Summary
The men soon grew jealous of Esteban and frustrated with their wives. They wanted to simply dispose of the body in the fastest way possible, to tie him to a cargo ship so that he would sink quickly in the water and be forgotten. They grew exhausted at their wives' running around, dressing the corpse in relics and trinkets, and finally one of the men exclaimed that the body was just "a piece of cold Wednesday meat" (7).
Then, one of the women removed the handkerchief from Esteban's face. Suddenly, all of the men were as taken with Esteban as the women were, and the entire community was united in the preparations for his funeral.
Everyone imagined that Esteban was sincere, kind, and noble – that he would not have wanted to disturb this community with his death.
The village arranged an elaborate funeral, with women coming from other villages to see Esteban. They picked a mother and father, as well as other relatives, for Esteban so that he would not be sent away as an orphan.
As they carried Esteban to the cliffs, the community soon became aware of the desolation of their village and the stark, desert-like surroundings.
They dropped Esteban into the sea and immediately everyone could feel the loss.
But they also all knew that things would be different: they would build larger houses, paint them bright colors, and plant flowers on the cliffs. They would make their village beautiful and splendid so that one day, a ship captain might notice the community on the cliffs, and say, "yes, over there, that's Esteban's village" (9).
Analysis
In the final section of the story, the entire town unites around the drowned man, now definitively referred to as Esteban.
Every person in the community imagines that Esteban would have apologized for disrupting them and would have been humble in the face of such elaborate funeral preparations. The story once again relies on a collective perspective to emphasize the sense of community inherent in the village, and this collectivity introduces one of the story's other major themes: the human tendency to use death as an impetus for narrative and storytelling.
That Esteban is a stranger to the village allows the villagers to imagine anything they want from his life; they think of him only in an ideal light, raising him to the status of a transcendent or god-like being. This impulse, the story suggests, is a natural occurrence when somebody dies – loved ones write their stories after death with notable tenderness and idealism. The story is not, however, critical of this tendency, and instead embraces it as an argument that death and loss can provide inspiration and hope for those still living.
Indeed, as the story concludes, the villagers collectively commit to a change in their lifestyle, spurred by the magnificence of Esteban's arrival: they build their homes larger, with wider doors and entryways. They paint their houses bright and vibrant colors, and they plant flowers on the rocky cliffs (something they had imagined Esteban himself doing in life). The villagers vow to bring vibrancy and vitality back to their own lives after encountering the drowned man, about whom they truly knew nothing.
The conclusion of the story suggests that the villagers saw Esteban as a projection of their own quiet desires and aspirations, and only when they united as a community in mourning him did those dreams come to fruition. "The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World" may appear a morbid story from its title, but by the end of the narrative the story comments on the importance of embracing human urges toward liveliness and joy.
