According to The Norton Introduction to Literature by Kelly J. Mays, magical realism is "a type of fiction that involves the creation of a fictional world in which the familiar type of action and plausible and the characters that one could find in more directly realistic fictions coexist with completely fantastic characters straight out of myths or dreams. (pgA7) » So basically, magical realism is an unexpected alteration of reality. That being said, readers can observe certain characteristics while reading such stories. Some characters include, but are not limited to: "irreducible" magic that cannot be explained by typical notions of natural law, realistic depiction that emphasizes normal, common, everyday phenomena, then revised by wonderful, extreme or amplified states of mind or setting are often used to To achieve this, the reader is pulled between two visions of reality, and time is both history and timeless; space is often contested; identity is sometimes broken (Lois Parkinson and Wendy B. Faris). Magical realism is a method of mixing supernatural and real events to make the supernatural appear real. Another way to look at magical realism is to think of it as fairy tales, except that they don't provide a moral lesson. In the story A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, there are a few moments where the magic is really present. to the reader. One of the major themes of his story is the supernatural. Two of the supernatural events are the old man with wings and a girl transformed into a spider. Most of us have a very clear vision of how angels should look, that is, they should be beautiful and elegant, the "angel" in the story is the opposite, . ..... middle of paper ...... become . Marquez shows us that we have the possibility to explore with our imagination what we would do in a similar situation. Although no winged man falls from the sky, he compares this to the opportunities we have daily. Additionally, the angel's patience and putting up with disrespect and mistreatment can be compared to how we sometimes disrespect or mistreat others around us. When the angel grew more feathers and felt the breeze of the wind blow away, Elisenda looked through her kitchen window until she could only see an empty sky that also reflected the way things come into our lives and in an instant they disappear. This is why magical realism is very important in A Very Old Man with Huge Wings because it allows readers to question their lives and enter a place full of magic and mystery..