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Read Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “The Handsomest  Drowned Man in The World” and write down your impressions as you read,  underlining text that seems especially important. Read the text closely;  examine it thoroughly. 

Determine the theme of the story. During  your reading, you should think about an aspect of the story that  resonates imaginatively with you.  Ideas about change, beauty,  resurrection, the nature of the body are all relevant.  Try to start  large, and get more precise in your thinking about the story’s  characters, setting and/or symbols.  This is a brainstorming process.   Write as you brainstorm to keep track of your thoughts.

Now,  organize your thoughts.  Start to compose a theme-interpretation paper  in which you describe your understanding of the story, using the text to  illustrate your points.  The introduction should establish what the  focus of your interpretation is and the rest of the paper should  elaborate the particular interpretation.  The paper should be at least  five pages long.  

• Use quotations from the story to support your argument, but use them sparingly and integrate them into your sentences (see the Literary Analysis Resource file)
• Do not use secondary sources
• Follow  the Conventions for Writing about Literature (use present tense,  include author and title in first sentence, etc: Read the file!)
• Use MLA Format
• Proofread
• Submit your paper at the TurnItIn link

Conventions for Writing about Literature

Every  paper that you write for this course asks that you analyze some form  (poetry, fiction, drama) of literature. Your papers should meet these  nine standards:

1. Identify the author and title within the first three sentences
2. State  and develop your theme in the introductory paragraph. “The theme is  that Esteban changes the village” is a simplification. Avoid using the  phrase “The theme is….”; instead, be specific, as in “Esteban changes  the village by delighting the villagers’ imaginations, etc…”.
3. Write in the present tense
4. Avoid “I” and “you”
5. Use quotations around titles of short stories and poems; italicize longer works
6. Make sure the selections from the text that you use to illustrate your interpretation are in quotation marks
7. Keep the quotations to a minimum; quote only what you need and paraphrase the rest (avoid using quotations as filler)
8. Introduce quotes; incorporate them into your sentence (avoid dropped or hanging quotations) . See the linked literary resource to understand the correct way to incorporate quotations.
9. Provide a contextual summary (introduce characters relevant to your thematic analysis) that relates to theme in the introduction