The History and Theory of Magical Realism Two Works Cited Magical Realism is one of today's most popular subjects in literature to discuss regarding its history and theory of Magical Realism. It began in the Latin culture and now is known word wide for its attributes. Magical Realism is even rivaling some of the great masterpieces of modern and past literature. Someday Magical Realism will be recognized and respected just as the classics are today. Magical Realism supposedly began in 1935 with its golden age occurring between 1940 and 1950.The Magical Realism of Spanish and Latin America can be somewhat attributed to the social, political, and European influence. During the golden age of Magical Realism, Spanish and Latin American writers produced works that would, by some, be considered to be at the same level as the great Italian, French, and English works. Two people have been credited for coining the term Magical Realism, Dudley Fitts and Franz Roh. Which one gets the actual credit would be very difficult to state. However, it is not important who did the deed; it is important the deed was done. Professor Angel Flores remarked that "A Universal History of Infamy," written by Jorges Luis Borges marks the birth Magical Realism (Flores 109-117). Jorges Luis Borge's works are similar the works of Kafka. Both Kafka's and Borge's works reflect a collaboration of realism and fantasy. Before all the greatness of Magical Realism was realized, it was thought that the Spanish and Latin American fiction couldn't produce anything beyond simple works. However, times have changed, an abundance of great works and attributes are derived from the Latin American culture and its writings. Magical realism is the writing of Spanish and Latin American authors. It is a mixture of realism and fantasy. However, the mixture is based on the fact that everything happening in the work is ordinary and an everyday occurrence. Anything, which takes place within the boundaries of the Magical Realism, is accepted as typical life among the characters in the story. No matter how far fetched or extraordinary the subjects are, all the characters within the work treat the action casually. For example if a man throws a baseball and it turns into a bee in mid flight, there would be no astonishment about this incident. It would be as if it is the natural thing for a baseball to metamorph into a bee. Even though in actuality a baseball could never possibly transform into a bee, the man, who threw the ball, would think nothing of it. This characteristic is one of the simplest ways to decide whether a writing is Magical Realism or not because Magical Realism contains no action that creates another action. There is no reason for the baseball to turn into a bee. No action or machine or spell is necessary for this transformation to happen. That is why Magical Literature or Science Fiction is unlike Magical Realism, where it would be necessary to use an action or a machine to do transformations. Magical Realism became known for changing the way in which one thinks. Instead of seeing the ordinary and mundane, the Magical Realist brings a spark of life to the imagination, which in turn excites the mind of the reader. Magical Realism is a fusion of dream and reality, an amalgamation of realism and fantasy, and a form of expression that is reality based with several fantastic elements that are regarded as normal by both the readers and the characters. This is the simplest way in which Magical Realism can be described. Magical Realism is also known for showing a different viewpoint on life and the way in which people think or act. Luis Leal stated that Magical Realism cannot be identified either with fantastic literature or with psychological literature, or with the surrealist or hermetic literature (Leal 119-124). To put this idea in a much more facile definition, Magical Realism is just its own thing. It is the odd ball among the in crowd. Magical Realism does not use dream motifs, nor does it create false words. Due to the fact Magical Realism is neither of the above, it cannot be identified as fantastic literature or science fiction. Magical Realism is not magic literature, as the name would seem to imply. Instead of producing spells to create situations, it simply expresses them. Magical Realism is unlike other major writing styles that try to change or dominate the existing scene. It is humble, unlike many styles, which seem to be forced on people and in turn demand attention and gratification. Magical Realism has touched about every facet of life. From art to television, not one thing is missing Magical Realism. When one looks at a painting and realizes there is much more than just the picture of an inanimate object on the canvas, then one understands the art of Magical Realism. Because of Magical Realism, painting has been raised to a whole new level, and no longer must people tell a story with words. One painting can speak a thousand words, even if it is just a portrait of a basket of fruit or a mixture of color abruptly tossed onto a canvas. Magical Realism has also been a factor in music. Due to Magical Realism in the music industry, songs have become much more than what they may seem. Key words within the lyrics can change the way in which one perceives the song's initial meaning. Songs can also motivate, discriminate, or even fixate the listener's mind. Perhaps in music, Magical Realism has the most effect on the masses. Although most people might not realize they are being affected by Magical Realism, in actuality they are dealing with it everyday. As a conclusion to the statements above, one must remember that Magical Realism is neither Science Fiction nor Magical Literature. Rather, it is in everyday life and is all around. Magical Realism is also not to be underestimated; it includes works, which are legendary. Works Cited Flores, Angel." Magical Realism in Spanish American Fiction." Magical Realism:Theory, History, Community.Ed.Louis Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B.Faris.Durham,N.C.: Duke UP, 1995:109-117. Leal, Luis." Magical Realism in Spanish American Literature." Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community. Ed.Louis Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B. Faris.Durham, N.C: Duke UP, 1995:119-124.
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.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude, is a novel often associated with magic realism. Throughout the novel, the idea of magic realism is promoted through intertext examples of The Bible. Magic realism is defined as an artistic style in which magical elements or irrational scenarios appear in an otherwise realistic or "normal" setting. The many intertextual examples throughout the work are alluded from outside sources such as the Bible and the tragedians of the Greeks and Romans. These allusions not only strengthen the novel, but further correlate them with the idea of magic realism.
Flores, Angel. "Magical Realism in Spanish American Fiction." Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community. Ed. Lois Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B. Faris. Durham; N.C.: Duke UP, 1995: 109-118.
“Hobbits really are amazing creatures… You can learn all that there is to know about their ways in a month, and yet after a hundred years they can still surprise you at a pinch,” explained Gandalf (Tolkien 62). Bilbo Baggins is a Hobbit from the Shire; hobbits are creatures that are half the size of humans, also known as Halflings. He was hired in the Company, a group of twelve dwarves and a wizard. The Company’s mission is to travel to the Lonely Mountain and reclaim the dwarves’ treasure from Smaug, a fire breathing dragon. Along the way, they run into trolls, goblins, orcs, and giant spiders. As they reclaim the mountain, Laketown is attacked by Smaug as retaliation for the Company’s actions. During the attack, the town was damaged and had casualties, so they demanded reparations from the dwarves’ treasure. In order to prevent war, Bilbo relinquishes his portion of the treasure. However, the orcs and goblins learn that the dragon has been slain and gather an army to take the mountain. There is a war after all and the armies battle until the orcs and goblins are defeated. After the battle, the adventure is over and Bilbo heads home. Although Bilbo Baggins is only half the size of a human, the way Tolkien develops his character in The Hobbit shows the complexity of human nature in Bilbo’s personality, physical strength, and ethics.
Simpkins, Scott. "Sources of Magical 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.
Flores, Angel. "Magical Realism in Spanish American Fiction." Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community. Ed. Lois Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B. Faris. Durham, N.C.: Duke UP, 1995: 109-117.
Chanady, Amaryll. "Magical Realism in Spanish American Literature." Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community. Ed.Louis Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B. Faris. Durham, N.C: UP, 1995: 125-144.
Magic, as defined by Merriam-Webster, is a power that allows people to do impossible things by saying special words and performing special actions. When looking at the context of this definition, one can then define the term magical realism. Magical Realism is defined as a literary genre in which the author creates two conflicting positions, one rooted in logic and the other rooted in mysticism. In Kobo Abe’s short story, The Magic Chalk, Abe effectively creates a binary between the creator and the creation through the narrative style of magical realism and through the narrative techniques of characterization, irony, and symbolism where the protagonist alters the world to become his own creation.
Leal, Luis. "Magical Realism in Spanish American Literature." Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community. Ed. Lois Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B. Faris. Durham; N.C.: Duke UP, 1995: 119-124.
Simpkins, Scott. "Sources of Magical Realism/ Supplement to Realism in Latin American Fiction." Magical Realism: History, Theory, Community. Ed. Lois Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B. Faris. Durham, N.C. & London, England: Duke University Press, 1995. 145-159.
According to The Norton Introduction to Literature by Kelly J. Mays magic realism is “a type of fiction that involves the creation of a fictional world in which the kind of familiar, plausible action and the characters one might find in more straightforwardly realist fiction coexist with utterly fantastic ones straight out of myths or dreams. (pgA7)” So basically magical realism is an unexpected alteration of reality. With that being said there are some characteristics that readers can observe while reading such stories. Some characters include but are not limited to; an "irreducible" magic which cannot be explained by typical notions of natural law, a realist description that stresses normal, common, every-day phenomena, which is then revised by the marvelous, extreme or amplified states of mind or setting are often used to accomplish this, it causes the reader to be drawn between the two views of reality, and time is both history and the timeless; space is often challenged; identity is broken down at times (Lois Parkinson and Wendy B. Faris). Magical realism is a method that blends supernatural and real events together to make the supernatural seem real. Another way to look at magical realism is to view them as fairy tales with the exception that they don’t provide a moral lesson.
Magical realism is more a literary mode than a distinguishable genre and it aims to seize the paradox of the union of opposites such as time and timelessness, life and death, dream and reality and the pre-colonial past and the post-industrial present. It is characterized by two conflicting perspectives. While accepting the rational view of reality, it also considers the supernatural as a part of reality. The setting in a magical realist text is a normal world with authentic human characters. It is not at all fantastic or unreal; it is a mode of narration that discovers the natural in the supernatural and supernatural in the natural. It is a mode in which the real and the fantastic and the natural and the supernatural are more or less equivalently and coherently represented.
Magical Realism Essay. Magical realism has various necessary elements that contribute to separating it from other genres. Magical realism can be mistaken for the fantasy genre because it has many factors that seem unreal to the audience, though the characters act as if the occurrences are completely ordinary. Magic that occurs in a context that makes the story ordinary and clashes with logic, religion, or beliefs is a characteristic of magical realism. In the short story, “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings,” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the characters represent a cultural reality where they are blinded by their rigid focus on Catholicism, and treat the supernatural ordinarily.
Magical realism uses ambiguity to let the reader expand his imagination and decide for themselves the outcome of the story. Magical realism is a way of writing that presents fictional occurrences as an everyday part of life. They treat things that we don't see in reality, and never explain it so that the readers decide for themselves; what really happened. Uncertainty leads to curiosity, and the curiosity is what makes a story better.
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.