A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings (Last Story) Grade 12 (Question Answer)

            A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings

Understanding the Text

a. How does the narrator describe the weather and its effects in the exposition of the story?

Answer: The narrator describes that it has been raining for three days and Pelayo is throwing the crabs inside his house into the sea in the exposition of the story. Sea and sky are a single ash-gray thing and the sands of the beach which has been glittering.

b. Describe the strange old man as Palayo and his wife first encounter within their courtyard.

Answer: He wore ragged clothes. There were only a few faded hairs left on his bald head and very few teeth in his mouth. His had enormous wings, dirty half-plucked were forever entangled in the mud when they first encountered within their courtyard.

c. Why did Pelayo and Elisenda imprison the old man in the chicken coop?

Answer: To find out the truth about the old man the couple called their neighbor woman. She told them that he was an angel came there to treat their child. So, they imprisoned the old man in the chicken coop.

d. Why was Father Gonzaga not sure about the old man being a celestial messenger?

Answer: Father Gonzaga was not sure about the old man being a celestial messenger because he did not understand the language of him when he greeted the old man in Latin.

e. Many people gathered at Pelayo's house to see the strange old man. Why do you think the crowd assembled to see him?

Answer: Many people gathered at Pelayo’s house to see the strange man because the old man looked strange with very big wings at his back. They thought that he was the messenger of God or an angel.

f. Some miracles happened while the crowd gathers to see the strange man. What are these miracles?

Answer:  Some miracles happened while the crowd gathers to see the strange man. The miracles are: the blind man who didn't recover his sight but grew three new teeth, the paralytic who didn't get to walk but almost won the lottery, and the leper whose sores sprouted sunflowers.

g. State the irritating things that the people did with the strange old man.

Answer: People started doing irritating things with the old man as they poked him with iron. They thought that he was unresponsive to their reaction. Because of their mistreat, the old man became violent due to pain.

h. How and why was the woman changed into a spider?

Answer: In her childhood, she had sneaked out of her parents' house to go to a dance, and while she was coming back through the woods after having danced all night without permission, a fearful thunderclap rent the sky in tow and through the crack came the lightning bolt of brimstone that changed her into a spider.

i. Describe how Elisenda saw the strange man flying over the houses.

Answer: While she was busy in the kitchen, she felt something outside. She went to the window to see what was happing. She saw that the old man was trying to fly. Soon, he flew off the horizon of the sea and disappeared.

Reference to the Context 

a. The arrival of a strange old man at Palayo's courtyard arouses many suspicions and explanations. Explain how the neighbour woman, Father Gonzaga and the doctor speak of the strange man. Why do you think these three people give three different kinds of interpretations?

Answer: There are many suspicions and explanations which are aroused about the arrival of a strange old man at Pelayo's courtyard. According to the woman of neighbor, he was an angel who must have come for the child, but he was knocked down by the rain due to his old age who could understood all about life and death. According to Father Gonzaga, he looked much too human because he couldn’t understand God’s language and he had unbearable smell of the outdoors. According to him he wasn’t an angel. Similarly, the doctor discovered a whistling sound in his heart and kidneys, indicating the impossibility of his being alive, and he was shocked to see his natural wings and wondered why others didn't have them.

The strange old man was described differently by those three persons. They give three different kinds of interpretations because of his appearance and activities which were supernatural and different from the real world. He had wings, and his language was also strange for them.

b. This story belongs to the genre of 'magical realism', a genre perfected by Gabriel Garcia Marquez in his novels and short stories. Magical realism is a narrative technique in which the story-teller narrates the common place things with magical colour and the events look both magical and real at the same time. Collect five magic realist happenings from the story and argue why they seem magical to you.

Answer: This story belongs to the genre of 'magical realism,' a genre perfected by Gabriel Garcia Marquez in his novels and short stories. Magical realism is a narrative technique in which the story-teller narrates the common place things with magical colour. These five magic realist happenings from the story are listed below:

1. Pelayo saw the old man first with very big wings. It is magical because in real world humans do not have wings.

2. During the talk with Pelayo and his wife, the old man used his own dialect which they couldn’t understand so he was from another planet.

3. According to the woman of neighbourhood, he is an angel who has come there to treat the sick child. The word "angel" itself refers to a magical link in the story.

4. According to Father Gonzaga he couldn’t understand the language of god so the old man was equated with the devil and warned others about him. The language and the description used by Father Gonzaga is also amazing and magical.

5. The spider woman in the story is also magical. In real world there isn’t a human being like a spider. Because of these points, the story falls under the genre of Magical Realism.

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