Léa-Claire Tersou (s3153738) Metaphor, Meaning, and Truth

January 2019

IMAGINATIVE RESISTANCE IN MAGICAL REALISM:

A CASE STUDY OF A HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUD BY GABRIEL
GARCIA LORCA

Abstract

Argument: Imaginative resistance occurs in magical realism because of the nature of the
narrator’s ‘face value’ narrative style.

The literary movement of Magical Realism swept through 20 th century literature, breaching
cultural and continental borders. Stories of this style are characterized by vivid accounts of
mundane reality which are sprinkled with ‘supernatural’ and ‘magical’ events, with no
explanation of particular remarkableness pointed towards these out of the ordinary
happenings. One of the most recognized novels of this genre is A Hundred Years of Solitude,
written by Gabriel Garcia Lorca, relating the story of the founders of a small town through
one hundred years of history. In this story, the town seems to be affected by, from our
perspective, completely out-of-this-world events which go often unexplained and hardly
commented on. This gives the novel a mysterious and fantastical setting, all while also given a
very realist account of facts. Yet, in order to fully appreciate this almost contradictory values
(the magical and the real), one has to surrender fully to the authority of the narrator, and
accept the facts given as truth.

Failure to do so can result in the philosophical phenomena called ‘imaginative resistance’.

Imaginative resistance is when an ‘imaginer finds it difficult to engage in some sort of
prompted imaginative activity.’. Although mostly used in short philosophical texts examples
(such as with impossible statements or moral transgressions), it could also be looked at from a
novel perspective.

Following, I will use the case study of A Hundred Years of Solitude to argue that imaginative
resistance in magical realism occurs because of the de-facto nature of the narrator, and that if
this nature were to change, the novel would lose its magical realism as well as its imaginative
resistance.

Imaginative resistance has been analyzed to have several possible explanations. The ones of
most interest to this case study are the Face-Value interpretation, and the Narrator
accommodation interpretation.

Exp: passages from book: change narrator style? How do people respond?

-Breakdown of what is imaginative resistance

-Quick outline of what is magical realism + the novel
Léa-Claire Tersou (s3153738) Metaphor, Meaning, and Truth
January 2019

http://michellewittebooks.com/2015/09/elements-of-magical-realism/

-information withheld from the reader on purpose, lack of explanation.

-Taking information face value.
-Narrator is technically only link between the story and the reader.
-This affects how we understand the story.

YET

If the narrator is branded as unreliable beforehand  does imaginative resistance still occur?

-Why does imaginative resistance occur with magical realism (narrative styles which enable
it)
-Changing the style of the narration from FV (current narration) to NA (priorly
disclose that the narrator is unreliable)  what happens to the magical realism effect.
-Choose 3 passages of aHYoS which impose imaginative resistance