'How to Read Literature Like a Professor'

" Like Carter, Garcia Marquez plays on our notions of wings and flight to explore the situation's ironic possibilities. In fact, he even goes further in some ways. His winged character is literally caged; moreover, he's dirty and unkempt and bug-ridden, not at all what we expect from potential angels. On one level, the story asks us if we would recognize the Second Coming if it occurred, and perhaps it reminds us that the Messiah was not generally acknowledged when he did come. The angel doesn't look like an angel, just as the King didn't look like a king, certainly not like the sort of military ruler the Hebrews had expected. Does the old man choose not to fly? Has he been reduced in power and appearance purposely? The story never says, and in its silence it poses many questions. "
                                                                                                                                 

  This chapter about the mystic wonders of flight got me to thinking more than any other chapter has so far. My comment for the whole chapter would be, " If humans could fly, whether we had wings or invisible super-powers, I'll bet we'd regret it for one reason or another." Later on in this chapter Foster says that flight is freedom, but for the character in the book, "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings", the author, Garcia Marquez, wrote that flight made his character to be "literally caged" on planet earth. This character, the old man mentioned in the title,  probably was choosing not to fly because of the dangers that being the only human-like thing on the whole planet that could fly would have posed for him. I like how Foster contrasts this character with Christ when he came to Earth as a baby. Not a whole lot of people recognized him as even a remotely possible candidate for King, as perfect as he was, until he was approx. 12 years old. That was when the first teaching of Jesus' ministry was recorded. Over all, I like the possible hidden meaning that Foster reveals in Marquez's book. I think that this paragraph in particular will help me to find hidden meaning in literature, as well.