The story is like a fairytale, myth, or allegory in that it uses the supernatural in the form of a winged man to make a point. It is also like these genres in being universal: it is not set in a particular, named place or time.

The old man differs from our usual conception of angels, first, by being old. He is missing teeth and dressed in rags. Further, his wings are dirty buzzard wings, and they are so heavy that he can't get up. They are infested with parasites, and he stinks. He speaks a sailor's dialect that nobody can understand. All of this makes him seem repulsive and alien rather than pure, young, and clean, as we might expect an angel to be. Since angels are messengers of God, we also expect them to be able to communicate with us.

People categorize the winged man as a castaway, an angel, an evil angel that should be clubbed to death, and an animal. Nobody knows what to make of him.

Father Gonzaga's inability to communicate effectively with the winged man implies that he really doesn't have a good framework for understanding him. The winged man defies the Church's attempts to categorize him. Father Gonzaga thinks the man's inability to speak Latin and his bad odor mean that he is an imposter angel, but he has to send a letter to his higher-ups in Rome to be sure. That the priest is stumped suggests that the winged man is not someone the Christian faith can easily deal with: he challenges stereotypes.