The Handsomest Drowned Man Essay
Neha Gupta
The Meaning of the Appearance of the Man Magical Realism is a form of writing where readers cannot be sure if what they are reading demonstrates fantasy or reality. It remains “a literary mode rather than [a] defined genre [that] focuses on paradoxes and [the] union of opposites.” The author explores ideas of the supernatural in an otherwise “normal” scene leaving an image where fantasy becomes accepted into the reality. In the short story “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World,” Gabriel Garcia Marquez employs Magical Realism to create a metaphor for the meaning of beauty.
The setting is a village, “made up of only twenty-odd wooden houses that had stone courtyards with no flowers and which were spread about on the end of a desert like cape.” (Marquez 2). One day a drowned man washes up on their shores, the kids found him and started …show more content…
When the adults found out about this he was brought to the women to be cleaned off. As they peeled away the algae, grass, and other substances covering him, they saw that he was, “the tallest, strongest, most virile, and best built man they had ever seen.” (Marquez 2) Magical Realism shows how the mere sight of the man’s body makes the women determine that he is “perfect.” The word perfect cannot be defined for it varies for everyone, one may even question if it exists but readers are convinced that that the idea is tangible while reading this story. Astonished by their discovery, the women went to the men who were annoyed that the women were placing this man at such high accord; nonetheless the moment they, “removed the handkerchief from the dead man’s face … the men were
The Meaning of the Appearance of the Man Magical Realism is a form of writing where readers cannot be sure if what they are reading demonstrates fantasy or reality. It remains “a literary mode rather than [a] defined genre [that] focuses on paradoxes and [the] union of opposites.” The author explores ideas of the supernatural in an otherwise “normal” scene leaving an image where fantasy becomes accepted into the reality. In the short story “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World,” Gabriel Garcia Marquez employs Magical Realism to create a metaphor for the meaning of beauty.
The setting is a village, “made up of only twenty-odd wooden houses that had stone courtyards with no flowers and which were spread about on the end of a desert like cape.” (Marquez 2). One day a drowned man washes up on their shores, the kids found him and started …show more content…
When the adults found out about this he was brought to the women to be cleaned off. As they peeled away the algae, grass, and other substances covering him, they saw that he was, “the tallest, strongest, most virile, and best built man they had ever seen.” (Marquez 2) Magical Realism shows how the mere sight of the man’s body makes the women determine that he is “perfect.” The word perfect cannot be defined for it varies for everyone, one may even question if it exists but readers are convinced that that the idea is tangible while reading this story. Astonished by their discovery, the women went to the men who were annoyed that the women were placing this man at such high accord; nonetheless the moment they, “removed the handkerchief from the dead man’s face … the men were