Instead of seeing the benefits of his enormous strength, they begin to consider that his large body might have been a terrible liability in life, both physically and socially. They begin to see him as vulnerable and want to protect him, and their awe is replaced by empathy. He begins to seem "so defenseless, so much like their men that the first furrows of tears opened in their hearts," and their tenderness for him also equates to tenderness for their own husbands who have begun to seem lacking in comparison to the stranger.
Their compassion for him and their desire to protect him put them in a more active role, making them feel capable of changing their own lives rather than believing they need a superhero to save them. In the story, flowers come to symbolize the lives of the villagers and their own sense of efficacy in improving their lives.
We are told at the beginning of the story that the houses in the village "had stone courtyards with no flowers and which were spread about on the end of a desertlike cape. When the women are in awe of the drowned man, they passively imagine that he could bring improvement to their lives.
They speculate. But there is no suggestion that they themselves -- or their husbands -- could put forth this kind of effort and change their village. But that's before their compassion allows them to see their own ability to act. It takes a group effort to clean the body, to sew large enough clothes for it, to carry the body, and to stage an elaborate funeral.
They even have to enlist the help of neighboring towns to get flowers. Further, because they do not want him to be orphaned, they choose family members for him, and "through him all the inhabitants of the village became kinsmen.
Through Esteban, the townspeople are united. They are cooperative. And they are inspired. They plan to paint their houses "gay colors" and dig springs so they can plant flowers. But by the end of the story, the houses have yet to be painted and the flowers have yet to be planted. Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Use precise geolocation data. It argues that a truly great person has the power to change others, to inspire the….
As the villagers imagine the way their world has changed, and consider the things they will do differently in the future, the text renders their dreams touching, even sublime. Physical Appearance It is because of his size and handsomeness that the drowned man is originally characterized as great. The villagers attribute all sorts of non-physical qualities to him — like modesty, humility, and compassion.
The interesting thing is that all of these qualities are manifested in his looks. Everything the drowned man is, he is to a mythical degree, whether it be his size, his heart, his potential, his abilities, his downfalls, or his sadness. What we're seeing is that the drowned man is a larger-than-life myth that comes to the real life of these villagers. And indeed, the drowned man takes on the role of more than one mythical or epic historical figure. He is compared to: Estevanico, Lautaro, or Quetzalcoatl.
We go through each of these figures in detail in "Symbols, Imagery, Allegory," so check there for more info on these guys. The fact that the drowned man is mythic and extraordinary, while the village is realistic and ordinary, is one of the major themes in "The Handsomest Drowned Man. In this case, the drowned man is the fantasy, and the villagers are the reality. In the "Character Analysis" for the villagers, we'll talk about what does happen in this story when the mythic meets the mundane.
Meanwhile, back to the drowned man. Take a closer look at those superlative-oozing descriptions of the drowned man. In the first half of the story, the women can't talk enough about how amazing Esteban is, how wonderful, and how unique. They even "secretly compare him to their own men, thinking that for all their lives theirs were incapable of doing what he could do in one night" 4.
Then there is important switch about halfway through the text, when the women suddenly understand "how unhappy he must have been with that huge body," when they envision him "going through doors sideways, cracking his head on crossbeams, remaining on his feet during visits" 7. Now all of a sudden, he is not just handsome, beautiful, and strong; he is also "destitute, […], obliging," sincere 7.
0コメント