I believe the professor chose “The Handsomest Drowned Man In the World” to show the symbolism of inspiration, beauty, and dignity. When the man was washed up, the villagers saw him as a hero inspiring them so much that they decided to fix up their houses and village to be exquisite with themselves. The drowned man was hidden and basically nothing to the world but all of a sudden when the villagers find him, they want to live a better life. When the man Esteban is found, the story says he looks perfect with an excellent physique, tall, basically gorgeous, which is why the villagers imagine he lived a magnificent life so we can too. The women started comparing him with the men in the village and how he looked nothing like them, he was” god-like” and fantasized about how he was. This stranger was inspiring the villagers to have their surroundings be beautiful and keep it that way by introducing something new.
Daily Archives: August 30, 2022
“The Most Handsome Drowned Man” was an interesting read. I feel like the professor assigned this as our first reading to tap into our inner selves. Meaning, to put us deep in thought about ourselves and our own surroundings. In the story a village pretty much changed their whole style because of one individual. They were so intrigued they felt like Esteban legacy needed to be alive amongst their community, although they knew nothing about this giant man. The infatuation amongst men and women allowed them to assume how he lived his life, and how his after life should be celebrated. It made me wonder if I ever experienced this in my life. Where a person can come in your life and change your whole way of thinking. In fact it has. Has anyone ever had a boyfriend or girlfriend and the stuff you don’t normally enjoy, you wound up enjoying because they like it. For example, my husband love football. I never was really a fan, however I find myself shopping for matching merchandise and game tickets for his favorite team. I even took a liking in watching games with him on Sundays. People can have some sort of influence on you dead or alive. As long as there is some sort of significance, people will show admiration.
I think you might have assigned “The Handsomest Drowned Man In The World” as the first story for the course because it can give insight on how people think and assume what people are like when they haven’t gotten a chance to get to know a person, and sometimes it can make them look at their life a little different. For example there are plenty of people that have never left America or have never lived in a diverse area in America. so when they see someone that looks different they are curious and their mind starts to wonder. Some people come up with their own ideas of how a person is, what their life is like, and sometimes start to think maybe their life isn’t as interesting as they thought. In this case the women in the village started to assume the men in their village weren’t man enough because of the corpse that they were looking at and the stories they created in their minds of what his life was like. It just shows that people shouldn’t look at their life differently because they’re assuming what another persons life is like.
I think “The handsomest drowned man in the world” was chosen as the first story because with the appearance of Esteban in the villager’s lives, they changed their view of the world and learned to empathize with others which could possibly mirror the course and how it is interactive, allowing for ideas and views to bounce off each other like when one of the women decided he looked like an Esteban or when the women who went to collect flowers and would bring back neighboring women. They would make their own conclusions about Esteban and who he was. As stated by Dean Radar, while the villagers are making an identity for Esteban they are also creating one for themselves from the reader’s perspective. One could conclude that it perhaps alludes to how the course will shape us as people and how our ideas will help to shape our experience in this course.
The handsome drown man was an interested read, Gabriel Garcia Marquez has a great imagination. The drowned man symbolize Esteban. It were an overwhelming, dramatic experience for the villagers especially the women. The way how they honored the dead was something special it bring the community together as a whole. The men was upset or maybe jealous of the women because how much they were attached to a dead man, some of them were emotional to this complete stranger. Everyone was shocked how big and tall he were they never saw anything like it.
