Magical Realism

Magical realism, the term in itself is a contradiction. When you think of real, magic does not normally come to mind. It is a literary style that dances on the boundaries of reality and a whole other world. We see extraordinary things, but in completely ordinary settings. Magical realism is a metaphor because it is associating the word magical, with something as non-magical as realism. It causes us to wonder what reality actually is, we are exposed to something so completely foreign, and we must make something of it. Thus, magical realism.

It is impossible to see magical realism as fantasy, we become engrossed with the thought that the magical events are just as normal as taking the bus, or walking a dog. The author does not let us know that anything different is going on, we don’t see that, we just see normal people. That is what magical realism intends. In the stories we have read in class, it normally takes a few minutes or so before people realize that something in the story is not quite right, that there is something else going on, but it is written in such a way that it jus...