The Handsomest Drowned Man Summary

The short story, "The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez is an interesting story that follows the life of a corpse after death. The story is set in a small village in which this man washes up one morning. When he first washes up, he is found initially by the village children and rather than being feared, the children interact with the corpse. They play with it until the adults discover the corpse and bring it into the village. Once it is in the village it is decided that it must be given a proper small funeral and thrown back into the sea. In order to do so, however, they must clean the corpse and prepare it properly before it can be given final rest. The village men carry the body up to the village so that the village wives can prepare it for the funeral. Upon removing the sea plants from his face, they discover his handsome face. It is at this point of reading that the story gets very interesting; the dead man receives a postmortem development of his character. Almost immediately after seeing his face the villagers begin giving him a backstory and personality. They even give him a name, they call him Esteban, a strong. The stranger’s body is described as quite tall, and his face is depicted as humble with a firm jaw. Upon seeing these features the women of the village become attached to him and dream of the wonderful villager he could have been. They believe that he could perform in one night what their husbands can not. The villagers marvel at his size and muscle build and feel that if he were to have a bed, it would have had a sturdy thick frame and bolts supporting it. The villagers imagine how he must have had to stoop to enter doorways and how he must have felt uncomfortable in small chairs. They imagine that if he lived in their village, he would have had the strongest and widest hut possible. While making up a backstory for him, the women begin to feel pity and sympathy for the drowned man. They dress him in a hand-sewn