The Handsomest Drowned Man In The World by Gabriel Garcia Marquez analysis

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The Handsomest Drowned Man In The World is a story by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

  • written in the Magical Realism style
  • the story is of the people of a small, desolate island village
  • whose lives are transformed when a very large corpse washes upon the shore
  • the villagers' fears, dreams and interactions are exposed and changed by the experience



Publication information[edit | edit source]

  • title: The Handsomest Drowned Man In The World
  • author: Gabriel García Márquez
  • publication date:
  • genre: fiction short story
  • style: magical realism
  • original language: Spanish, translated into English

Author biography[edit | edit source]

  • Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 1927-2014
  • Columbian writer
  • a principal of the literary school, "Magical Realism"
  • awarded Nobel Prize for Literature, 1982

Summary[edit | edit source]

  • a corpse washes ashore of a small, desolate, sad fishing village
  • the villagers project their own identities fears, and desires upon the corpse
    • the women at first think of how wonderful life would have been with him, so much more of a man than their own husbands
    • then they realize he, too, suffered, like their own men
    • the men at first resent the attention the women give the corpse
    • then they realize that he, too, suffered like them
  • on realizing that he was not heroic and suffered in life as do they, the villagers embrace the corpse as one of their own and provide a funeral for him, celebrating themselves for the first time

Themes[edit | edit source]

  • the story explores
    • the inner identities, fears, and dreams of simple villagers
    • how they are transformed from their own shame by projecting those fears and dreams upon a corpse of a man, no matter how magnificent he may have been, who, they realize, suffered in life like them

Stylistic elements[edit | edit source]

  • "magical realism"
    • presents a realistic setting with descriptive details
    • then adds absurdities (magic) treated as real (realism)
    • interplay of perspectives and thoughts between and among the characters

* it seemed to them that the wind had never been so steady nor the sea so restless as on that night and they supposed that the change had something to do with the dead man.

  • , it seemed to them that the wind had never been so steady nor the sea so restless as on that night and they supposed that the change had something to do with the dead man"
  • "They thought that he would have had so much authority that he could have drawn fish out of the sea simply by calling their names and that he would have put so much work into his land that springs would 2 have burst forth from among the rocks so that he would have been able to plant flowers on the cliffs"
  • Some sailors who heard the weeping from a distance went off course and people heard of one who had himself tied to the mainmast, remembering ancient fables about sirens.

Imagery[edit | edit source]

  • desert-like village
  • but the sea is calm and bountiful (provides lots of fish)
  • tools for scaling fish
  • tattered clothes as " as if he had sailed through labyrinths of coral."
  • "bore his death with pride"
  • "there was no room for him in their imagination"
  • "where fish are blind and divers die of nostalgia"
  • flowers (an important element in the story), such as:
    • "planting flowers on the cliffs so that in future years at dawn the passengers on great liners would awaken, suffocated by the smell of gardens on the high seas"

Plot outline[edit | edit source]

  • children discover the corpse of an over-sized man on the shore
  • the men struggle to carry him to the village, thinking he was either water-logged or just plain large, weighing "almost as much as a horse" and "taller than all other men"
    • the men consider what made him so large, perhaps "growing after death",
  • the men identify that he is a stranger
    • here, the fishing village is described as desolate ("no flowers") and so small that their "few" dead "had to be thrown off the cliffs" (i.e, rather than buried)
  • as the men check neighboring villages to see if anyone is missing, the women clean the body
  • the women "notice that he bore his death with pride" and when finished cleaning him his size "left them breathless"
  • he was the "tallest, strongest, most virile, and best built man they had ever seen," so grand that "there was room for him in their imaginations" (i.e., he was greater than they could even imagine)
  • there was no bed or clothes large enough for him, so they stitch together pants from a sail and a shirt from bridal linen so that "he could continue through his death with dignity"
  • they imagine what life in the village would have been like with him, larger houses to fit him, his "wife would have been the happiest woman", his great voice would command the fish and his strong hands would smash rocks to produce springs "so that he would have been able to plant flowers on the cliffs"
  • as they imagine life with him, they "secretly compared him to their own men", whom by comparison are the "weakest, meanest and most useless creatures on earth"
  • the oldest among them who "looked upon the drowned man with more compassion than passion" announces that "He has the face of someone called Estaban."
    • "It was true," they think and can see that no other name befits him, not even "Lautaro," which the youngest woman wanted to name him (a more romantic name)
  • next, the woman realize that they cannot dress him properly and that, after having to drag him on the ground to move him, he was probably "unhappy... with that huge body since it bothered him even after death"
    • the imagine him so large that he would not fit through doorways or in chairs and that he would apologize for not being able to sit down, etc. and feel sorry for him
  • they are up all night with him, and at sunrise they cover his face "so that the light would not bother him" and they now see him "so much like their men" pitiful and "defenseless" and they cry over "poor Estaban"
  • the men return and announce that he was not from another village, to which the women celebrate, "he's ours"
  • the men consider that "the fuss was only womanish frivolity" and, tired from their search for where he was from, think about the best ways to get rid of him, building a litter (to carry him) and planning to tie him to it with an anchor and throw him off the cliff
    • but "the more they hurried, the more the women thought of ways to waste time"
    • the men complain about the women, who are piling "junk relics" (random things, as religious icons, "relics")
  • the men "finally exploded" with complaint over the "fuss over a drifting corpse, a drowned nobody, a piece of cold Wednesday meat"
    • to which one of the women, "mortified by so much lack of care" uncovered his face, and on seeing his face now for the first time cleaned, "the men were were left breathless too" and realize that "He was Estaban."
  • now the men sympathize with him and wonder that no matter how heroic he may have been his size would have made him "ashamed" and that it was "not his fault that he was so big or so heavy or so handsome"
    • so much did they feel badly for him, that "even the most mistrustful men" who feared that "their women would tire of dreaming about them and begin to dream of drowned men... shuddered in the marrow of their bones at Estaban's sincerity."
  • the final paragraph opens with the explanation that "That was how they came to hold the most splendid funeral they could ever conceive of for an abandoned drowned man"
  • the women go to other villages to gather flowers and word spreads "until there were so many flowers adn so many people that it was hard to walk about"
  • while preparing the funeral, "all the inhabitants of the village became kinsmen"
    • the men "fought for the privilege of carrying him" and as they carry him down the cliffs, they "became aware for the first time of the desolation of their streets, the dryness of their courtyards, the narrowness of their dreams as they faced the splendor and beauty of their drowned man"
  • they send him off into the sea without an anchor so that he might return whenever he wants
  • they realized then "that everything would be different from then on" and that their houses would have "wider doors, higher ceilings", etc. "so that Estaban's memory could go everywhere without bumping into beams" and that they would pain the houses colorfully and dig up springs from the cliffs to grow flowers and that people would point to their village and say, "yes, over there, that's Esteban's village

Text sources[edit | edit source]