In "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings," how do the fantastic elements help provide insights into the way human beings actually think and behave?

What this story reveals
above all else through the fantastical elements is the ceaseless human need to derive meaning
from events, even when meaning itself is very hard to come by. Marquez uses the fantastical
appearance of a figure who is, to all intents and purposes, an angel, who literally drops into a
community. He then records the different theories and ways in which the villagers try to explain
his presence and what this might mean. Note how the villagers have different interpretations of
the angel and his sudden appearance:

The simplest among
them thought that he should be named mayor of the world. Others of sterner mind felt that he
should be promoted to the rank of five-star general in order to win all wars. Some visionaries
hoped that he could be put to stud in order to implant the earth a race of winged wise men who
could take charge of the universe.

All of them come up
with some different interpretation, no matter how erroneous, and even learned men such as Father
Gonzalo are shown to be none the wiser as they seek to impose a very narrow, rigid understanding
of the angel and his significance. This could be viewed as Marquez very gently playing with his
audience. He deliberately drops in an element to his story that clearly demands some symbolic
interpretation, but then he goes on to deny any clear signals as to what that symbolic
interpretation may be. The reader is placed in the same position as the villagers and as a
result is left to be mocked by his or her own desire to come up with a solution as to what the
angel might represent. Marquez therefore presents human beings as needing to find
meaning in things that happen, no matter whether there is any meaning to be found or
not.