2.

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 couldnt
sleep because the noise of the stars disturbed
him.

MAGICAL REALISM

the blend of reality and fantasy so that the

distinction between the two is erased

often described as a unique product of Latin

America
o

German Franz Roh is actually

credited for its inception.

3. The frame or surface of the work may

be conventionally realistic.
Example: Townspeople, village, flood, chicken
coop.

Magic realism originally applied in the

1920s to a school of painters used to
describe the prose fiction of Jorge Luis Borges
in Argentina, as well as the work of writers
such as Gabriel Garca Mrquez in Colombia,
Gunter Grass in Germany, and John Fowles in
England.

4. 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.

WRITERS interweave a sharply etched

realism in representing ordinary events and
descriptive details together with fantastic and
dreamlike elements, as well as with materials
derived from myth and fairy tales.

5. Events don't follow our expectations of

if/then, like most novels.
If this happens, then this will follow.
6. Things often happen without an
explanation, or for reasons that we
don't expect.

NOVELS/STORIES violate standard

novelistic expectations by drastic experiments
with subject matter, form, style, temporal
sequence, and fusions of the everyday, the
fantastic, the mythical, and the nightmarish,
in renderings that blur traditional distinctions
between what is serious or trivial, horrible or
ludicrous, tragic or comic.

has ambiguous moral lesson hidden in

symbols or no definite lesson raises
questions/ issues

PURPOSE: challenge realism What is real?

Who dictates what is real or not?

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.
Elements
1. 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 angels wings have
parasites.

EXAMPLE: Remedios the Beauty rises to

heaven with her sister-in-law's sheets. No
reason is given, and her sister-in-law Fernanda
does not wonder how this could happen. She
accepts it without surprise, and only regrets
that she has lost her sheets.
7. Defies our expectation of fictional
selves.

In realistic novels, characters are

given individualized names, personalities, and
family histories.

We identify with them because

their specific humanity engages us, and their
individuality resembles our own.

Objects and places in magical

realist novels behave in ways that they could
not in a realistic fiction.

Garcia Mrquez
lived in Aracataca, Colombia, a banana town
by the Caribbean.
Grandparents most important relatives
influenced him & his writing
later on
Grandfather general, hero &
a great story teller
Grandmother very
superstitious; filled the house

with stories of ghosts and

premonitions

other extraordinary phenomena in Nature or

experience which European realism excluded.
Magical Realism vs. Science Fiction/Fantasy

Garcia Mrquez on Magical Realism

The question of what is real is at the heart

of magical realism.

This implies that our notions of reality are

too limitedthat reality includes magic,
miracles and monsters.

By making things happen in his fictional

world of Macondo that do not happen in most
novels (or in most readers' experiences
either), Garcia Marquez asks us to question
our assumptions about our world, and to
examine our certainties about ourselves and
our community.

Because the magical events in Macondo

are presented matter-of-factly, our own sense
of what is possible is amplified and enriched.
Ordinary objects and events are enchanted.

Suggests that cultures and countries differ

in what they call "real."

It is here that magical realism serves its

most important function, because it facilitates
the inclusion of alternative belief systems.
Magical realism expands the categorizes of
the real so as to encompass myth, magic and

The crucial difference between magical

realism and science fiction/fantasy is that
magical realism sets magical events in
realistic contexts, thus requiring us to
question what is "real," and how we can tell.