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'A great man has the power to inspire others to greatness.' Using illustrations from The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World by G.G. Marquez, discuss...

      

'A great man has the power to inspire others to greatness.' Using illustrations from The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World by G.G. Marquez, discuss this statement.

  

Answers


Martin
Introduction

Sometimes the greatness that a person inspires can be felt after they are dead. In G.G. Marquez story The Handsomest Man in the World, Esteban inspires the villagers to be positive and to better themselves after he is dead. They do not even know him but they claim him as one of them.

Illustrations

The children in the village stumble on a body of a drowned man and they play with him, burying him and digging him up. A villager sees them and informs the village about the dead man. The men go out to other villages to find out if any of the villages has lost a man. The women are left to care for the dead man. They admire him even in his death. They think that he had borne his death with pride, as he did not have the look of drowned men who came out haggard and needy. The women decide to sew him a pant from a piece of sail and a shirt from bridal Brabant linen. They want the man to continue his death with dignity.
They imagine that the sea is restless and the wind steady because of the dead man. They imagine the authority of the man to have been so great that he would have called the fishes out of the sea by their names. The women imagine that if the man had lived in their village, his wife would have been the happiest, his house the one with the widest roof and highest ceiling.
They compare the dead man to their husbands and they dismiss them in their hearts. They name him Esteban. When the men return to say that no village has lost a man, the village claims the dead man. They hold the most splendid funeral they could conceive for the abandoned drowned man. the women go to the neighboring village to get flowers for his burial. A family is chosen for him from the best people in the village so that the inhabitants of the village can become kinsmen. From then on, the people know things will be different since the dead man has inspired them. a-heir houses will have wider doors, higher ceilings and stronger doors, and Esteban's memory will live on. They will paint their houses gay colors and plant flowers on cliffs. They want their village to be Esteban's village.

Conclusion

Esteban inspires the people to be different. They begin to aspire to live in a better environment because they imagine the life Esteban had lived. He thus has the power to inspire them to greatness even though he had drowned.

marto answered the question on August 27, 2019 at 08:33


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