In "The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World," what are the men's attitudes toward the drowned man?

It is interesting to note that the men's attitudes to the
corpse, called "Esteban," undergo a transformation as the story progresses. At first,
when they return from visiting the neighbouring villages to see if the corpse belongs to
them, they are keen to dispose of the corpse of this drowned man and consider the
women's attachment to this strange giant-figure some kind of female
silliness:

The
men thought the fuss was only womanish frivolity. Fatigues because of the difficult
nighttime inquiries, all they wanted was to get rid of the bother of the newcomer once
and for all before the sun grew strong on that arid, windless
day.

However, when,
significantly, one of the women removes the handkerchief covering Esteban's face, a
massive change occurs in the men's attitude towards
Esteban:

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There was so much truth in his manner that even
the most mistrustful men, the ones who felt the bitterness of endless nights at sea
faring that their women would tire of dreaming about them and begin to dream of drowned
men, even they and others who were harder still shuddered in the marrow of their bones
at Esteban's sincerity.

So it
is that the village as a whole, both men and women, came to adopt Esteban for their own
and were all equally united in their determination to transform their own position in
life. Esteban, and the dream and hope that Esteban represented, cause the villagers to
group together all of their energies and forces to determine to change forever their way
of lives.