Magical Realism in "The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez Essay

An incredibly large object washes toward the shore. Not until the floating mass washes ashore, do the children realize that this is a man, a drowned man. At first, the children amused themselves by playing with the body, burying the corpse, digging it up and re-burying it over and over. Men from the village noticed their play and alerted the others in the village. The body was taken into the village, laid out on the …

…characters in the story, and the reader. Upon being introduced to a corpse that had washed up on the beach, a corpse described in a somewhat ugly, almost repulsive manner, we find ourselves caring for and even loving the huge man Esteban, as much as the villagers had become enchanted with him. The story succeeds in creating feelings; feelings both for Esteban and for the people of the village that emotionally and spiritually adopted him.