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Situational Irony
Style
Explanation and Analysis:
Marquez’s writing style in “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” is full of rich descriptions and figurative language. The following passage—which comes near the end of the story as the angel heals from his mysterious affliction—captures these elements of Marquez’s style:
He remained motionless for several days in the farthest corner of the courtyard, where no one would see him, and at the beginning of December some large, stiff feathers began to grow on his wings, the feathers of a scarecrow, which looked more like another misfortune of decrepitude. But he must have known the reason for those changes, for he was quite careful that no one should notice them, that no one should hear the sea chanteys that he sometimes sang under the stars.
Marquez uses rich descriptive language here when he describes the feathers that start to grow on the angel’s wings as “the feathers of a scarecrow, which looked more like another misfortune of decrepitude.” Here the metaphor of the scarecrow helps readers to picture the un-lifelike nature of a scarecrow covered in feathers and to map that picture onto the far-from-vibrant nature of this old and feeble angel. The poetic language of “another misfortune of decrepitude” helps readers to understand that these new feathers did not seem to be a sign of life, but of being near death.
The final sentence of this passage also showcases Marquez’s poetic stylings, particularly in the way he uses alliteration to describe “the sea chanteys that [the angel] sometimes sang under the stars.” This repetitive s sound—likely intentionally carried over by the translator from the original Spanish—adds a poetic, almost hymnic quality to the sentence. Marquez uses a variety of figurative language throughout to bring readers more fully into the story, as well as to communicate both the mundane and sacred elements of the tale.
Related Themes:
