Literary Analysis Essay on a Very Old Man With Enormous Wings

Human beings have similar organs, cells, and ability to reason. However, when presented with similar information or observation scenario, they will surprise how contrastingly and differently they will make interpretations of whatever they have seen or read (Boansi). Gabriel Garcia Marquez's short story "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" illustrates a scenario that provides a clear picture of how human beings can develop completely contrasting interpretations from the same observation. The author narrates a story of an enormous very old winged man who had landed on Pelayo's courtyard. Instead of being a simple human being, he had the wings and did not speak in an understandable dialect leaving room for varied interpretations to form the onlookers. The winged man story shows that given a scenario or an object, different people are bound to generate contrasting interpretations engaging different interpretational processes.

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Various people who observed the winged man made contrasting interpretations. The first was the couple, Pelayo and his wife Elisenda who approached the winged man after observing him for a while and spoke to him. They interpret him as a lonely castaway from a foreign ship wrecked by the storm. They decided to call a neighbor woman to make her interpretation because she was known to understand everything about life and death. Surprisingly, the woman interprets the winged man as an angel. According to her, the angel must have been coming for the child but due to her weakness associated with old age, she was knocked down by the storm. So the wise neighbor woman saw a fugitive survivor who should be clubbed to death. However, as the neighbors heard of the news, they came in to see the flesh-and-blood angel held captive in Pelayo's courtyard. They had another interpretation different from that of the wise woman. The neighbors and those who came from far saw the winged man as a circus animal. It was quite interesting that they did not even see him as a supernatural being. Then came Father Gonzaga who rejected the winged man as an angel suspecting him of an imposter. He interpreted the winged man as a devil who came in carnival tricks.

It is interesting to see how each party arrived at the interpretation they made. Pelayo and Elisenda spoke to the winged man who in turn responded in an incomprehensible dialect with a strong sailor's voice. That was enough for them to keep aside all the other observations and conclude that he was a lonely castaway. Perhaps the presence of the storm during that time convinced them that the ship he was riding in was wrecked down and that is how he found himself in the courtyard. The wise neighbor woman seems to have made her interpretation based on what she knew of lonely strangers in the land. According to her experience, angels at that time constituted fugitive survivors of celestial conspiracy. Her interpretation reflects the belief system of the society at that particular time where a stranger is thought to be an escapee or perhaps someone who has been cursed and sent away from another community. The neighbors and those who came to witness the winged man made their interpretations from what they have experienced before. These people must have been used to the circus animals in the zoos that when they saw the winged man in the chicken coop they make an association leaving out the bigger picture portrayed by the unique and supernatural old man. Their interpretation is based on assumption that a confined creature is circus animal and they do not need to bother trying to make a finer interpretation. On the other hand, Father Gonzaga appears to consult logic in making an interpretation. He approaches the winged man from an analytical perspective where observes the man's posture, feathers, and the parasite infestation and concludes that he is not the angel. Here he bases his interpretation on the assumption that angels are clean and well kept. He expected an angel to understand the language of God but the failure of the winged man to do so meant he was an imposter.

It is imperative to understand how human beings make interpretations to understand how the different people interpreted the winged man. According to Hacker, people make interpretations through conceptual-driven processing. In this process, people make perceptions from a bigger picture and in conjunction with expectations, prior knowledge, and beliefs make a guess. According to Gregory, 90% of what a human being sees is lost by the time it reaches the brain. As a result, the brain is left to make a guess based on prior knowledge or past experience (289). Gregory's conceptual-driven processing provides a basis for understanding how the wise woman, the couple and Father Gonzaga made their interpretations. The wise woman reflects the process of making an interpretation based on prior knowledge of angels and the beliefs she already had of them. She believed angels were fugitive survivors and when he saw the winged man, her brain quickly informed her that he was one of them. The couple confirms Gregory's theory what a man sees is lost by the time it reaches the brain as they only made an interpretation from the language irrespective of the uniqueness of the winged man as they had observed. Likewise, Father Gonzaga showed how the belief system and expectations influence how humans make interpretations. Since the winged man failed to meet his pre-set expectations of an angel of God (as he was dirty infested by parasites and failed to speak the parish language), he termed him an imposter.

Also, human beings make interpretations of others based on language. According to Whiteley, members of one social or language group make evaluations of personality characteristics of another individual based on language capacity. This is quite evident on how the couple and Father Gonzaga make interpretations of the winged man. The couple interpreted the man as a castaway because his language appeared to be that of a sailor. Similarly, Father Gonzaga interpreted the man as Norwegian sailor because he could not speak in Latin. Language is one of the salient cues eliciting evaluative responses (Lehnert et al. 356). It shows that people interpret others based on the use of language.

The various interpretations by different characters at least communicate something about them. Pelayo and Elisenda are an example of people who easily judge based on one's language and circumstances surrounding the situation. They make an easy connection between the language of the sailor and the events brought about by the storm. They arise at a guess that the winged man must have been a castaway of the wrecked ship. The interpretation of the wise woman reveals a less analytical interpretation where one simply jumps to conclusion based on a belief system and past experiences. She is an individual who is quick to judge. She even did not speak to the winged man but simply interpreted him as an angel based on her prior knowledge of angels. Father Gonzaga is quite analytical who makes an interpretation from the observations and interrogation of a situation or an object. Interpretation process is said to be a communicative process designed to reveal relationships and meanings of people's cultural and national heritage through engagement with artifacts, objects, landscapes, and sites (Veverka 12). Paleyo, Elisenda and Father Gonzaga reveal this process as seen on how they engaged the winged man both through curious observation and communication. The characters reveal that an interpretation ought to be an examination that involves the sense of sight, thought and hearing. The sense of sight should allow one too interpret what he or she can see whereas thought engages the mind to logic and hearing implies engaging one in a speech to make an interpretation of language and nationality.

Conclusion

Interpretation is a process which is open and the more the people confronted with a scenario, object or information, the more likely there can be varied versions of interpretations. Different people tend to interpret differently based on what they see and hear. Interpretation process is subject to interpreter's prior knowledge, experience, and belief system. As such, interpretation can be biased because one can base on a belief system that can be stereotyped. Interpretations can be accurate or inaccurate. Despite the various interpretations of the winged man, it later turned out that he was a real Angel. Father Gonzaga failed to notice him meaning that people's interpretations can be limited to past experience only and may be skewed when interacting with new things or scenarios.

Works Cited

Boansi, David. "Why Do People Have Different Interpretations For A Common Situation Written On A Sheet Of Paper?". Researchgate, 2014, https://www.researchgate.net/post/Why_do_people_have_different_interpretations_for_a_common_situation_written_on_a_sheet_of_paper. Accessed 3 Feb 2019.

Hacker, P. M. S. "Experimental methods and conceptual confusion: an investigation into RL Gregory's theory of perception." Iyyun: The Jerusalem Philosophical Quarterly/: (1991): 289-314.

Lehnert, Tessa Elisabeth, Sabine Krolak-Schwerdt, and Thomas Horstermann. "Judging people and their language use: How attitudes towards languages and speakers' nationality influence speaker evaluations in multilingual contexts, using Luxembourg as an example." (2016).

Marquez, Gabriel Garcia. "A very old man with enormous wings: A tale for children." (2016).

Veverka, J. A. "What is interpretation? An overview of Interpretive Philosophy and Principles." (2005).

Whiteley, Wilfred. Language use and social change: problems of multilingualism with special reference to eastern Africa. Routledge, 2017.