Analysis of “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” and “Gimpel the Fool”

In Gabriel Garcia Marquez's “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” and in Isaac Bashevis Singer's “Gimpel the Fool” it is shown how the two main protagonists of the story significantly alter the lives of the people and the environment around them. However, their endings state otherwise and leaves vague clues as to how readers may perceive them. On the other hand, the reactions of the other characters to the protagonists respective behaviors speak volumes about human nature.

In “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings,” the central character, who is the old man with large wings, was initially greeted with both fear and awe, particularly by Pelayo and Elisenda, who saw him first.

“They both looked at the falled body with mute stupor” (Marquez 705). Their neighbor woman and a few other spectators also described him as an angel who had supernatural powers. Others, however, mocked and made fun of him as he was inside his makeshift home in the chicken coop.

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tossing him things to eat through the openings in the wire as if he weren't a supernatural creature but a circus” (Marquez 705) These reactions basically prove that it is human nature to fear, revere, or ridicule something one does not understand. On the other hand, in “Gimpel the Fool,” the protagonist, Gimpel, was mainly portrayed as a highly gullible person all his life as he believed everything that the people around him said. However, he was also the type of person who holds his faith in the goodness of other people and most of all, God.

“I'm the type that bears it and says nothing. What's one to do? Shoulders are from God, burdens too” (Singer 1527). His gullibility cost him nearly his entire dignity as he found out in the end that his children with his wife Elka are not his. Meaning to say, because Gimpel was a truly good person by nature, he allowed other people to fool him all the time even though he knew in his heart that their stories and claims weren't true. But the story itself vindicates Gimpel when asks the rabbi for advice.

The rabbi said, “It is written, better to be a fool all your days than for one hour to be evil. You are not a fool. They are the fools” (Singer 1524). Between Gimpel and the Old man with enormous wings, it is the former who is able to somehow resolve his problems as in the end he says that “Whatever may be there, it will be real, without complication, without ridicule, without deception. God be praised: there even Gimpel cannot be deceived” (Singer 1533).

Works Cited

Marquez, Gabriel Garcia. A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings. 1955. 705-709