A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings

A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings 

1. If we consider the story to be an example of satire, then what idea, issue or situation is the target of the satire?

 Satire refers to a genre of literature and performing art that is usually fictional where vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of humiliating individuals, corporations, government, or society itself into improvement. In the story, satire targets the catholic church and human nature. Catholic church and human nature is the prime example of satire usage in the short story. The narrator explains how people treat outsiders with contempt since the outsiders  don’t understand their nature and also made fun of the church through the caricature of a priest named Father Gonzaga. 

2. Why are the townspeople more interested in the Spider Woman than the angel? What does this say about human nature?

 This is because the Spider Woman is seen as a human despite being struck with abject misfortune that people relish. This is affirmed from the passage “full of so much human truth and with such a fearful lesson, was bound to defeat without even trying that of a haughty angel who scarcely designed to look at mortals. I believe, they find her more relatable and fascinating than the old, sickly angel. 

3. The story is full of fantastic imagery. Identify some of your favorites and explain how those images support a major theme of the story.

After reading the short story, I realized that the flood of crabs was my favorite imagery. Imagery is part of figurative devices in a literary work, whereby the author uses vivid images to describe a phenomenon. The author in the story was very fond of using magical realism and the flood of craps that are extremely ridiculous and amusing, however, no one seemed to notice that. Generally, the ability to defy logic in the imagery is part of the authors’ style which gives the reader an impression that his stories have an otherworldly element. The narrator supports the theme in that they set the conditions for the angel's arrival and show how he will be treated by his keepers and society as a whole.