CRITICAL LENS

Society has many standards that reflect what the “ideal” human should be. Beauty standards, intellectual standards, health standards, and more are placed on us to dictate what is “normal”. When someone does not fit these standards, society leaves them as an outcast. The people that are not normal “deviate” from the standard and are usually thought of as being ugly. Lennard Davis in “Constructing Normalcy” explains the effects that eugenics and statistics had on the concept of normalcy and relates it to people with abnormal bodies. Society views abnormal bodies as something that is different and thus, does not know how to react to them. “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings” by Gabriel Marques, shares the story of how a town reacts to a man with an abnormal feature: wings. Marques uses magical realism to exemplify the importance of human empathy for those that are different. Davis’s emphasis on the implications of the concept of normalcy through the use of eugenics and statistics on the “abnormal” members of society is mirrored in the short story “A Very Old Man With Wings” in which readers see that people that deviate from the norm are shunned and outcasted. 

“Constructing Normalcy” by Lennard Davis discusses the origin of the standards of being normal and how these standards impact those that are deviants from the norm. The standard of being normal still greatly exists today and has shaped the way that society views people. The standard was exemplified with the use of the bell curve, a graph that was able to depict the abnormal and the normal through deviations. Davis states, “there is a real connection between figuring the statistical measure of humans and then hoping to improve humans so that deviations from the norm diminish” (Davis 14). In relation with statistics, eugenics was used to view the abnormal differently, they were both used to “bring into society the concept of a norm, particularly the normal body, and thus in effect create the concept of the disabled body” (Davis 14). Because of eugenics and statistics, the average man came to be and anyone who did not fit the description of being “average” was seen as abnormal. The bell curve, “[pinned] down the majority of the population that falls under the arch of the standard bell-shaped curve” (Davis 15). However, it is important to note that these standards that were established are rarely met by everyone. Davis explains that, “These models individually can never embody the ideal since an ideal, by definition, can never be found in this world. When ideal human bodies occur, they do so in mythology”, which essentially means that the only people that can reach this level of the standard are not even people at all; in a way, they are viewed as gods (Davis 10). The impact that the standards have on people are negative because it makes people feel outcasted. 

This can be viewed in the short story “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” in which we see someone be outcasted because they do not fit the standard. Gabriel Marquez shares the story of how a town views and treats a man that is abnormal. “There were only a few faded hairs left on his bald skull and very few teeth in his mouth, and his pitiful condition of a drenched great-grandfather took away any sense of grandeur he might have had. His huge buzzard wings, dirty and half-plucked, were forever entangled in the mud” (Marquez). The man that was before them did not resemble the angelic, glowing, radiant creatures that religion paints. Pelayo and Elisenda were astonished to find what they describe as a very old man with enormous wings. In addition to not looking like an angel, the man with wings also did not possess the behavioral attributes that religion paints with angels. “The parish priest had his first suspicion of an imposter when he saw that he did not understand the language of God or know how to greet His ministers” (Marquez). The man with wings was unable to conform to the standards of behavior and appearance of angels and humans and therefore possessed a certain ambiguity in his identification. Because of the man’s abnormalcy, Pelayo decided to lock him in the chicken coop. People from all over the town came to see the “majestic” man that was locked in the chicken coop and began to throw things at him “as if he weren’t a supernatural creature but a circus animal” in order to feed him (Marquez). Some even decided to burn him with iron to wake him up when they thought he was dead. Marquez was able to express how society views and treats people that are considered different. 

Marquez’s “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” mirrors Davis’s concept of normalcy. The man with wings does not fit the stereotypical description of the glowing, divine creature that many people associate with angels, nor does he fit the qualities of a normal man. Because he was different from the norm, as Davis would say, the man was isolated and experienced horrible treatment from the townspeople. In “Constructing Normalcy” Davis explains that in society we see the deviations as abnormal because they do not fit the norm. By using eugenics and statistics, society has created bell-curves to show what a normal person should be. The deviants of the norm, represents the outliers in society and the study of eugenics considers that the mistreatment of the deviants should be allowed for. The man with wings was seen as abnormal to society because of his wings and because he did not behave like an angel. He was, as eugenicists would say, a deviant on the bell-curve that highlights those that do not fit the average. His treatment is similar to the horrible treatment of people that have abnormal bodies. Davis discusses that because of eugenics, people with disabilities soon were seen as having “undesirable” traits and furthered the isolation that they experienced. 

One of Davis’s main arguments is that the perfect average man does not exist. Davis explains that the ideal body that society pictures is only attained in mythology. A person “who epitomized in himself, at a given time, all the qualities of the average man, would represent at once all the greatness, beauty and goodness of that being” is not a real person (Davis 12). So why do we place such high standards on being normal? Overall, society does not want people to accept the abnormal. This is why having a disability is seen as “ugly” and is not accepted. “Constructing Normalcy” by Davis supports Marquez “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” because they both discuss the horrible treatment of people that do not fit the norm.

“Constructing Normalcy” by Lennard Davis discusses the social implications of being abnormal in society. In Gabriel Marquez’s “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings”, we see the treatment of a man that does not fit the norm of being an angel or a man. Both of these texts are able to discuss the relationship between being normal and abnormal. In society as a whole, we can see that people view people that are not normal as something that should be shunned, but this should never be the case. We should accept people’s differences and work together to learn more about them. 

 

 

WORKS CITED

 

Davis, Lennard J. “Constructing Normalcy The Bell Curve, the Novel, and the Invention of the
Disabled Body in the Nineteenth Century.” Enforcing Normalcy: Disability, Deafness 

and the Body. Verso, 1995. 

Marquez, Gabriel G. A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings. 

http://jaimebell.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/51426730/A very old man with 

enormousWings.pdf. 1995