Gabriel Garcia Marquez's The Handsomest Drowned Man

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The concept of admiration is a main focus of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “The Handsomest Drowned Man In The World”. Much of Marquez’s work is full of descriptive language and striking images. He is able to use this to his advantage in creating the image of isolation in the village and admiration for the drowned man. With this language, he is also able to portray the change and transformation within the village after encountering the drowned man.
From the beginning of the story, Marquez separates the drowned men from the villagers. “The men who carried him to the nearest house noticed that he weighed more than any dead man they had ever known, almost as much as a horse” (Marquez 1). This separation continues throughout the entire story. The drowned man is constantly referred to as bigger, taller, and heavier than any of the men in the village. In this way, the drowned man is already set at a tier above any other man in the village. …show more content…
They begin to care for him, and continue to idealize the drowned man. They compared the man to the men in the village, believing that the drowned man is at a much higher level than any of the men they knew. They succumbed to a fantasy of what the drowned man’s life could have been. The oldest woman came forth and decided that Esteban was the only name that could fit such a man. “It was one of the younger ones who began the weeping. The others, coming to, went from sighs to wails, and the more they sobbed the more they felt like weeping, because the drowned man was becoming all the more Esteban for them” (Marquez 2). This description of the women weeping for the drowned man portrays a vivid image. They all admired and felt responsible for Esteban. When no one from neighboring villages claimed the man as their own, the women
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