The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World by Gabriel García Marquez summary

 

THE DISCOVERY OF A DROWNED MAN         

Children find a "dark and slinky bulge approaching through the sea," which they first thought is an enemy ship approaching to attack. They realize that the shape does not have flags or poles, though, and they believe it might be a whale. The shape finally reaches ashore, and the children remove the seaweed, jellyfish, and bits of fish and flotsam (other wastes) stuck to it, revealing a drowned man. The children play with the dead man's body all afternoon, burying him in the sand and digging him up again, until someone discovers them and alerts the village. The men carried the dead man's body back to the village observe  that he weighs as much as a horse and that he is taller than any other man in that village. They suspect that perhaps the ability to keep growing after death is what happens after someone drowns. They can simply confirm before they even clean him up that he is a stranger, because the tiny village consists of small men.

 

THE CHARMING DROWNED MAN

That particular night the men do not go out to work at sea but instead visit neighboring villages to check  if anyone is missing. The women in the village take care of the drowned man by cleaning and charming him up. They notice that the vegetation sticking to his body seems to come from far oceans and that his clothes find in fragments. They also see that he bore his death with pride, as he looks neither as gloomy as other bodies that have come out of the sea. After the man's body is cleaned, he takes the women's breath away.

 

NAMING THE DROWNED MAN ESTEBAN

The villagers can't find a bed large enough or a table solid enough on which to place him. Nor can they bring clothes that will fit him. Fascinated by his huge size and his handsome body, the women decided to make him pants from a large piece of a ship's sail and a shirt from leftover bridal linen so that he could continue through his death with dignity. As the women weave, they express their sense of wonder at the drowned man what it would have been like if the man had lived among them, compares him to their own men and thought that if that magnificent man had lived in the village, his house would have had the widest doors, the highest ceiling and the strongest floor. His bed would have been made from the powerful midship section held together by iron bolts and his wife would have been the happiest woman.

The oldest woman declares that the man has the face of someone called Esteban(Esteban’s name alludes to two historical figures: St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr, whose name is the English translation of Esteban; and Estevanico, an African who explored parts of the New World in the 1500s.). 

The other women agree; after his face is covered with a handkerchief, the man looks so much like their men and they begin weeping. When the men return and tell the women that the drowned man is not from any of the neighboring villages. Praise the Lord they sighed, “he is ours”.

The men were eager to do the burial of the drowned man, fashion a platform on which to carry his enormous body back to the sea. But the women delay the burial, adding tributes and religious relics to the drowned man. Finally, a woman who is frustrated with the attitude of the men removes the handkerchief from the drowned man's face and the men were left breathless too.

 

The Funeral

The villagers hold the most splendid funeral they could ever conceive of for an abandoned drowned man. Some of the women go to get flowers from neighboring villages and return with other women who bring even more flowers. Everyone finds it so painful to return him to the sea as an orphan. In the face of his handsomeness the people begin to realize how desolate their homes and towns are, as well as their dreams. They drop him into the sea without an anchor (heavy object) so that he can come back whenever he wishes. The people know that everything will be different from now on and that their houses will have wider doors, higher ceilings, and stronger floors in Esteban's memory. They plan to create a garden on the cliffs so that in the future, passengers on great ships will notice it and that ships' captains will have to tell them that it is Esteban's village.