When Gabriel Garcia Marquez published his novel One Hundred Years of Solitude in 1967, both the author and the writing technique he used, magic realism, were catapulted into the international spotlight. Magic realism (the term was first used in 1925 by a German art critic, and about twenty-five years later, it was rediscovered by a…
Tag: Short Stories
The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World: Setting
Political Background During the period of European imperialism following Columbus’s arrival in the New World, Colombia’s indigenous tribes could offer little resistance to Spanish conquest. For the most part, these tribes amalgamated (intermarried and lived together in society) with their Spanish conquerors. Consequently, much of the Colombian population consists of mestizos—people of both native Colombian…
The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World: Literary Devices
The arrival of a large drowned man on their shores inspires the imagination of the inhabitants of a tiny fishing village. Point of View The simplicity with which “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World” is told conceals a rather complex narrative technique. The villagers, finding a drowned man on their beach, begin to admire…
The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World: Themes
When a large drowned man washes up on the beach of a tiny fishing village, his presence inspires the villagers to create fantastic stories about him and to improve their own lives as well. Myth and the Human Condition “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World” illustrates the collective human tendency to create myths. The…
The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World: Characters
Esteban Although he is a stranger—and a dead stranger at that—Esteban plays a central role in the villagers’ lives. He does not speak, yet his face and his body speak for him, telling the villagers how sorry he is to be such a bother, large and cumbersome as he is. They intuit that he is…
The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World: Summary
Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World” begins when the children of a small coastal village see an unfamiliar bulge in the sea. When it washes up on the beach they realize it is a drowned man. For the rest of the afternoon they play with the corpse until another villager sees…
The Eatonville Anthology – Analysis
A major figure of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, Zora Neale Hurston published more books in her lifetime than any other African-American woman, spoke at major universities and received honorary doctorates, and was described in the New York Herald Tribune as being one of the nation’s top writers. Her 1937 novel Their Eyes Were…
The Eatonville Anthology – Themes
Community Many of the fourteen profiles in “The Eatonville Anthology” open with a statement on the outstanding quality of the character they feature. This statement typically defines the character’s social status in the community. Whenever this introduction focuses on a negative quality, the narrator defends the character’s negative trait with a modification or explanation. With…
The Eatonville Anthology – Summary
Zora Neale Hurston’s “The Eatonville Anthology” is comprised of fourteen short sketches which offer humorous commentary on lives of residents in Eatonville, Florida. Several characters, such as Joe Clarke, owner of the general store and Eatonville’s mayor and postmaster, and Elijah Moseley, appear in a number of the segments while many other characters appear only…
The Devil and Tom Walker: Analysis
“The Devil and Tom Walker” was published in 1824 in Washington Irving’s Tales of a Traveller. It is widely recognized as the best story in the book and the third best of all his tales (after “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.”) Having established an international literary reputation, Irving had committed himself…