College Name: Sies College of Arts, Science and Commerce

Department name: Department of English

Paper number SIUAIEL11
Paper name: Introduction to English Literature
Class: FYBA B
Semester: 1
Year: 2020-21
Roll Numbers and Names:
FA2021329 Arya Gawade ( critical evaluation , editing and assembled the doc)
FA2021493 Shreya Vishwanath (critical evaluation)
FA2021254 Geneshiya joy Balraj (conclusion)
FA2021013 Nandhini Murugan Yadav (Analysis of the elements of magic
realism)
FA2021417 Prerana Premkumar (Introduction and rationale behind selection)
 Light is Like Water
Gabriel García Márquez
Introduction:
Gabriel García Márquez was a Colombian novelist, short-story writer,
screenwriter, and journalist, who is very well known in Latin America for his
short stories as well as his novels. He is considered one of the most significant
authors of the 20th century, particularly in the Spanish language, for his work
like “Love in the Time of Cholera” (1985), Chronicle of a Death Foretold
(1981) and “One Hundred Years of Solitude” (1967)
His works have achieved significant critical acclaim and widespread
commercial success, most notably for popularizing a literary style known as
magic realism, which involves realistic narrative and naturalistic technique to be
combined with surreal elements. This genre expresses the reality by employing
magical elements.
Rationale behind the selection:
The title of the story uses simile as a figure of speech, which foreshadows that
the qualities of light is compared to those of water. It interests readers to ponder
upon the qualities of these two, which sets the base to the story and provides
one with an interesting view as to what could be expected of it. The use of light
and water is like bringing together two realms and using it interchangeably.

Analysis of the elements of magic realism:

The story is filled with elements that highlight magic realism as a genre, listed
down are few of them.
The first incident that reflects it in the story is when a jet of golden light as cool
as water begins to pour out of the broken bulb in the living room, and they let it
run to a depth of almost three feet. The words like “cool” and “pour” justifies
the title. The fact that a broken bulb is emitting light might catch you off guard.
Turning off of the electricity is keeping in touch with the reality as a source of
free flowing electricity might give an electrical shock and also indicating
indirectly for taps to be turned off for the two kids start navigating islands with
the boat in their living room. The irony comes into play when their parents find
them “sleeping like angels on dry land”.
“They filled the apartment to a depth of two fathoms, dove like tame sharks
under furniture, including the beds and salvaged from the bottom of the light
things that had been lost in darkness for years.” The floating of various furniture
and objects, in reality, it would not be possible and it would damage the
furniture. “The bright coloured fish freed from their mother's aquarium, which
were the only creatures alive and happy in the vast illuminated marsh.” In
reality fishes would die out of no water and would definitely not be happy!
“People walking along the apartment saw a cascade of light falling from an old
building hidden among the trees. It spilled over the balconies, poured in torrents
down the facade, and rushed along the great avenue in a golden flood that lit the
city.” The element light is given property of water, flowing, flooding and
spilling.
Critical Evaluation:
The story is set in Madrid where a family of 4 resides on the 5th floor apartment
on 47 Paseo de la Castellana Street. Toto and Joel are school going children.
They were determined on buying a boat, even when they had no place for it to
be rowed in Madrid. It is observed that the father gives in to their incessant
wants easily, whereas the mother indulges in humour and witty lines not giving
into their wishes. There is limited information available for us to comment of
the parenting style they indulged in, Márquez has kept it crisp not giving much
details about the family. We can infer from the splurge the family involves in
from on a good quality aluminium boat, movie on every Wednesday nights, to
owning a place in Cartagena de Indias having a yard with a dock on the bay, and
a shed that could hold two large yachts that they belong from a good financial
status.
Márquez indulges in humour very interestingly, the dialogues by the mother are
full of wit and humour, along with phrases from the story that highlight the
humour “the moment of peeing into the pot of geraniums”, along with
toothbrushes there were Papa's condoms that were floating and television set
from the master bedroom floated on its side, still tuned to the final episode of
the midnight movie for adults only.
There is a lot of use of imagery and descriptive language that enhances and
brings out the genre even better. We simply cannot ignore the use of transferred
epithet where the words that are ideally supposed to describe water are used for
light interchangeably. It spilled over the balconies, poured in torrents down the
facade, and rushed along the great avenue in a golden flood that lit the city all
the way to the Guadarrama.
Once the characters realize that the light has these properties, they continue to
push its limits to see its extent of water-like properties. In the end of the story,
the light becomes too much for the boys to handle and it floods their apartment
causing two classes to drown because they had not learned how to navigate on
light. “For they had turned on so many lights at the same time that the apartment
had flooded, and two entire classes at the elementary school of Saint Julian the
Hospitaler drowned”
In the last paragraph the writer makes the magic seem normal and gives it a
touch of reality by quoting “In Madrid, Spain, a remote city of burning summers
and icy winds, with no ocean or river, whose land-bound indigenous population
had never mastered the science of navigating on light.” As if navigation on light
was something that could be mastered.
Conclusion:
The story “Light is Like Water” explores the theme that freedom is a
requirement to be happy. In this story the children love to be in their own world
and they love to enjoy it by imagining, dreaming and thinking of unnatural
things which amuses and fantasize them and it is way too far for the elders to
understand and using the technique of magic realism, it portrays the reality of
what we feel and not that of what we see, here in this story also, In Madrid there
is no river but still the children imagine a river and they act like swimming in
it , for them The Boat, The Swimming Water, The Golden Jet Of Light which
seems to be a Real River to them. “Joel, floating in the prow, still looked for the
north star” here the North Star symbolises a landmark to help those who follow
it determine direction as it glows brightly to guide and lead toward a purposeful
destination. Maybe, them not finding the North Star proves to be a problem for
all. This light is a metaphor for a child’s imagination, which the father
encouraged, and the children who drown at the end are those without
imagination, whose lives remain impossibly dull and metaphorically dark.
References:
https://www.masterclass.com/articles/what-is-magical-realism#what-is-the-
history-of-magical-realism
http://carolyncroley.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-fluidity-of-magic-in-light-is-
like.html
https://www.bartleby.com/essay/Light-is-Like-Water-as-Magical-Realism-
P3CQ83WZVJ