The Gabriel Garcia Marquez s The Handsomest Drowned Man

In â€Å"The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World,† a remotely isolated village with a small population is suddenly turned upside down when the corpse of a giant stranger washes up on their small shore. This villager is clearly not from the same world the villagers live in, and as they wonder where he came from, they begin to create stories about his life and who he is. They give him a name, Esteban, and create a world of fiction through which they can glimpse what his life was like for him, regardless of the truth. As they prepare to give Esteban a proper funeral procedure according to their own cultural practices, they create stories about him and honor him, even though they have no idea who he really is. The lines between reality and illusion in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s short story â€Å"The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World† are blurred in many ways, especially regarding the cultural conflict, concept of death, and ideological conflict of the villagers. Marq uez is known for his perceptions realism and his perceptions about realism and illusions (Dauster 467). This form of realism that has been directly associated with him has been called â€Å"magic† realism (Rabassa 449). In all Marquez’s short stories there are connections to illusion and realism and they all have this same type of connection to one another that causes a sense of chaos and mystery (Dauster 467). In this particular story, the characters all experience the concept of the eye of the beholder, through which everyoneShow MoreRelatedThe Handsomest Drowned Man In The World Essay1207 Words   |  5 Pagesnature. Some manifest as small changes, summer to fall, ice to water; others a grand metamorphosis. Humans the center of this cycle, find themselves changing every day, biologically, developmentally, ideologically, etcetera. Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s â€Å"The Handsomest Drowned Man In The World,† and Carson McCuller’s â€Å"Sucker† are both excellent examples of short stories that, despite having undeniably different plots, feature the overarching theme of transformation: the propellant through life. Transitions