A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings, that's what he is

The idea of an old man with wings is ridiculous, and it's even more so when he's muddy all over, and his wings are scraggly. His appearance doesn't really show the divinity or awe we might expect from a winged person or perhaps an angel.

Before we know it, we notice ourselves, along with the villagers, assuming the old man to be some kind of a fallen divine figure. But why do we believe he's an angel in the first place? Can humans with wings be qualified as angels just for their appearance? I guess we want to fit this strange combination of humanness and celestialness into something we know. There's actually nothing so special about a man who has wings -- he's just as unique as a person with webbed feet or an unusually long neck. His wings are just a part of his body that might be no more familiar to him than his hands. But these wings, they have quite a special meaning in our world (at least, in parts where Christian beliefs are known) and a winged man is quickly perceived as an angel.
This hasty conclusion is what stops people from considering the man just as he is. The man's "divine" wings make some expect miracles from him, while his humanlike qualities distance him away from a perfectly holy figure and toward a more animal-like status. When the old man disappoints the people with his unresponsive attitude, they turn away and try to find something more entertaining and easy to understand, like the spider woman. The people who visited the old man with wings didn't just see a winged man; they saw a divine angel that would perhaps give a magical solution to their problems. When that expectation gave way, they found no reason to be interested in him anymore.
The only moment where the old man is looked upon as himself is when Elisenda finds him flying away at last. She's relieved that the old man, who had been wandering around in her house, has finally left. But I guess maybe in her innermost mind, she was regretting how she and the others treated him so badly. We still don't know if the old man was an angel or just an "ordinary" person. And who knows if he's from another planet? But as the man was flying away until he became a speck in the sky, Elisenda would have known he was beautiful in his own way, no matter what he is. He's just a very old man with enormous wings; no more and no less.