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The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World, a la Shmoop: Where’s Baywatch when you need

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them? We spend much of our lives trying to accumulate…

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the biggest.

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The biggest TV, the biggest house, the biggest swimming pool…

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…about the only things we want smaller are our electronic devices.

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We’re still waiting for the iPad microchip that gets implanted in our brains. That’ll

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be sweet. But… why our obsession? Why does size…

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ahem… matter? In The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World,

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the residents of the fishing village are impressed by the dead man’s beauty…

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…but they are equally blown away by his incredible stature.

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They admire his size and are inspired by it…

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…they even vow to start building their houses bigger, so as to be worthy of the stranger.

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Because clearly this Estaban fellow would have been a huge fan of “open concept.”

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We certainly embrace this same sort of idea in our own culture, but why?

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Is it simply because things and people of imposing size inspire awe?

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The Grand Canyon wouldn’t attract quite so many tourists if it was a foot deep.

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You probably can’t name many shorter mountains, but Everest and K2 sure get a lot of our attention.

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When we see something bigger than ourselves, perhaps we’re reminded of how small and

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insignificant we are in this vast universe…

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…and we put it up on a pedestal.

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It’s certainly true of the villagers in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ story.

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Although… the guy was a little heavy, so it was a bit easier just to float him back

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out to sea than to put him anywhere. Or are we obsessed with size because we wish

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we were bigger ourselves? Human beings are capable of great feats, but

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we can’t make ourselves much bigger than we are.

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Not without some serious pizza consumption. Showing admiration for those things that exhibit

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more mass than we do may be our way of emulating what we want to be…

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…larger than life. Of course, there’s a third possibility.

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Maybe we’re… um… compensating for something smaller?

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We all have our… shortcomings…

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…could our reverence for the big and tall be an effort to bury our insecurities about

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the things in our lives that makes us feel small, weak or vulnerable?

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Those villagers, for example, didn’t seem to be exuding confidence.

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One oversized dead guy washes up on their shore and all of a sudden they’ve got a

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new hero.

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Perhaps Estaban was a distraction for them from their own anxiety and self-doubt…

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What do you think?

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Are we inspired by the grandeur of the big and mighty?

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Is size a symbol of something we wish we could be ourselves?

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Or is it a distraction from our… smaller aspects?

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Shmoop amongst yourselves.

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