Magic Realism

1. Magic Realism • A literary mode rather than defined genre • Focuses on paradoxes and union of opposites. For example: • Framework may be conventionally realistic, but contrasting elements such as the supernatural, dreams, myth, fantasy invade the realism. • Differs from fantasy or sci-fi because setting is a normal, modern world with authentic descriptions of humans, society, and conflicts.

2. Background: Magic Realism • The term “magic realism” was first introduced by a German art critic, Franz Roh, who considered it an art classification. • Term evolved to apply to Latin American writers in the 1940s whose work “was a way to express the realistic American mentality and create an autonomous style of literature” at the same time.

3. Characteristics of Magic Realism Hybridity • Settings are inharmonious opposites such as urban and rural, Western and indigenous. • Plots involve issues of borders, mixing, and changing. • Characters are fluid i.e. in a constant state of change or flux.

4. Characteristics of Magic Realism Authorial Reticence/ Distance • Refers to the lack of clear opinions regarding the accuracy of events and the credibility of the characters. • This technique encourages acceptance in magic realism i.e. explaining the supernatural elements would ruin the magic

5. Characteristics of Magic Realism The Supernatural and the Natural • Supernatural is never displayed as questionable. It is dealt with as a factual state. • The use of supernatural events does not seem strange or disconcerting to the reader because the supernatural world is integrated into the norms and perceptions of the narrator and characters.

6. Themes: Time • Time is displayed as cyclical instead of linear. • Patterns and events repeat themselves. • Lots of flashbacks and events presented out of order

7. Themes: Carnivalesque • The concept of carnival celebrates the body, the senses and relations between humans. • The presence of fools, madmen, clowns, and jesters. • Represents the idea of revolution or being on the margins of society. • Incorporates entertainment: dance, music, theater, art.

8. Themes: Naming • Stresses importance of naming and how things are labeled. • For historically oppressed cultures such as African and Latin-American naming is a subversive practice that allows them to have agency in their own culture. Reappropriation (renaming) allows for redefining imposed categories.

9. Marquez on Magic Realism • Garcia Marquez maintains that realism is a kind of premeditated literature that offers too static and exclusive a vision of reality.  However good or bad they may be, they are books which finish on the last page. Disproportion is part of our reality too. Our reality is in itself all out of proportion.   In other words, Garcia Marquez suggests that the magic text is, paradoxically, more realistic than the realist text.  (Simpkins)

10. How is this different from the fables we encountered when we were children?

12. The Ant and the Grasshopper In a field one summer's day a Grasshopper was hopping about, chirping and singing to its heart's content. An Ant passed by, bearing along with great toil an ear of corn he was taking to the nest. "Why not come and chat with me," said the Grasshopper, "instead of toiling and moiling in that way?" "I am helping to lay up food for the winter," said the Ant, "and recommend you to do the same."

13. "Why bother about winter?" said the Grasshopper; we have got plenty of food at present." But the Ant went on its way and continued its toil. When the winter came the Grasshopper found itself dying of hunger, while it saw the ants distributing, every day, corn and grain from the stores they had collected in the summer. Then the Grasshopper knew... It is best to prepare for the days of necessity.

14. ANCIENT FABLES • Symbolic characters (flat caricatures of good and bad) • Fantastic elements (talking animals) • Clear, explicitly stated moral lesson • Purpose: present allegory for real life MAGIC REALISM • Realistic characters (round and complex) • Realism and fantasy combined • Ambiguous moral lesson; hidden in symbols or no definite lesson - raises questions/ issues • Purpose: challenge realism - what is real?

15. WHO DICTATES WHAT IS REAL OR NOT?

16. Realism in literature = mostly Western perception of reality Something is real if we perceive it to be real Magic realism or modern day fables that question reality (by mixing fantastic elements) show us that Western Lit is just ONE WAY of perceiving the world. It is not the ONLY world.

17. "Magical realism expands the categorizes of the real so as to encompass myth, magic and other extraordinary phenomena in Nature or experience which European realism excluded" - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

18. Elements of Magical Realism • Transformation of the common and the everyday into the awesome and the unreal. • Examples: An angel is found in a mud puddle of the courtyard. The angel’s wings have parasites.

19. Elements of Magical Realism • Elements of dreams, fairy story, or mythology combine with the everyday. • Examples: Some townspeople thought the angel should be named mayor of the world or at least a 5-star general. A man couldn’t sleep because the noise of the stars disturbed him.

20. Elements of Magical Realism • The frame or surface of the work may be conventionally realistic. • Example: Townspeople, village, flood, chicken coop.

21. Elements of Magical Realism • Have a strong narrative drive. • Example: Wings are not the most important difference between a hawk and an airplane. They are even less important in recognizing an angel.

22. Simpkins, Scott. “Sources of Magic Realism/Supplements to Realism in Contemporary Latin American Literature”. Magical Realism. Ed. Zamora and Faris.