Gabriel Garcia Marquez's The Handsomest Drowned Man

Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World” is a short story illustrating the admiration of a giant like man who had drowned at sea and washed upon the shore of a small village. At the story’s heart the admiration for this man grows throughout the village and he becomes a god like figure to the villagers. Marquez achieves the greater theme of “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World,” magical realism, through her use of a man who is portrayed to be giant, and that the people of the village see him as a deity. A brief analysis of this story will reveal how “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World” achieves this theme. The theme of magical realism is displayed in this story since the drowned man resembles
someone
They decide to name him Esteban. It is possible that the woman in this village have called him this, as Esteban is another name for Estevanico, a slave from the early 1500s who was supposedly the first man born in Africa to set foot in America. He also became a legendary figure in Latin America, and was later given a set of impressive skills. He mastered dozens of languages, knew everything about medicine, and was even considered by some to be a god (Alchin, Linda). Due to this, when the women of the village call the drowned man Esteban, they may be referring to this Estevanico. This can be assumed by a passage at the end of the story, when the women imagine a captain speaking of Esteban's village "in fourteen languages”. This passage is, “he would say in fourteen languages, look there, where the wind is so peaceful now that it's gone to sleep beneath the beds, over there, where the sun's so bright that the sunflowers don't know which way to turn, yes, over there, that's Esteban's village” (Marquez, Gabriel Garcia). This may be a reference to the myth that Estevanico spoke so many languages fluently. The drowned man takes on the role of a deity for the villagers. They are not aware of where he came from and claim him as their own when they discover he is not from any of the surrounding villages. The drowned man becomes worshipped by the villagers, and in a way permanently changes their lives. This is shown through this