Summary of "The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World"

The story “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World” is an interesting and weird kind of story. At the beginning of the story the group of children who see the dead man wash up on the beach couldn't manage to figure out if it was a human at all until it they came closer. Then they start playing with the dead man which was very weird. When one man notices the dead man, he spreads the word among his village. It is clear that the village very small because it was “made up of only twenty-odd wooden houses” therefore it was not hard to find out that the dead man was a stranger to the village. The women in the village, who clean him up, tend to have some sort of admiration towards him describing him as the “tallest, strongest, most virile, and best built man they had ever seen”. The women in the village are the ones who make the dead man clothes, dress him, and clean him. They even start to fantasize how a great husband, strong, helpful man he would be in the village if he was still alive. His house would be huge and his wife would be the happiest women ever. Compared to their husbands who are “incapable of doing what he could do in one night... weakest, meanest, and most useless creatures on earth”. This shows how the women would imagine their perfect guy to take care of them and their household. The oldest woman however looked at the drowned man with more compassion than passion and says he looks like an Esteban. The stubborn, young people of the village disagree saying his name is Lautaro but “it was a vain illusion”. One woman who had cleaned the old man well was disappointment when the others had to drag the dead man rather than carry him because he was so heavy. This made her start imagine that people would view the dead man as a “handsome fool” since he would be too heavy to even sit down in a chair without breaking it. Towards the end when the man are going to throw the dead man’s body into the sea, the women keep decorating his body with flowers, holy-water jars and nails, the man of the village found it ridiculous because his body would be torn up by the sharks anyways. As a woman uncovers the dead man’s face, the man realizes that it’s really Esteban and they praise him even fighting over the privilege of carrying him.  In his honor, they name the village after Esteban and have a big funeral. The village image would represent the memory of Esteban by having huge houses, and breaking their backs planting flowers.