Magic Realism „h As Encyclopedia.com says, ¡§Works of magic realism mingle realistic portrayals of ordinary events and characters with elements of fantasy and myth, creating a rich, frequently disquieting world that is at once familiar and dreamlike.¡¨ „h Magic realists usually spawn from South American cultures. „h Saramago chooses to turn blindness, a common disability, into an airborne disease and has an entire country split away from Europe. Only a magic realist could create such fantastical stories. Connections „h Before the entire society goes blind, people blame the infected for the sudden outbreak even though they do not know the actual cause. Europe believes that it is Spain¡¦s fault for separating when it is really a geographic catastrophe. „h There is a proverbial continental separation between those who are blind and those who are not. There is a literal continental separation between Spain and the rest of Europe. „h Both novels deal with denial and anger and the psychological results of change. „h Like Camus¡¦ The Plague, Saramago uses disease as a way of representing social and political crisis. Both authors emphasize the human response to social catastrophe. However, there is a problem with the representation of historical events by means of a medical model. In this representation, nature displaces the social and replaces it with an image of fate. As a consequence, blindness is defined as a physical condition. „h Since Saramago's writings have often been discussed as an example of "magic realism", he can be compared to Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Salman Rushdie. „h Blindness is also like Lord of the Flies. The children seem helpless and savage without their parents just as the blind are helpless and savage without their sight. Blindness Quotes „h ¡§¡KThe doctor took him behind the scanner which anyone with imagination might see as a new version of confessional, eyes replacing words, and the confessor looking directly into the sinner¡¦s soul¡K¡¨(14). Saramago plays on the idea that the eyes are the windows to the soul „h ¡§And so, from bed to bed, the news slowly circulated round the ward¡¨(150). The childhood game of ¡§telephone¡¨ is used as a basic survival skill for the blind. „h The doctor¡¦s wife asks if ¡§blindness is¡K to live in a world without hope¡¨(145) and later realizes that ¡§we are blind, Blind that see¡¨(292). „h The characters are known as "the doctor" or "the old man with the eye patch" (244) ¡V they have no names, but, ironically, only physical descriptions.
Debbie owed Carlos $50,000 on a contract for the purchase of 200 air conditioners on credit, the terms of payment stating “Payment due 60 days after delivery.” Delivery was made on January 2. On March 10, Debbie met Carlos and told him, “I’m sorry I missed out on paying you what I owe you. Collections have been slow. If you give me until May 1, I’ll pay you what I owe plus interest at 9%.” Carlos said, “O.K. I’ll give you until May 1.” On March 15, Carlos changed his mind and sued Debbie for $50,000. Debbie contends that the debt is not due until May
Susan Harris’s book God’s Arbiters explores the religious rhetoric when discussing expansion of the United States. She focuses solely on the time period of 1898 through 1902. In this book, Harris calls on the works of numerous poets, authors, and political figures to show the perception of the United States imperialist motives from outside the borders. Harris uses Mark Twain as an epigraph at the beginning of the book with the quotation “I am an anti-imperialist.” Drawing upon authors such as Rudyard Kipling and his pro-annexation story The White Man’s Burden, Harris shows both sides of the debate through authors and poets alike. This use of writers offers an interesting perspective to the argument for and against imperialism, furthermore offering a look into the minds of intellectuals of the period. The main issue addressed by Harris is
In the first paragraph, the narrator also reveals his ignorance. He believes that all blind people are based on only what he has seen in movies, "My idea of blindness came from the movies. In the movies, the blind moved slowly and never laughed. Sometimes they are led by seeing-eye dogs “(104). The narrator was surprised when he noticed Robert was not like this. The narrator is also surprised when Robert lights a cigarette. He believes blind people don’t smoke because “they couldn’t see the smoke they exhaled” (108). The husband starts to feel more comfortable after this. The three of them sit down for dinner and the husbands is impressed with the how Robert is able to locate his food, cut with a knife, and eat properly. This is where the narrator’s outlook starts to undergo change.
Louise Erdrich’s stories combine wildly dynamic characters with metaphoric language and elements of the supernatural to create tales that challenge the demarcations of cultural reality. In her stories “Plunge of the Brave,” “Scales,” and “Fleur,” Erdrich utilizes magical realism to help mystic elements seem more relatable to readers. The short stories, while otherwise straight-forward, are infused with touches of colorful language and mystic descriptions that, many critics claim, classifies Erdrich as a magical realist author. She uses magical realism in her stories to encourage readers to reconsider perceived ideas and question the determined realities of ethnic or cultural groups. By adding a few elements of the supernatural, Erdrich is actually inviting readers to expand their knowledge of different cultures and perceptions of the world.
The husband in Raymond Carvers “Cathedral” wasn’t enthusiastic about his wife’s old friend, whom was a blind man coming over to spend the night with them. His wife had kept in touch with the blind man since she worked for him in Seattle years ago. He didn’t know the blind man; he only heard tapes and stories about him. The man being blind bothered him, “My idea of blindness came from the movies. In the movies, the blind moved slowly and never laughed. Sometimes they were led by seeing-eye dogs. A blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to. (Carver 137)” The husband doesn’t suspect his ideas of blind people to be anything else. The husband is already judging what the blind man will be like without even getting to actually know him. It seems he has judged too soon as his ideas of the blind man change and he gets a better understanding of not only the blind man, but his self as well.
The book Seventh Heaven was written by an American author by the name of Alice Hoffman. Seventh Heaven was published in the year of 1990. Seventh Heaven was a book based on life in the suburbs and the spiritual essence of the people who lived there. The author who wrote this story seemed to make the essence known that magical realism was definitely about these people and that they lived it everyday. Magical Realism lived everyday and will keep living as long as there is life on earth. Wendy B. Faris is an author that has written many stories. During the course of this story, things happened physically and magically that no one could explain
Many people view blindness as a disability, but could these people be blind to their surroundings? Even though the narrator can perfectly see with his eyes, he lacks in understanding awareness. The narrator blindness isn 't physical, like many vision impaired people. His blindness is psychological, and his blindness causes him to become jealous. His blindness blocks his perception of viewing the world in a different way. This only causes him to see the physical attributes of humans, and thus shut off his mindfulness of viewing human personalities. As a result of a closed mind, the narrator doesn 't understand how Robert was able to live with the fact that he was never able to see his wife in the flesh, but the narrator fails to see that Robert vision of his wife was intimate. On the other hand, Robert blindness is physical. This causes Robert to experience the world in a unique manner. Without Robert eyesight, he is able to have a glimpse of a human personality. He uses his disability to paint pictures in his head to experience the world. By putting his psychological blindness aside, the narrator is able to bond with Robert, and he grasps the understanding of opening his eyes for the first time, and this forms a new beginning of a
The argument over how divorce affects children is one that has been going on for a very long time. Some people believe when parents get a divorce the children are not affected at all, while others believe when parents get a divorce the children are affected by the impact of divorce more than anyone in the family. In some cases, married couples can be in such a terrible marriage that divorce can in no way be avoided, and these divorces are usually the ones that children benefit from and are affected in a positive way. Many times though, a couple will choose to get a divorce because their marriage is not exactly the way it used to be, and they want that aspect of life back; these are the divorces that negatively affect children. Even though in some cases divorce does not affect children negatively, many times when parents obtain a divorce, the children are negatively harmed in many different ways that will forever change their lives.
Divorce is a word that everyone knows very well, no matter what the age. These days, everyone knows at least one person that has either been in a divorce or whose parents are divorced. Today, about 50% of all marriages end in divorce('No-Fault' Divorce, 2004). Between the time that half of those couples get married and divorced, many of them had children. By 2004, "one in four children lived in single-parent homes"('No-Fault' Divorce, 2004). After the divorce, not only are the adults hurting, but the children are also. Throughout the divorce, the parents are caught up in each other, money, possessions, and their own pain that without even realizing it, their children are hurting too. Adults are becoming more careless and think less about how compatible they are to their partners. Some couples have children shortly after the wedding before they adjust to each other. After their children are born, the real problems start to become more relevant. With new problems surfacing and raising children at the same time, it becomes very difficult and divorce sounds like an answer to the problems.
When defining the word blindness, it can be interpreted in various ways. Either it can be explained as sightless, or it can be carefully deciphered as having a more complex in-depth analysis. In the novel Blindness, Jose Saramago depicts and demonstrates how in an instant your right to see can be taken in an instant. However, in this novel, blindness is metaphorically related to ‘seeing’ the truth beyond our own bias opinions.
The controversy surrounding Magical Realism makes the classification of what is and what is not Magical Realism very difficult. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a famous Latin American author, has written many pieces of what is generally conceived to be Magical Realism. Marqez's "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" fulfills every characteristic of Magical Realism..
Greed and deception took over the car thief when he met the first blind man, which clouded his judgement and made him ignorant to suffering he caused. Once the car thief was blind and in quarantine he suffered from an infection in his leg and realized the error of his ways: “His conscience awoke and censured him bitterly for having allowed himself to steal a car from an unfortunate blind man” (73). This shows how ignorance in one area, in this case in the form of blindness, can reveal one’s misdeeds in another area, such as
Have you ever felt the need to share your problems to make people understand what you’re going through? In Latin American literature, blindness is illustrated as a theme with the use of imagery. The three most frequent types of imagery that are used include: visual, audible, and tactile. Especially in Jorge Borges’ short stories and poems, descriptive language is used to convey the reoccurring theme of blindness.
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.
Addiction is a psychological condition that comes up when a person takes a drug or engages in an activity, which becomes compulsive and interferes with the ordinary responsibilities in life (Leshner, 1997). The addicts in most instances do not know that their behaviors affect others, and that it is out of control. Addiction is a physical addiction, or the biological state, whereby the body adapts to the presence of a drug to the extent that the body becomes tolerant. Because of the tolerance, there is always a reaction when an individual stops the consumption of the drug. However, the majority of the addictive behaviors is not related to the physical tolerance or exposures to cues. In most of the times, people have a compulsive need to use the drugs as a form of reaction towards emotional or psychological stress that they face. Since addictive behaviors are psychologically based, most of the people tend to switch from one form of drug to another.