Author: Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Gabriel was born in1927 in Colombia. He was raised by his maternal

grandparents, who greatly shaped his worldview. His grandfather, a
retired colonel and progressive liberal, refused to tell him fairy tales.
Instead, he told Marquez tales of civil war. Marquez was influenced by his
grandmother’s tales of superstition and magic. Accordingly, his story
“The Handsomest Drowned Man In The World” is an example of the style
for which Marquez is famous for; Magical Realism.
Magical Realism is a style of literary fiction and art. It paints a realistic view of the
world while also adding magical elements. It weaves threads of fantasy into a
depiction of everyday life. Its heroes aren’t fairies or sorcerers, they’re ordinary people
— whose lives happen to butt up against the extraordinary.
 Slinky (adj.)

e.g. The dancer made slinky movements.

Synonym: graceful/smooth Antonym: rough

Def. (of movement or sound(smooth and slow)

 a bulge (n.)
e.g. She started to exercise to reduce the bulge at her
waistline.

Synonym: bump/swell

Def: a rounded swelling on the surface of

something
Wash up (phrasal verb)

e.g. The tide washed up the corpse of the dead man.

Synonym: cast up/arrive.

Def. to carry something somewhere out of water

 tentacles (n.)

e.g. An octopus has eight tentacles .

Synonym: arm, limb, feeler

Def. a long, thin and flexible arm-like part of an

animal or fish used to feel, grasp, etc.
 A Cape(n.)

e.g. If you went to Ras El bar resort, you would enjoy walking on
the cape there.

Synonym: peak/a high land

Def. a piece of land extending out into the sea

 A Corpse (n.)

e.g. The actors had to play dead, as if they were corpses.

Synonym: a dead body.
Def. the body of a dead person
Bountiful (adj.)

e.g. You can choose any fruits from this bountiful basket .

Synonym: generous antonym: insufficient/scarce

Def: Large in quantity or amount

 labyrinth(n.)

e.g. it’s very difficult to find your way out of a labyrinth .

Synonym: tangle, puzzle antonym: order , simplicity

Def: maze; complicated network of passages

 swab(n.)

e.g. My mother is using a swab to clean

the garden.
Synonym: a mop/ a cleaning tool
Def: - A cleaning tool which helps in cleaning the grass.
- A small piece of absorbent material attached to a stick
 Entangle(v.)

e.g. The dolphin had become entangled in the

fishing net.
Synonym: entrap antonym: clear up, liberate

Def: to cause something to become taught in something such

as a net or ropes
 Haggard (adj.)

e.g. She looked haggard after a sleepless night.

Synonym: exhausted, fatigued antonym: healthy, strong

Def: looking very tired and thin-faced because of pain,

worry, etc.
 Vegetation(n.)

e.g. forests are full of vegetation.

Synonym: greenery, flora

Def: plants considered collectively, especially,

those found in particular areas or habitats
 Tatters(n.)

e.g. his clothes were really dirty and in tatters as

well.
Synonym: rags, patches
def: torn and ragged pieces of clothing
Before you start reading….

Consider the different changes happened

in the story noting how characters’ views
of themselves, each other, and their
community change over the course of the
story.
THE FIRST CHILDREN who saw the dark and slinky bulge approaching through the sea let
themselves think it was an enemy ship. Then they saw it had no flags or masts and they
thought it was a whale. But when it washed up on the beach, they 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.

In the very beginning, what did the children think the drowned man was?

They had been playing with him all afternoon, burying him in the sand and digging him up
again, when someone chanced to see them and spread the alarm in the village. The men
who carried him to the nearest house noticed that he weighed more than any dead man they
had ever known, almost as much as a horse, and they said to each other that maybe he'd been
floating too long and the water had got into his bones.
The villagers said the man’s weighed as much as a horse, does that make
sense?
They did not even have to clean off his face to know that the dead man was a stranger. The village was
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. There was so little land that mothers always went about
with the fear that the wind would carry off their children and the few dead that the years had caused
among them had to be thrown off the cliffs. But the sea was calm and bountiful and all the men fitted
into seven boats. So when they found the drowned man they simply had to look at one another to see
that they were all there. Why do you think the author established the size and the setting of the village?

That night they did not go out to work at sea. While the men went to find out if anyone was missing in
neighboring villages, the women stayed behind to care for the drowned man. They took the mud off
with grass swabs, they removed the underwater stones entangled in his hair, and they scraped the crust
off with tools used for scaling fish. As they were doing that they noticed that the vegetation on him
came from faraway oceans and deep water and that his clothes were in tatters, as if he had sailed
through labyrinths of coral. They noticed too that he bore his death with pride, for he did not have the
lonely look of other drowned men who came out of the sea or that haggard, needy look of men who
drowned in rivers. But only when they finished cleaning him off did they become aware of the kind of
man he was and it left them breathless. Not only was he the tallest, strongest, most virile, and best built
man they had ever seen, but even though they were looking at him there was no room for him in their
imagination.
What is the fantastical(imaginative) element about the perception of the villagers of the drowned
man?
 Setting
The story took place on a barren fishing village with a cliff
around, near the sea with a group of simple people.
The story occupies a timeless and prehistoric era.

Characters

The children
The big handsomest man
The men
The women
 The men who carried him to the nearest house noticed that he weighed more than any
dead man they had ever known, almost as much as a horse, and they said to each other
that maybe he'd been floating too long and the water had got into his bones.

a simile
These words were said by the narrator when the men of the village first carried the
drowned man's body to the nearest house. They remarked that "he weighed more than
any dead man they had ever known, almost as much as a horse. This hyperbolic simile
helps establish the man’s unique size, but also introduces Marquez's signature reliance
on magical realism, in which certain details of the story bend the bounds of reality.
 Not only was he the tallest, strongest, most virile, and best built man they
had ever seen, but even though they were looking at him there was no
room for him in their imagination.

 It was said by the narrator, as the women begin cleaning the corpse of
the drowned man, they are quickly taken by his handsome appearance
and muscular physique. This description is another example of
hyperbole; exaggerating the truth. The women cannot even fully
conceive the splendor of this man in their minds. His beauty is a shock
to their narrow and barren world, as well as his massiveness. These
exaggerated depictions of the drowned man are elements of magic
realism that combines surreal events or concepts with realistic
circumstances

.
 Theme of transformation

“The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World”

explores the transformative effect of one dead man
on an entire village. It argues that a truly great
person has the power to change others, to
inspire them to be better and, to make them
want to be extraordinary.
Can you guess the theme of the
story?
 • The drowned man physical change.

• The change of the villagers perception of

him.

• The change in the villagers themselves.