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2. What surprised him most, however, was the logic of his wings. They seemed so natural on that completely human organism that he couldn’t understand why other men didn’t have them too.

When both the old man and Pelayo and Elisenda’s son come down with chicken pox, the local physician takes advantage of the opportunity to examine the “angel” physically. The doctor is surprised both that the old man is still alive and that his wings seem so natural on his body. In this passage, García Márquez seems to imply that there is nothing angelic about the old man at all, although the narrator goes back to referring to him simply as “the angel” a few lines later. More important, the passage suggests that the boundary we draw between natural and supernatural is arbitrary at best. García Márquez subtly raises the question: if wings are so naturally a part of this particular man’s body, then are we the freaks for not having them?

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