Daily Archives: February 4, 2024

I think the reason why professor Conway might have assigned the “Most Handsome Drowned Man” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez as the first story/reading of the course might have to do with the main idea of this story which is about change. In the story by Gabriel Garcia Marquez “The Most Handsome Drowned Man” wee see the inhabitants of the village undergo a change of attitude and character when Esteban washes up shore their village. Esteban revealed their flaws and pushed them to be better; to do better.  I believe professor Conway is trying to invoke in us a desire to look into ourselves and see if there isn’t anything that demand changing. I think this story as the first story of the course can helps us to want set up goals for ourselves on what we can do to succeed not only at this course but also all of our courses this academic year. We should look for our “Esteban” so to speak to motivate and encourage us to change ourselves and become the better versions of ourselves we can be.

“The most handsome drowned man” by Gabriel Garcia makes a reader understand the use of imagination/ imagery. The village women use their sense of imagination to create a version of this unknown deceased man that washed up on the shore to a noble man who has the qualities of being called “Esteban”. This man had the ability to transform the village and the people as well. This is very similar to how stories have an impact on its readers, by providing distinctive  description to allow the audience to paint a vivid image in their head that goes along with the story. I believe that this is the first story of the course for possible reason that the professor wants the class to dive into their imagination and connect to the stories to come. This also can help the reader to understand the story from the authors perspective, like a puzzle.

I believe Professor Conway assigned us to read “The Most Handsome Drowned Man” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez because it is a beautiful story that shows and introduces us to the power of imagination, creativity and to be kind and care for others. In the story the author goes to explain how the people of this small village gave this man a background story including how his life must have been like even though they didn’t know him. But this led them to rebuild the village to better suit “Esteban” and others like him, wanting to make sure anyone who passes by will smell their sweet scent of the flowers along the cliffs know it was “Esteban’s village” . If the villagers didn’t care and just let him get washed away or gave him a burial without using their imagination of how his life use to be none of these changes to the village would of happened and Professor Conway could have been showing us how important it is to be kind, Creative and to use your own brain.to imagine and be optimistic. 

I believe the reason we were assigned “The Most Handsome Drowned Man” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez as the first reading is to distinguish our analyzing and processing skills. For example, the story begins with establishing the setting, but the writer wrote it with so much imagery that we the reader can clearly see the setting as we continue reading the text. Marquez also brought of something I found extremely interesting which is the thinking of the women and men in the village. For example, the women in the village gave the dead man a background story where he seemed heroic while on the other hand the men were enraged by the treatment, they saw the stranger receiving and were agitated, in the text it states “men finally exploded with since when has there ever been such a fuss over a drifting corpse, a drowned nobody, a piece of cold Wednesday meet”. (Marquez Pg. 6) Marquez using exploded in this part of the reading made it clear to the reader that the men were angry with what they were seeing concerning the dead man, the “drowned nobody” as the men in the village called him.

I think Professor Conway assigned “The Handsome Drowned Man” as our first story to show a sense of caring for others, no matter if we know them or not. I say this because the in the story The Handsome who drowned up onto the village was unknown to the woman of the village and even though they did not know him, they wanted to make sure that the was cleaned, clothed, and had a funeral. They also felt saddened by the fact that he had drowned onto a village that he was unknown that they went to neighboring villages to  get people to come to his funeral. These things showed a great sense of caring by the women of the village that The Handsome Man drowned up on because the women did not know the man at all but still felt compelled to care for him and prepare him for a funeral that they were going to give to him.