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The Handsomest Drowned Man In The World: Esteban's Truth

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“The Handsomest Drowned Man In The World”: Esteban’s Truth “He has the face of someone called Esteban.” (Marquez, 52). Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s short story “The Handsomest Drowned Man In The World” is truly a tale of wonder and infatuation. As the title of the story suggests, this piece tells the tale of a drowned man who washes ashore the land of a small fishing village and subsequently changes the lives of every citizen within that village, as well as every neighboring community. This drowned man’s name is Esteban, or at least that’s the name the villagers had decided to give him. Having no background or relation to any nearby lands or towns, the citizens seem to create their own life to precede “Esteban’s” death. However, there are two …show more content…

A truly marvelous spectacle to anyone in most cases, however in Marquez’s story, it is soon after the characters encounter the Winged Man and get used to his presence among them that they begin to lose all sense of novelty at the sight. They become bored of a man with wings, of a man who is unlike any other. This is precisely the opposite in Marquez’s “Drowned man”. In this story, the citizens of the village are the ones to create everything special about Esteban. The villagers are the ones who discussed the great tragedy that was his life, the villagers were the ones to envision him as an ever growing giant; the villagers are the ones who made a simple, average man, into Esteban, The Handsomest Drowned Man In The World. And in doing so, in creating this character of Esteban, they had been able to become what they wanted to be, Esteban’s village. While the drowned man had no purpose when he first came to the small community, he left with one; Esteban would forever be remembered as a man of that small fishing

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