REFLECTION ON THE NOVEL

“HANDSOMEST DROWNED MAN IN THE WORLD”

BY GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZ

This essay focuses on the influence of the drowned man in a village. It stresses on the
invention of “Esteban” that somewhat changed the villagers’ lives.

It the beginning of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's short story, an object has washed up on the
shore of a beach with a nearby village, and the children are playing with it. They don't notice at
first, but eventually they realize it is a drowned man. This leads the men of the village on a quest
to find out who’s the man and if he belongs to any of the neighboring villages. The women
however, react differently to the man's corpse. They notice that he is much larger, heavier, and
built than the men of their village. They begin to scrape and trim and clean the man and the more
that is revealed of his body the more the in awe the women become. Having read this, I was
intrigued on what the drowned man really looked like as women adored him that much. I have
some notions that he may be so handsome and if I am the place, I would do the same.

I don’t understand when the women give the man the name Esteban. As I remember,
Esteban in Spanish and Greek literally means crown. I believe women see that this man clearly
superior to the ordinary village men and made them think he belongs to them. The village is
transformed by this man. When the men finally disposed of the body by throwing it into the
ocean, they all come to the realization that from now on "they were going to paint their house
fronts gay colors to make Esteban's memory eternal.

This man's presence had not only affected this single village, sailors and women from
nearby villages heard weeping and rumors and they traveled with flowers to attend his funeral.
There was a silent but significant change in the villages. They didn't know where he came from
or who he really was, but Esteban had affected them all. This is an example of magical realism
through the idea that this man was much greater than all other men. He was dead, but somehow
didn't possess the characteristics of a corpse. He did not have a hopeless expression on his face,
and he had deep sea plants on his body as if he had been in an abyss and somehow was still fully
intact and not devoured by sharks. Subtle hints like these throughout Marquez's story contribute
to the magical realistic and melancholy tone.

I really enjoyed reading this story. Is about fantasizing, it takes you into an island where
everything is small and tiny. One day a big and tall man that had drowned floated into this island.
The villagers took this drowned man and fantasized with him. They named him and then named
the village after him. The women shaved, bathed, and praised him that the men began to get
jealous. I don't blame them. I am just simply taken by the story.

The villagers in “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World” have no less practical
needs, but this does not stop them from “inventing” Esteban. I thought that the villagers’ attempt
to create an identity for the drowned man as absurd, but I believed that their attempts ultimately
portrays as purposeful. It tells the story of a strange outsider coming into a small village and
influencing the people. The strangest part is that the influence they have is based almost entirely
on the assumptions the people make about the outsiders rather than on any concrete facts they
can know about them. Because of this, the role of the outsider is not to interact or be an agent of
change but to reveal more fully the qualities of the people that are already present, and to reveal
their innate inclination to change or keep things the same. How I wish, same will happen to our
country so something would change.

"The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World" explores what it means for a person to be
great, and what effect such a person can have on those who admire him or her. Admiration can
be directed outward, but at some point, the story teaches us, it turns inward, toward the self, and
manifests as a desire for self-betterment.