The strength of beauty

Dorothy Gilman said “People need beliefs, there's as much nourishment in 'em as food.” and I completely agree with her. The power of myths and ‘nation building’ can be positive for a society because the people want to honor their beliefs and the myths can change the way a nation is for the better. “The Handsomest Drowned Man In The World” written by Gabriel García Márquez is an excellent example to show the power of myths in a society. This tale for children begins in an old village near the sea and everything is normal and quiet, but when a drowned man appears on the beach, everything changes. The little town transforms their appearance for the dead body and the inhabitants give the corpse to the sea and make everything to remember it. We can see that beauty can be a source of inspiration to become better and that the text illustrates the collective human tendency to build myths.

Firstly, a great quote that shows how the power of myths can be positive for a society is certainly the last sentence of the tale: “But they also knew that everything would be different from then on, […] yes, over there, that’s Esteban’s village.” This sentence contains a lot of literary devices, but the one that we must keep in mind is the climax which is one of the major literary devices in the text. During the entire sentence, the words are used in a way of ascending power to show how important Esteban, the drowned man, is and will be important for this village. I think that the power in this sentence is a reference to the influence of the corpse’s beauty which affects the little village. This quote shows how something can positively change a society with the only beauty of a man. Also, it makes people believe in something and try to change for the better to honor the memory of the most beautiful drowned man. This singular sentence talks a lot and explains well the power of a myth in a society.

Secondly, there are many events in my life that makes me to improve myself to honor the memory of someone like in “The Handsomest Drowned Man In The World”. There is an example, when I was younger, someone that I really appreciated died. Because of that, I decided to honor her memory by improving myself at school and tried to correct some of my faults. This person doesn’t become a myth, but she was important enough to make someone try be like her because she was a good person. In this case, I change to honor the interior beauty of that woman, in the case of the villagers in the tale; they change for the exterior beauty of Esteban. In the two situations, the people are influenced by the beauty of someone in a positive way; it demonstrates how strong can be a myth or a person’s memory in a society or in a single person.

To conclude, I demonstrate how the influence of myths and ‘nation building’ can be positive in a society or in a person. I am conscious that there are some myths that can bring negative into life’s person, but in this text and in my example, there were only positive causes. In every nation, there must be myths, because I think that it what it defines a strong from a weak nation. The more a society has an important myth with a deep meanings, more the nation will be proud to honor it.