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The Drowned Giant 1965
This story was an exploration of acceptable action based of relatability. To the persons in this novel, the giant was not one of them and therefore released the townspeople of requirements to treat him as such. To the normal person the idea of exploring a corpse is repulsive, much more so if the body is human. Some ascertain it as a question of morals, others an inset survival trait. Stay away from the thing that’s dead otherwise it could make you dead (disease). This is why the reader (typically) will feel repulsion while reading this story, because the creature is so close to a human, especially in anatomy. The author goes in to great descriptive detail, adding to the gore of the event while at the same time accentuating the unnatural detachment displayed by the people in the story.
   The idea of people (let alone Children) crawling around on a corpse is disturbing at best, but what makes it so is the human aspect of the giant. If it were a beached whale it would be different. Sure, there is still the aversion to crawling about on such a thing, but the idea of letting it rot or scavenging it seems much more acceptable. Having the giant so similar to us beckons beliefs such as respect for the dead. Another aspect of interest is the notable absence of wonder at this event. Everything else about this story speaks for it being the typical world we live in, yet the giant’s appearance only seems mildly interesting.

  While reading the story I was quite surprised about the accuracy and detail of anatomy that the author went into. I felt rather lucky with the timing because in another class we had been exploring anatomy. Having the new information of the other class I felt much abler to visualize all of the aspects the author wrote about the giant. I was quite amazed at the pictures I was able to see in my mind. While reading I also felt sentiment for the main character that we follow. He feels an almost empty type of sorrow as he sees the dilapidation of the giant take place over the coarse of a few weeks. I think that the author was trying to point out how sad it is to loose something truly amazing, to watch something wondrous just melt away from existence. He did this by treating said object as relatively un-amazing to his characters. What is underwhelming to them is quite stunning in the reader’s mind. The point that I am attempting to explain is that the world is constantly loosing things that in another’s eye would seem extraordinary (such as the health of the planet, or an endangered species), yet because of our acustomization we fail to see that way anymore. When we can’t see the amazingness of a thing, we cannot appreciate the implications and depth of loosing it.

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