Revised Intro Paragraph and outline

Gabriel Marquez's voice and expressive word choices in "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" emphasize the extent of human shallowness and the capacity of people to abandon compassion and act cruelly in order to reap personal benefits. The tone of the work expresses a dreary setting in which the people with their extreme stereotypes and expectations represent a microcosm of our culture today, and the tone also illuminates the excessively poor condition of the unfortunate angel. The increasing cruelty and artificiality of the people toward the angel, which are expressed in Marquez's voice, suggest that human nature never allows for satisfaction or fulfillment regarding a situation. Marquez points out through his tone and word choices that individuals have unrealistic expectations and an insatiable desire for tangible results that can only culminate in disappointment, resentment, and blindness to the reality of given circumstances.

I. Initially in "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings," a gloomy setting is introduced, and the people who inhabit it impractically expect stereotypical ideals.
a. "The world [has] been sad since Tuesday. Sea and sky [are] a ash-gray thing and the sands of the beach... have become a stew of mud and rotten shellfish" (327).
b. "No one [pays] any attention to [the angel] because his wings [are] not those of an angel but, rather, those of a sidereal bat" (329).

II. From the very beginning of the work, Marquez makes the pitiful condition of the very old man with enormous wings clear, emphasizing his imperfections and his features that contrast those of a stereotypical angel.
a. There were only a few faded hairs left on his bald skull and very few teeth in his mouth. His huge buzzard wings, dirty and half-plucked, were forever entangled in the mud" (328).
b. [Father Gonzaga] argued that if wings were not the essential element in determining the difference between a hawk and an airplane, they were even less so in the recognition of angels" (329).

III. Ultimately, Marquez effectively conveys the ability of people to exchange moral standards compassion for personal gain and the tendency of human nature to always want more and never achieve satisfaction.
a. "Even the most merciful threw stones at [the angel], trying to get him to rise so they could see him standing. The only time they succeeded in arousing him was when they burned his side with an iron for branding steers" (330).
b. "A spectacle like that , 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 deigned to look at mortals" (331).