Freytag’s Pyramid Applied
Everyone remembers being taught the parts of a story as a child: beginning, middle, and end. That is a simple and effective method to write anything, created by Aristotle. Gustav Freytag later developed an in-depth layout for the progression of events in a story’s plot which became known as Freytag’s Pyramid. In the short story, “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings," by Gabriel García Márquez, the parts of the pyramid are clearly distinguished.
The seven parts of the Pyramid begin with what most people would refer to as the beginning, under Freytag’s Pyramid one must call it the exposition. Márquez sets up the story with a brief setting and character explanation, then moves right into the discovery of the old man. In a couple short paragraphs, the reader knows the backstories of the characters and the current situation. Following the exposition, Elisenda deciding to charge people to see the angel would be the inciting event. Her decision to do so is what propels the rest of the story. The events that follow, or the rising action, illustrate the people treating the angel like a piece of meat: poking, prodding, and throwing stones at him. They don’t see the angel as human, but they don’t treat him in an angelic way, either. The story reaches its climax when the people “succeeded in arousing him” by branding him with a hot iron. The success in getting a reaction out of the angel is the climax beca...
