Magic realism as an efficient tool to resolve the problems of post colonialism: A study of the select novel Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
Abhibunnisha Begum,
Assistant Professor,
Department of English & Humanities,
Anil Neerukonda Institute of Technology and Sciences,
Sangivalasa, Bheemili Mandal,
Visakhapatnam,
Andhra Pradesh, INDIA.
“Magical realism combines realism and the fantastic in such a way that the magical elements grow organically out of the reality portrayed”. (Faris. 169)
The form of magic realism offers an ingenious and effective means of screening the “real” living experiences. Literary works are drawn ahead the conventions of both realism and fantasy or myth. In previously colonized countries numerous ‘schools’
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There is always a room to remark on the clash of diverse cultures and the disparity of political, economic or social power. Magic realist writer pertain different rules to the world of fiction, but still embody them in a pragmatic way. They make the reader believes in the story as a matter-of-fact. In their story, the weirdness becomes known; the magical becomes real and the dead become alive. Hence, once the character accepts the magic, the reader will have a propensity to tag on automatically. The magical always has its valid place and is never questioned by the …show more content…
With its manifold realities and definite reference to the readers world, magic realism explores the brunt fiction has on reality, reality on fiction and the readers role in between; as such, it is well suited for drawing concentration to social or political disapproval. In addition, it is the tool paramount in the implementation of a related and major magic realist phenomenon: textualization. This expression defines two conditions first, where a fabricated reader enters the story within a story while reading it, making us self-conscious of our position as reader and secondly, where the textual world enters into the reader's world. Good sagacity would contradict this process but magic is the flexible topos that allows
Faris, Wendy B. "Scherazade's Children: Magical Realism and Postmodern Fiction." Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community. Ed. Lois Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B. Faris. Durham; N.C.: Duke UP, 1995.
...story telling traditions. All storytellers are children of the ones, which came before them and stand on the shoulders of those who have told the tales in the past. Marquez and Anaya did not hesitate to make liberal use of magical realism, both as a way to create tension in their stories and to contact the deeper hearing of their audience. Magical realism was just another tool in their literary boxes, to be used with skill and discretion for the greater benefit of the tale being told. It worked well for the cantadora, sitting in the doorway weaving her basket as she wove her tale and it works equally well today as we pause from our lives, quiet our souls, and prepare to listen as the story unfolds.
Delbaere-Garant, Jeannie. "Variations on Magical Realism". Magical Realism Theory, History, Community. Ed. Lois Parkison Zamora and Wendy B. Faris. Durham" Duke U.P., 1995. 249-263.
Roh, Franz. "Magic Realism: Post-Expressionism." Magical Realism. Theory, History, Community. Ed. Lois Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B. Faris. Durham, N.C.: Duke UP, 1995. 15-30.
For the purposes of this paper, I would like to adopt the synthesized definition editors Zamora and Faris distill from several key writers and academics featured in the anthology/reader Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community:
Faris, Wendy B. Ordinary Enchantments: Magical Realism and the Remystification of Narrative. Nashville: Vanderbilt UP, 2004. 24 Sept. 2012. Web. 15 Mar. 2014. 21
Magical realism is a genre in which extraordinary events are incorporated into the ordinary world, usually referred to as realistic fiction. In Latin American culture many authors use this type of literature to describe phenomenal events that occur within our ordinary world. Magical realism can be analyzed through different novels, short stories and movies, for example, Bless me, Ultima, by Rudolfo Anaya, “The Night Face Up,” by Julio Cortazar, “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings,” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and the movie Big Fish by Tim Burton. Magical realism is a style of writing used to link the abnormal with the ordinary.
Roh, Franz. "Magic Realism: Post-Expressionism." Magical Realism. Theory, History, Community. Ed. Lois Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B. Faris. Durham, N.C.: Duke UP, 1995: 15-30.
Faris, Wendy. "Scheherazade's Children: Magical Realism and Postmodern Fiction." Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community. Ed. Lois Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B. Faris.Durham, N.C.: Duke UP, 1995. 125-144.
Faris, Wendy B. "Scheherazade's Children: Magical Realism and Postmodern Fiction." Magical Realism. Theory, History, Community. Ed. Lois Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B. Faris. Durham, N.C.: Duke UP, 1995. 163-186.
Simpkins, Scott. "Sources of Magic Realism/Supplements to Realism in Contemporary Latin American Literature." Magical Realism. Theory, History, Community. Ed. Lois Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B. Faris. Durham, N.C.: Duke UP, 1995: 145-157.
Simpkins mentioned that "real life" is the "Real magic" (152). He also said that realism is heightened by magic (148-152). However, Leal felt that Magical Realism focuses on the marvelous in the real (122). Amaryll Chanady feels that Magical Realism is focused more toward reality (131).
In order to see how Magical Realism is found in this treatment, one must first consider at least one of the identifying marks of Magical Realism. Among the characteristics that identify Magical Realism is the feeling of transcendence that the reader has while reading a Magical Realist text (Simpkins 150). During transcendence, a reader senses something that is beyond the real world. At the same time, however, the reader still feels as if he or she were rooted in the world (Sandner 52). After the reader undergoes transcendence, then he or she should have a different outlook on life.
Magical realism is clearly present throughout Gabriel-Garcia Marquez's novel Chronicle of a Death Foretold. Magical realism is the juxtaposition of realism with fantastic, mythic, and magical elements. A secondary trait was the characteristic attitude of narrators toward the subject matter: they frequently appeared to accept events contrary to the usual operating laws of the universe as natural, even unremarkable. Though the tellers of astonishing tales, they themselves expressed little or no surprise.
'The formal technique of "magic realism,"' Linda Hutcheon writes, '(with its characteristic mixing of the fantastic and the realist) has been singled out by many critics as one of the points of conjunction of post-modernism and post-colonialism' (131). Her tracing the origins of magic realism as a literary style to Latin America and Third World countries is accompanied by a definition of a post-modern text as signifying a change from 'modernism's ahistorical burden of the past': it is a text that 'self-consciously reconstruct[s] its relationship to what came before' (131). The post-modern is linked by magic realism to 'post-colonial literatures [which] are also negotiating....the same tyrannical weight of colonial history in conjunction with the past' (131).