelayo and Elisenda’s yard, which was the ending, falling action plot.

Raining, humidity, and a sense of rural isolation shapes the characters, and all their reactions to their fallen angel. The first glimpse at any characterization in the short story was when Marquez wrote: “Against the judgment of the wise neighbor woman, for whom angels in those times were the fugitive survivors of a celestial conspiracy, they did not have the heart to club him to death.” This quote showed that the husband and wife, Pelayo and Elisenda, had compassion, despite their suspicion he was the Angel of Death. This is the same infamous kindness that one expects to find in any good-natured small town. Moving forward, the entire town seems to have popped up in their courtyard, if this had been anywhere other than a tight-knit community, would such a large group have formed without the landowners’ permission? “They found the whole neighborhood in front of the chicken coop having fun with the angel,” Marquez described the scene the young couple found playing out inside their yard just the morning after the Angel blew in. In a third instance, the setting shows Father Gonzaga’s, the religious leader, personality perfectly. The best representation of this is when the author marked down: “Then he came out of the chicken coop and in a brief sermon warned the curious against the risks of being ingenuous. He reminded them that the devil had the bad habit of making use of carnival tricks in order to confuse the unwary.” Deftly giving a nonanswer to what the angel was and promising that he’d write a letter to his superiors in Rome, showed that Father Gonzaga was all business and cared for his community. He didn’t put out any wild theories, only warned his people to be cautious, and accepting that he wasn’t able to be ‘top-dog’ in this situation, he publicly promised to send a letter to his bishop.

Onwards and forwards, there are two separate seasons in Columbia, where it’s assumed this short story takes place: a dry season and a cloudy season. There is not a substantial difference between the two seasons--the temperatures stay at about 66℉ on average-- only the rain level is reduced in the dry season. I believe the ‘winter’ the author refers to is during the wet season, from June to November, which is when hurricanes and tropical storms are more common. So, when the author shows his characters are astonished that the angel “not only survived his worst winter, but seemed to have improved with the first sunny days,” and they’re stunned the winds didn’t carry him away, or his many health problems didn’t strike him dead. Furthermore, the author explains the angel’s preparations to leave through the time and seasons of the environment, or setting, around him: “at the beginning of December some large, stiff feathers began to grow on his wings.” The beginning of December is the beginning of Columbia’s dry season, and the end of the hurricane, or wet, season. This is a vital transition, because up to this point the only way the author described the environment was negatively as on page [?]:  “Sea and sky were a single ash-gray thing and the sands of the beach, which on March nights glimmered like powdered light, had become a stew of mud and rotten shellfish.” This is the direct opposite of the “sunny days” the angel used to secretly start his practice flying. The weather and skies were clear, which allowed his peaceful exit, of Elisenda watching him fly into the horizon.

Despite all the descriptions the author gives of the angel, Marquez never truly answers: Is the elderly man actually an angel? However, the setting around him gives the readers hints to what he could be. Though, it appears as if the author himself doesn’t truly know what the ‘angel’ is. This is especially shown with the line: “they never found out whether it was because he was an angel or because he was an old man.” The author acknowledges the characters’ confusion, but doesn’t tell the readers if the angel is in fact an angel, or an old man. Moving onto the setting’s hints, the angel situates himself into Palayo and Elisenda’s chicken coop, and is pictured as a “pitiful man who looked more like a huge decrepit hen among the fascinated chickens.” From this, the reader can infer he is part chicken, or at least is some way related to the chickens. But, I believe  this could even be symbolic of him being a coward. Allow me to explain, if he is one of Lucifer’s fallen angels, he could be a chicken for coming to Columbia, a religiously isolated place. Father Gonzaga spends the story trying to communicate with Rome, which doesn’t care enough about a small town’s woes to answer. This is why this setting was the perfect place for a cowardly, fallen angel to flee after his fall.

The setting is the most important aspect of any story. Where the story takes place shapes the characters, pushes forward the plot, and even hints at deeper meanings behind key aspects of the story. Without this particular setting, the angel would have had a different impact on the characters and environment around him. This was a powerful piece of literature to read and I there are still deeper levels and meanings waiting to be uncovered.