Magical Realism in The Garden of Forking Paths While there may be some debate as to whether the Argentinian Jorge Luis Borges was technically a Magical Realist, some may feel that his works definitely do have some of the characteristics of what is considered Magical Realistic literature. Among his various types of works are poetry, essays, fantasies, and short fictions. Often referred to in essays that discuss the history and theory of Magical Realism, "The Garden of Forking Paths" is probably Borges' most popular short story. Published in 1964 in a collection of Borges works entitled Labyrinths: Selected Stories & Other Writings, his short story "The Garden of Forking Paths" appears to have several of the elements of Magical Realism. At a glance, the main plot of "The Garden of Forking Paths" may seem fairly simple and very real. In this story the main character, Yu Tsun, is a German spy who knows the name of the British artillery park. Yu Tsun wants to tell his chief about this British artillery park so that the Germans can destroy it. However, Yu Tsun is afraid that Captain Richard Madden, who is on the British side, will shoot him before he is able to get the word out in time. Therefore, Yu Tsun comes up with the plan to go to a Dr. Stephen Albert's house and shoot him. By shooting Stephen Albert, Yu Tsun relays the message to his chief in Berlin that Albert is the city where the British artillery park is located (Wiehe 980). A reader can see that the realist elements in "The Garden of Forking Paths" are that the story is taking place during World War I, that the story involves real people who are spies, and that the story is based on a fairly logical plot. The term "fairly logical plot" is us... ... middle of paper ... ...mmunity. Ed. Lois Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B. Faris. Durham, N.C.: Duke UP, 1995: 163-186. 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: 109-116. 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. 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. Wiehe, Roger E. "Jorge Luis Borges." Critical Survey of Short Fiction. Vol 3. Ed. Frank N. Magill. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Salem Press, 1981: 977-982.
Gioia, Dana. "Gabriel García Márquez and Magic Realism." Essays by Dana Gioia. Dana Gioia, 2009. Web. 05 Dec. 2013.
Bigger Thomas wasn’t just one man but every man Richard Wright, the writer of Native Son, had encounter in his childhood and adulthood. Wright had encountered a nice Bigger, violent Bigger, and a Bigger Thomas who hated the white society. He combined all of these Thomases and created Bigger Thomas in Native Son. Bigger filled with enrage and fear of the whites accidentally kills a white woman and tries to run away, but only to end in a prison cell waiting for his punishment. Bigger’s definition of himself and the white society had limited his possibilities of having a greater future but Bigger could have went to the right path if he had controlled himself and his choicies.
Act one scene one of Much Ado About Nothing is always greeted with delight in the theatre for many reasons. It begins when Don Pedro and company enter a "golden world" in Messina where the women are already located. In this situation, people fail to take things seriously, causing the war of swords to soon turn into a war of words. Benedick and Beatrice are the main examples of male/female rivalry that converts into belligerent wordplay. The scene is greeted with delight because it is the first encounter between Beatrice and Benedick and Leonato has already explained the situation between them, stimulating the audience with the want to know more about the relationship between them. ?There is a kind of merry war betwixt Signor Benedick and her: they never meet but there?s a skirmish of wit between them.? Leonato explains the relationship between Beatrice and Benedick to the messenger. We also already know what Beatrice thinks of Benedict from her first line in the play whereupon she asks ?I pray you is Signior Mountanto returned from the wars or no?? Here she makes a joke about Benedick?s arrogance as Signior Mountanto can be translated as Signior Stuck up. However there may be more to this than meets the eye, it is obvious that she cares about him otherwise she would not have asked but the covers this up with a snide comment bout the ego of Benedick. Here the audience has already established that both Beatrice?s verbal wit and dexterity and her apparent disdain for Benedick and what might be seen as her attempt to mask her true feelings and this is greeted with delight in the theatre.
In Native Son, institutionalized racism in society is rampant and inescapable. Bigger Thomas attempts to save himself from succumbing to this injustice, but ends up making himself a target due to the risky decisions he makes out of fear of the system and the preexisting racial prejudices against his skin color that would determine his fate in the judicial
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:
In the novel Native Son by Richard Wright, the final plea of Mr. Max regarding the trial of Bigger Thomas is very important as it encompasses the main theme of oppression and its importance to the United States on a monumental scale. Mr. Max analyzes the life of Bigger Thomas in the way the author intends it to be seen, as a symbol of the lives of the 12 million African Americans living in the United States at that time. The passionate speech by Mr. Max covers the theme of blindness, and how the white populace uses it to shield themselves from guilt. Also, he uses an extended metaphor to depict how the ghettos merely fuelled the oppression and crime of the city. Similarly to the containment of the blacks in ghettos he mentions the lack of expression and freedom, which connects to important symbols mentioned earlier in the novel. The passionate and urgent tone to the speech also shows promise for the future as Max makes his heartfelt speech in hopes of change for an oppressed people.
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..
Giants and Angels roam the pages of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s stories, “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings”, and “The Handsomest Drowned Man In The World”, creating the perfect scene for magical realism. Many of the elements within these stories coincide with each other; this has everything to do with the overall component of magical realism, which binds together similarities and sets apart differences. The theme of each story can be found within the other and can stand by itself to represent the story it belongs to, the settings are similar in location and the ability to change but different in their downsides and the writing style is so similar it is complicated to find any differences. Marquez is a master story-teller whose works of art can only be compared with each other.
Simpkins, Scott. “Sources of Magical Realism/Supplements to Realism in Contemporary Latin American Literature.” Ed. Lois Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B. Faris. Durham; N.C.: Duke UP, 1995: 145-159.
This is a very important topic to me because I myself used to be absorbed in video games, and through those hours wasted I have accomplished nothing. I am hoping that through this project I may be able to open the stubborn eyes of the public and possibly convert just one person into finding an alternative to their excessive gaming. What I really wanted to learn through this research project is some of the specific neurological and psychological impacts of playing videogames, for both an instantaneous amount of time and a prolonged amount of time. I also wanted to discover whether or not video gaming could cause any physical impacts. I already know a great deal about video games because I have always been quite the connoisseur of Nintendo licensed products. I have played a wide range of genres of videogames, from Halo to Mario Kart to Pokémon to Grand Theft Auto. They are very entertaining and it is easy to get lost in them for hours. Some of the questions I wanted answered are as follows: are video games addictive? Do video games have the capability to have deep psychological impacts? Can someone actually die from playing video games? These are only a few of the questions I had buzzing ...
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: 119-123.
First, Wuthering Heights is a contribution to the theme of the novel because it sets the mood for the scenes taken place inside the house. The house is first introduced to the reader during a storm. The house stands alone and the land around it is described as dreary and foreboding, which creates a mood of isolation. “On the bleak Yorkshire moors” describes the Yorkshire moors physical appearance. The estate has little vegetation and is more weathered, which moors are, as they are jutting, bare rocks towards the ocean. Wuthering Heights is an old stone house with gothic architecture and bleak interior. The people that live in Wuthering Heights are bitter and act violent. The characters of the story act wild when they are at Wuthering Heights, compared to other places in the novel. The setting of the house enforces the actions of the Earnshaws’, and Heathcliff. The name of the estate even sets a theme of gloom in the novel. Lockwood says Wuthering is, “a significant provincial adjective, descriptive of the atmospheric tumult to which its station is exposed in stormy weather” (12).
Bigger Thomas, a classic example of institutionalized racism, stars as the protagonist in this novel, Native Son. We are made part of his life and taken on a journey to witness his development as a character, or better defined as: an unraveling of his psyche. Consequently, Richard Wright successfully expresses the rage of the common, black-man throughout the progression of Bigger’s story. The divisions within the book (Fear, Flight, and Fate) help develop the internal turmoil that drives Bigger. Disillusioned by what the universe has dealt him, he turns to murder as his only option (Fear). Then, he begins to obsessively look for an outing (Flight), to discover there is none. Only as the novel reaches its end (Fate), does Bigger begin to experience
Bigger Thomas, the protagonist of Native Son, by Richard Wright, expresses the role of a poor, uneducated black man. Bigger lived in a time where racism was very common in the society. Wright shows us through him, how bad the situation was. Due to his lack of education, Bigger had to work menial labor. Thus, he was forced to live in a one room apartment with his family. He felt trapped all his life, resenting, hating, and fearing the whites, whom he felt controlled his life. He views white people as a collective, overpowering force that tells him where to live, where to work, and what to do. The main focus of Wright?s novel is to show the effects of racism on one?s mind. Bigger has lived a life defined by the fear and anger he feels toward whites for as long as he can remember. Perhaps that is what leads him to do the crimes that he does.
Video games are not considered as a serious addiction amongst teenagers and adults, often being compared to severe cases of addiction, such as drug abuse or alcohol abuse that may result in the appearance of a decrease in the severity of the addiction. However, video game addiction is a serious matter and has unhealthy consequences for an individual 's life and their health; spending too much time playing video games can take a great toll on one 's physical and mental well-being. Continuing unhealthy patterns of video game activity for prolonged periods of time can result in mental health issues, physical health problems, and a decline in a social life.