I believe that Marquez’s novel ”Handsomest Drowned Man in the World” is a truly captivating and curious story, which makes it easy to imagine and to build our own critiques about the magic event of Esteban, the giant drowned man. With that being said, this could be our first reading assignment because of the novel’s facility to engage and to provoke feelings on the readers.
Personally, I have felt very touched by this novel and it has made me wonder a lot about how people perceive me, or why do we have the tendency to judge everything around us. It brought me to a place where I could almost feel the hurt from the women on the village, whom imagined Esteban’s whole life and emphasized with his sufferings.
Moreover, it has made question so much that I started to create my own narratives to explain his life too: “What if he wasn’t handsome, would they have cared for him?”, “And if he wasn’t so big, would it still make sense? And if he was happy on the way he was?”. Well, I guess I will not have the answers and an end for my own narratives, but it was good while it lasted.
2 thoughts on “Hayra F Guimaraes, Discussion 2”
I agree with you, we cannot know what other people may think about us, what their opinion will be if it will be something good or bad. People are always going to judge what is around us, or the decisions that a person makes, if it is well taken or not. That will continue and I think forever. There are many doubts about this story, as you said, what the reaction of the people would have been if the drowned man had not been handsome and tall, we will never know.
That is true! Thanks for the input.