Never Fully Content

                When I first read “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World,” I thought it was very strange.  The more I began to think about it I realized that it portrays how we as humans act.  We are never truly content with what we have.  The women in the story brought this to my attention.

                In the beginning of the story, a very large man washed up to shore.  The women in the village began to clean him off and make him clothing.  They began to imagine the abilities the handsomest drowned man must have had such as calling fish out of water.  The women’s imagination and growing attachment to the man, later identified as Esteban, made him seem as though he was greater than just a simple drowned man.

                The women of the village began to care more and more for Esteban and decided they wanted to be the ones to bury him.  They asked the nearby villages if Esteban belonged to them before they did so.  When they found that he belonged to none of the others, they were ecstatic.  The women were very excited to be able to bury him.

                Through this whole process of caring for the handsomest drowned man, you can see the women of the village become more and more unhappy with their men.  They are no longer content with their husbands because they began to compare to Esteban, “They secretly compared him to their own men, thinking that for all their lives theirs were incapable of doing what he could do in one night, and they ended up dismissing them deep in their hearts as the weakest, meanest and most useless creatures on earth.”  This story shows how we are never satisfied.  We’re always comparing what we have to others.  Even a dead, drowned man even triggered jealousy and discontent with their lives.