In a numb world, devoid of many refreshments, a happy moment in time can bring people together in a cohesive bond and rejuvenate the world. Gabriel Garcia Márquez's "The Most Handsome Drowned Man in the World" masterfully weaves this idea together. He uses no grandiose prophetic statements that lead the reader directly to the message, but wonderful poetic subtlety and tone. Márquez entices the reader to accompany him on the simplest paths and offers him a world that is alternately divine and yet real. When the goal is reached, it is the seeds sown in Marquez's moderation that blossom into multifaceted nuances. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay It would be difficult to discuss the story without the use of Marquez's words because it is his words that evoke the magic that is the story. “Marquez is famous for his ability to . . . bringing the dead back to life and making even the cruelest fate obvious, all with the utmost fluidity and credibility” (Delbanco and Cheuse 538). Márquez portrays death as a visual aspect of the plot, characterized by the drowned body of a stranger arriving on the shores of a small coastal village. When “Wednesday's corpse” “washes up on the beach,” the main character is revealed to the children of the village for the first time (Márquez 540, 538). Once children remove the body mask of “seaweed”. . . fish and wrecks,” they realize that their curiosity is a dead man (Márquez 538). Márquez's portrayal of the deceased character is mystifying yet innocent; relating to the questioning and unpretentious nature of young children. The children, therefore, are not afraid, they accept the dead man into their fold and spend the afternoon with their harmless friend, "burying him in the sand and digging him up". Márquez's use of irony and symbolism is important to the character's introduction of the body as death. The found dead man should be a horrible sight, but Márquez paints the stranger in such a way that children feel a natural inclination to be close to him and make him part of their games. This treatment allows the reader to accept death through the body without apprehension. When a village member comes across children playing with the deceased, the individual notifies the village members. The men carrying the body “to the nearest house” in the village note the extraordinary weight and compare its mass to “a horse” (Márquez 538). Márquez cultivates ironic and symbolic tones in his description of the austere environment of the village: “Only about twenty-odd wooden houses that had stone courtyards without flowers. . . which were scattered at the extremity of a desert promontory.” You might think that the village resembles a lush tropical coastal area. However, Marquez challenges this notion, painting the landscape as desolate and lightly alludes to the story's conclusion. Marquez reinforces the magical nature of the body's presence when it is presented to the men and women of the simple village. To account for the peculiarities of the body, ideas swell in the collective psyche of the village, seeking reasons to explain the iconic proportions of the corpse to their own. The men set out to search the nearby villages “to see if any of them will claim the dead stranger” (Wilson 80). As the women methodically clean the corpse with great care, allowing them to connect with the stranger on a deeper level (Wilson 80). Symbolically, women are carefully removing layers of debris from the man in relation to their own lives. It is at this point that Márquez alludes to the corpse as a hero and foreshadowsthe “drowned man” as an imminent epiphany. Now, Márquez's style of magical realism is in full force. “The power of magical realism comes from the way it blends the fantastical and the everyday by describing incredible events, supporting them by telling them in realistic detail, and telling it all in a matter-of-fact tone” (Korb 87). When women finish cleaning the body, “they see how amazing a man is. He is the most supreme example. . .” (Wilson 80). With the women's reactions, Marquez introduces the idea that intensive cleansing and self-examination can lead to miraculous results. It reiterates and intensifies the sentiment as the women imagine a world where the renewed man “could call fish from the sea and make flowers grow on the barren cliffs” (Wilson 81). The grandiose stranger has now taken on divine qualities and would-be savior and the women call him Esteban. However, “their own men [who are not purified and renewed] . . . they suddenly seem like the weakest, meanest, most useless people” (Wilson 81). Esteban's deification rejuvenates women, creating a positive change in the way women think about their world. Before Esteban “there was no room for [such greatness] in their imagination” (Wilson 81). When the tired men of the village return at dawn to say that there was no one to claim the stranger, the women rejoice: "He is ours!" (Marquez 539). After spending the entire night on an odyssey through nearby villages, the men are tired. They want to hoist the heavy stranger up the cliff, anchor him and throw him into the sea before the day gets too hot. But the women want to prolong the grace of Esteban's presence to prepare his body with elaborate symbols and ornaments for the journey to the afterlife. Eventually, men have had enough of women's indulgence with Esteban. Marquez skillfully introduces the conflict between the now envious men, the loving women, and their hero, Esteban. Frustrated men “explode. . . since when has there ever been such a stir over a drifting corpse, over a drowned nobody, over a piece of cold Wednesday meat”. The women are saddened to see their divine Esteban portrayed so badly by their men. Women want and need men to share their vision of Esteban. A woman then lifts the handkerchief from Esteban's face “and the men gasp” (Márquez 540). Now the veil has been lifted, intrinsically bringing men and women together; the entire village to Esteban's promise of grace. Marquez now multiplies the universal effect of Esteban's perpetuity. The women travel to nearby villages to gather flowers and spread the miracle of Esteban's favor. When the women tell Esteban's story to nearby villages, it creates a chain reaction that draws more flowers and more followers to the promontory “until there were so many flowers and so many people that it was difficult to walk” (540). Márquez has now united the whole world of villagers who participate in Esteban's farewell communion. Márquez makes the reader understand that a metamorphosis is taking place. All the villagers are united in their desire to maintain a deep and lasting bond with Esteban. They choose a family lineage, a bloodline for Esteban “among the best people. . . so that through him all the inhabitants of the village may become relatives." When the time comes for Esteban to return to sea, he is not chained with anchors. He is free to return to the villagers at will. With Esteban's departure, the inhabitants of the promontory realize how devoid of beauty their sterile existence has been. Above all, they realize “the narrowness of their dreams” (Márquez 540). They vow to overwork themselves to recreate their world in Esteban's glorious import. For the 2010.