Magical Realism Small towns are known to be one of the most uneventful and close-minded environments. It is a setting in which every visitor stands out, and everyone knows your gossip; but despite these things, small town people are close knit and truly care for one another. In “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World”, Gabriel Garcia Marquez utilizes an ordinary small town setting along with the unnamed protagonist, who is later given the name of Esteban, to develop the theme of magical realism in order to convey that the human conscience needs something greater than itself to believe in. He is able to combine the real and the magical worlds in such a natural way that conveys the possibility to have both worlds, and this helps give this
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This man, “weighed more than any dead man they had ever known” and “he’d been taller than all other men because there was barely enough room for him in the house” (Marquez 289). The villagers thought nothing extraordinary of his majestic size. They gave reasonable explanations to his weight and size and simply accepted him as a dead man. They thought that “water had gotten into his bones”, hence the heaviness, and that “maybe the ability to keep growing after death was part of the nature of certain drowned men” (Marquez 289). His body was well preserved but the “vegetation on him came from faraway oceans and deep waters” (Marquez 290). Not only would a dead body in water not look preserved after traveling for so long under water, but they begin to personify him as a traveler, and the townspeople, or their human conscience, need to make sense of it all, need to believe that there was a greater explanation for his size and majesty. Aside from his appearance, he is somehow able to bring the town together. While the men carry him and ask other towns if they recognize him, the women cleanse him. Once clean, the women “remained, breathless” because, “Not only was he the tallest, strongest, most virile and best built man they had ever seen, but even though they were looking at him there was no room for him in their imagination” (Marquez 290). This man …show more content…
This town was small and “was made up of only twenty-odd wooden houses that had stone courtyards with no flowers” (Marquez 289). It was extremely dull and ordinary that when the drowned man appears, he gives the town some sort of meaning. The people become excited when they find out the body belonged to no other town and when the other nearby small towns heard about this, they went to see this for themselves. They idolized this man and took him to be theirs specifically that they even named the town after him. When they were “carrying him on their shoulders along the steep escarpment by the cliffs, the men and women became aware for the first time of the desolation of their streets, the dryness of their courtyards, the narrowness of their dreams as they faced the splendor and the beauty of their drowned man” (Marquez 293). The dead man brought the villagers together to realize that their town had no significance and from here on out the village was never the same. It not only became colorful but popular among the other towns. The town needed some sort of meaning or belief to be encouraged to change from dull to colorful, not only the aesthetics of the town but their lives as well, and this drowned man gave them
This man, “weighed more than any dead man they had ever known” and “he’d been taller than all other men because there was barely enough room for him in the house” (Marquez 289). The villagers thought nothing extraordinary of his majestic size. They gave reasonable explanations to his weight and size and simply accepted him as a dead man. They thought that “water had gotten into his bones”, hence the heaviness, and that “maybe the ability to keep growing after death was part of the nature of certain drowned men” (Marquez 289). His body was well preserved but the “vegetation on him came from faraway oceans and deep waters” (Marquez 290). Not only would a dead body in water not look preserved after traveling for so long under water, but they begin to personify him as a traveler, and the townspeople, or their human conscience, need to make sense of it all, need to believe that there was a greater explanation for his size and majesty. Aside from his appearance, he is somehow able to bring the town together. While the men carry him and ask other towns if they recognize him, the women cleanse him. Once clean, the women “remained, breathless” because, “Not only was he the tallest, strongest, most virile and best built man they had ever seen, but even though they were looking at him there was no room for him in their imagination” (Marquez 290). This man …show more content…
This town was small and “was made up of only twenty-odd wooden houses that had stone courtyards with no flowers” (Marquez 289). It was extremely dull and ordinary that when the drowned man appears, he gives the town some sort of meaning. The people become excited when they find out the body belonged to no other town and when the other nearby small towns heard about this, they went to see this for themselves. They idolized this man and took him to be theirs specifically that they even named the town after him. When they were “carrying him on their shoulders along the steep escarpment by the cliffs, the men and women became aware for the first time of the desolation of their streets, the dryness of their courtyards, the narrowness of their dreams as they faced the splendor and the beauty of their drowned man” (Marquez 293). The dead man brought the villagers together to realize that their town had no significance and from here on out the village was never the same. It not only became colorful but popular among the other towns. The town needed some sort of meaning or belief to be encouraged to change from dull to colorful, not only the aesthetics of the town but their lives as well, and this drowned man gave them