In chapter nineteen of HTRLLAP, Foster talks about geography. In Gabriel García Márquez's story, “The Handsomest Drowned Man In the World,” the geography was crucial to the story because it plays off reader’s expectations that the villagers will reject the stranger. The story starts with a drowned man washing up on the shore. Had the story taken place in a landlocked area, instead of a remote coastal village, there would be no shore. Thus, there could be no drowned man. Foster recognizes situations like these when he writes, “Geography can, and often does, play quite a specific plot role in a literary work.” I think all of what I’ve just said is pretty obvious, but I needed to get that out of the way so I can talk about some less obvious
