The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World
30 pages • 1-hour read
Gabriel García MárquezThe Handsomest Drowned Man in the World
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Literary Devices
Allusion
An allusion is a textual reference to other historical periods, figures, and events, as well as other authors, literary works, and characters. In employing allusions, the author empowers readers to draw from their own knowledge to make connections about the text.
In “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World,” García Márquez alludes to several mythological stories. The name the old woman proposes is “Esteban,” which is short for “Estevanico,” the first African man to arrive in Latin America. Estevanico was viewed as a mysterious folk hero, and he directly parallels the drowned man in the story. The drowned man receives his name as a way to emulate Estevanico’s greatness (D’Amato, Lee. “Estevanico, the First African Man to Explore the Americas.” The Archive, 18 Nov. 2022). The name the younger village women propose, “Lautaro,” refers to a Mapuche Indian who fought against Spanish conquerors in the 1500s. In his story of greatness, Lautaro, also known as “the hero of the Mapuche,” lead the resistance against the Spanish colonization of Chile (Hancock, Anson Uriel. “Lautaro, Hero of the Mapuche.” TOTA, 2019).
According to scholarly interpretation, García Márquez also alludes to Quetzalcoatl, an Aztec deity who reigned over the winds and rain. Quetzalcoatl was an important figure in Mesoamerican culture and revered for imbuing humanity with new life. The villagers regard the drowned man as godlike, and in doing so, they vow to rejuvenate their community and lives.
García Márquez includes two other explicit allusions. First, the village men compare Esteban to Sir Walter Raleigh, a famous English explorer of the 1500s known for his courage and handsomeness. Through this comparison, the men come to humanize Esteban and subsequently pity him. In pitying the drowned man, the village men feel more equal to him and can therefore treat him as one of their own. Second, the sirens discussed in the last paragraph of the text allude to Homer’s The Odyssey, reorienting the story within the genre of magical realism and serving to elevate the drowned man’s own mythology.
Juxtaposition
Juxtaposition is a literary device in which two concepts or objects that directly oppose each other are placed together or near each other to highlight their similarities and differences. In “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World,” García Márquez explores the relationship between life and death through the juxtaposition of the drowned man and the villagers’ mythologizing of him.
By himself, the drowned man is a bleak picture; he’s covered in scales and coral, having come from what must have been the furthest depths of the ocean. In death, the drowned man is just a man, nothing more than a piece of “Wednesday meat” (Paragraph 8). However, in awe of the man’s size and beauty, the villagers are quick to depict the exact opposite when guessing the details of his life. The drowned man becomes Esteban, a handsome man with an unmatched strength of might and will. These two images of the drowned man are in direct conflict with each other and serve to emphasize the power of the imagination and the ways in which it can alter our understanding of reality.
Imagery
Imagery is the use of figurative language to create sensory depictions of elements within a story. Imagery helps the reader picture exactly what is occurring in the story by describing it in a relatable way. García Márquez uses natural imagery to create a sense of otherworldliness surrounding the drowned man and amplify his influence. Additionally, imagery related to the ocean and sea-life is used to describe the drowned man throughout the narrative, suggesting that he is of the sea and does not truly belong to the village.
Through the villagers’ perspectives, the narrator offers vivid descriptions of the drowned man’s body: “[T]hey removed the clumps of seaweed, the jellyfish tentacles, and the remains of fish and flotsam, and only then did they see that it was a drowned man” (Paragraph 1). Once the village women remove the scales and coral, their descriptions of the drowned man’s physicality become more flattering. However, when the drowned man becomes Esteban, the women’s “vain illusion” of his grandness turns to sympathy:
They could see him in life, condemned to going through doors sideways, cracking his head on crossbeams, remaining on his feet during visits, not knowing what to do with his soft, pink, sea lion hands while the lady of the house looked for her most resistant chair and begged him, frightened to death, sit here, Esteban, please […] (Paragraph 6).
The village men do not share the women’s sympathy and refer to Esteban as “a cold piece of Wednesday meat” (Paragraph 8). It is not until the handkerchief is removed and Esteban’s face revealed that the men recognize the drowned man’s humanity and pity him: “[A]nd there he was, stretched out like a sperm whale […]” (Paragraph 9). Once united in their reverence for Esteban, both the village women and men vow to enrich their lives in Esteban’s honor. Their language centers on natural land imagery, such as flowers and springs:
They were going to paint their house fronts gay colors to make Esteban’s memory eternal and they were going to break their backs digging for springs among the stones and planting flowers on the cliffs so that in future years at dawn the passengers on great liners would awaken, suffocated by the smell of gardens on the high seas […] (Paragraph 10).
This long description allows readers to understand and visualize the lengths to which the villagers plan to go to be worthy of being part of “Esteban’s village.” Additionally, the transition from sea imagery to land imagery cements the villagers’ focus on their shared reality.
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