Handsomest Drowned Man In The World

“The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World” is a short story by Gabriel Garcia Marquez about a mysterious corpse that washes up on the shore of a small village. A macabre premise, but nothing ever gives the sense that the story is “about” death- case in point, when the corpse first washes up the children are play with it until the adults take it to give a proper burial. Written in 1968, the work exemplifies many themes and characteristics of American contemporary writing. “Esteban”, the body, was described many times as being a literal physical exception to the human form, not to mention dead. Despite being a small village, during Esteban’s burial, the villagers embody classic American excess with their over the top mourning. Perhaps most relevant is the way they take in and accept the stranger as if he was one of their own, despite never finding out where he came from.
This character, like many in contemporary literature, is an exception to human societal rules and norms. He’s seven feet tall, not from any nearby villages, and ends up becoming a sort of ideal for the women of the town as they compare their men to their fantasy of this handsome stranger. This idolization of the “rebellious” character lends itself to comparisons with current popular novels like Harry Potter and The Hunger Games. This may have another meaning: The women imagine that he had a difficult life: large and awkward and secretly disliked, but postmortem beloved by the entire town. This seems to be a meta theme for American literature: From Walt Whitman to Emily Dickinson, the whole of genius is only recognized after the author is no longer