Fictional writing is any type of writing that is not factual. Fictional writing most often takes the form of a story meant to convey an authors point in view or simply to entertain. The outcome of this may be a short story, novel, or drama. Fiction has different types of characteristics that make up the fictional writing, like character, plot, and setting. These characteristics are what make the imagery of fictional writing so astonishing and magical.
Character is a figure in the story that can play a major or minor role. Characterization, the method by which the author shows who a character is, reveals him or her either by static or flat, or dynamic or round. In the short story “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” the author Garcia Marquez has a character that would be considered a round character because the author puts detail and thought into this character and really shows a lot about the old man with wings describing how he acts and how he was to the town. Garcia Marquez does a prodigious job of introducing and making the reader know and feel the character.
The main character in the story “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” is an old man that has a human body with rugged old wings. He appears to be neither fully human nor fully surreal. The old man seems human enough as he is surrounded by filth, disease, and sickness. He has a human reaction to the people who crowd around him and seek healing, remaining indifferent to their pleas and sometimes not even acknowledging their existence “his only supernatural virtue seemed to be patience. Especially during the first days, when the hens pecked at him and the cripples pulled out feathers and the most merciful threw stones at him trying to get him to rise so they could see him standing.” (pg.272) When the doctor examines him, he is amazed that such an unhealthy man is still alive and is equally struck by how natural the old man’s wings seem to be. In the end, the old man’s wings recover and grow back to big beautiful wings and he fly’s away but the true nature remains a mystery.
Another characteristic of fiction is the plot. The plot is the action, or sequence of events, that makes up the story; main elements of a typical plot include conflict, climax and resolution. The plot of the short story “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” is a man named Pelayo who discovers a homeless, disoriented old man in his courtyard who happens to have very large wings. The old man is filthy and apparently senile, and speaks an incoherent language. Pelayo and his wife, Elisenda, conclude that the old man must be an angel who had tried to come and take their sick child to heaven. “ He must have been coming for the child, but the poor fellow is so old that the rain knocked him down.” (pg.270) The neighbor woman tells Pelayo that he should club the angel to death, but Pelayo and Elisenda take pity on their visitor, especially after their child recovers. “A short time afterwards the child woke up without a fever and the desire to eat.”(Pg.270) Pelayo and Elisenda keep the old man in their chicken coop, and he soon begins to attract crowds of curious visitors. This would be the climax of the story because things are starting to get most exciting. Father Gonzaga, the local priest, tells the people that the old man is probably not an angel because he’s shabby and doesn’t speak Latin.
Word of the old man’s existence soon spreads, and pilgrims come from all over to seek advice and healing from him. One woman comes because she’d been counting her heartbeats since childhood and couldn’t continue counting. (Pg.271) The crowd eventually grows so large and disorderly with the sick and curious that Elisenda begins to charge admission. For the most part, the old man ignores the people, even when they pluck his feathers and throw stones at him to make him stand up. He becomes enraged, however, when the visitors burn him with a branding iron to see whether he’s still alive. Pelayo and Elisenda have grown quite wealthy from the admission fees Elisenda had charged. Pelayo quits his job and builds a new, larger house. Pelayo and Elisenda are convinced that the old man will soon die, he begins to regain his strength and his feathers grow back. One day the old man stretches his wings and takes off into the air, and Elisenda watches him disappears.
The last characteristic that makes up fiction is the setting. The setting is the time, place and social environment in which the story unfolds; it is the setting that provides a background for the characters and the plot to develop. The setting of the short story “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” is in Pelayo and Elisenda’s courtyard. The story is held in the courtyard the whole time and makes us feel like the old man with wings being stuck in one place. The bigger setting we can say would be on the coast of South America because Pelayo and Elisenda are both Spanish names and they are continuously fishing.
Character, plot, and setting are ways that make up fictional writing. It gives the reader the ability to create their own image and thoughts of the magical effects about fiction. The short story “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” does just that by putting picture’s in the reader’s head of created images that are not real life situations or characters.
