Story endings and narrative conclusion techniques

¶ … Handsomest Drowned Man in the World - Story Ending

There are some pieces of literature, as noted in this quote by John Barth, that keep the readers going page after page with suspense or to read the climax. Other pieces of literature grab you at the beginning and draw the reader in, and the reader is interested in continuing regardless of how the story is going to end.

"The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez is an example of the second type of story. The beginning of the tale, like the wave that brings in the body, rushes the reader into the plot. The reader is drawn onto the sand with the man right from the beginning: "The first children who saw the dark and slinky bulge approaching through the sea let themselves think it was an enemy ship." Already, the reader knows that it is a body, even though nothing is said. Then, the assumption is confirmed, "...the jellyfish tentacles, and the remains of fish ad flotsam, and then did they see it was a drowned man."

Next, the story ebbs and flows along the water's end. It gains more interest as it talks about the children playing with the body all day. Then, it pulls back as Marquez relates how the women are cleaning him off. It is easy to see all the women around him, each doing her share to help. The crescendo rises again, when he is clean. Do they know him? Will anyone claim him? He is "Esteban," the man with the sea laurels. No one knows him.

The story then flows back and forth again as the women dress the man and ready him in as fine of clothes that can fit. Then, they begin to dream about him. Who was he? How did he come to be here? He would be too big to sit down, so he would just lean against the door and quietly watch.

Then the men come home and Marquez once again speeds up the pace...just a bit... To keep the reader going. The men, at first, think the women are crazy in their actions. How could they be making such fools over a man they have never met? The men just want to get rid of him and once again live their lives as before.

Ah, said Marquez, but that is not going to be possible. The men, like the women, have seen his face. They know their lives are changed forever. Here was a man so much better than themselves -- Ashamed at his large size, yet willing to accept who and what he was.

Then the story begins to climb once again...another wave has hit the shore as the men and women get ready for the most splendid funeral. At last, he has to return to the water and they are so saddened. They weep. Now they see what their village is really like. How can anything compare to this man, this Esteben? Here is the height of the story, right when he floats off to sea and the people recognize who and what they are.