Etymology and Meanings of “Magical Realism” Literary Theory
Magical realism comprises two words magical and realism which means to show things in a magical way, and that too as if they are happening in the real world. This style, first, started in painting to show fantastic images or scenes realistically. From there, it entered the literary realm, showing the inclusion of fantasy, myths, imaginary worlds, and other supernatural elements in narratives.
Definition of “Magical Realism” Literary Theory
From the above etymology and meanings, magical realism could be defined the presentation of magical situations, events and circumstances in literary texts as if they exists in reality and readers almost come to the point of believing them, knowing that they are just part of the fantasies.
Origin of “Magical Realism” Literary Theory
In literature, magical realism is stated to have emerged in Latin America. The major impact came from Alejo Carpentier, a Cuban writer, and Arturo Ulsar-Pietri, a Venezuelan writer. Both of them impacted the movement after they visited Europe and stayed in Paris to see the rise of surrealism (a literary movement that desired to release the unconscious mind through creative ways). This shortly occurred in the decade of 30s after the publication of a Revista de Occidente in Spanish and the emergence of an iconic Latin American figure, Jorge Luis Borges. The rise of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and other such novelists gave a new life to this literary movement and it soon spread across the globe, wooing eastern and western talent in fiction writing.
Types of Magical Realism Literary Theory
Due to the dominant hegemony of western literature, ideas, too, arrive from the Euro-centric critique of theories. It has been suggested that there are three major types of magical realism.
- European: showing estrangement and uncanniness such as in the stories of Franz Kafka.
- Matter of Fact: showing inexplicable events happening in the real world.
- The Native world view of anthropological: showing the indigenous world view through a Eurocentric perspective. (Spindler 1-4)
Principle Features of Magical Realism Literary Theory
- It favors the use of fantasy or fantastic elements such as myths, folk tales, or fables with renewed creativity to take the modern shifting realities into account.
- It presents fantasy in a real-world setting with real characters and a real timeframe.
- The literature of magical realism often shows the author exercising reticence about disclosing various information related to events and characters.
- The narratives of magical realism often comprise plenitude or disorienting details such as Borges does in his stories.
- Hybrid peeps through the plots of magical realist narratives, showing the mixture of urban/rural and colonial/indigenous areas.
- Magical realist literature often shows mixing reality into fiction and fitting it into reality, underlining the role of metafiction and story-within-a-story type of narratives.
- Magical realist narratives often use liquified irony to criticize modern political issues.
Criticism Against Magical Realism Literary Theory
- Magical realism is full of terminology that, sometimes, seems ambiguous.
- Magical realism narratives are more mysterious even than the mystery itself.
- Magical realism narratives are often removed from reality, making the readers fed up with such fantasies and misuse of imaginations.
Examples of Magical Realism Literary Theory
Example # 1
From “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
On the third day of rain they had killed so many crabs inside the house that Pelayo had to cross his drenched courtyard and throw them into the sea, because the newborn child had a temperature all night and they thought it was due to the stench. The world had been sad since Tuesday. Sea and sky were a single ash-gray thing and the sands of the beach, which on March nights glimmered like powdered light, had become a stew of mud and rotten shellfish. The light was so weak at noon that when Pelayo was coming back to the house after throwing away the crabs, it was hard for him to see what it was that was moving and groaning in the rear of the courtyard. He had to go very close to see that it was an old man, a very old man, lying face down in the mud, who, in spite of his tremendous efforts, couldn’t get up, impeded by his enormous wings.
This passage occurs in the story of Marquez, “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings.” The entire story presents a fantasy in the rural setting where Pelayo finds himself in a new situation where he thinks the way out. He sees that there is a new opportunity for them to earn money from that old man who is very old, yet has unusually enormous wings as if he is a flying creature. This scene shows the fantasy world merging with the modern reality of poverty.
Example # 2
From “Samsa in Love” by Haruki Murakami
Samsa had no idea where he was, or what he should do. All he knew was that he was now a human whose name was Gregor Samsa. And how did he know that? Perhaps someone had whispered it in his ear while he lay sleeping? But who had he been before he became Gregor Samsa? What had he been?
This passage occurs in Murakami’s story “Samsa in Love” after he uses the narrative character of Kafka in his story. Gregor Samsa is shown as a human being with various rhetorical questions he poses to himself and then responds to in the next passages. The main purpose of this passage is to show how the narrative world has opened up more opportunities for Murakami to weave other narratives along the same lines to make readers stretch their imaginations to receive the underlying message.
Example # 3
From The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that in bed he had been changed into a monstrous verminous bug. He lay on his armour-hard back and saw, as he lifted his head up a little, his brown, arched abdomen divided up into rigid bow-like sections. From this height the blanket, just about ready to slide off completely, could hardly stay in place. His numerous legs, pitifully thin in comparison to the rest of his circumference.
This is the first passage of the story of Franz Kafka, who is labeled the pioneer of the European type of magical realism. The transformation of Gregor Samsa in the very first passage of the novel shows how Kafka has instantly taken his readers to a world of imagination that is not only awkward but also strange. It jolts the readers into thinking that it could happen to them in reality.
Example # 4
From “Invisible Cities” by Italo Calvino
Leaving there and proceeding for three days toward the east, you reach Diomira, a city with sixty silver domes, bronze statues of all the gods, streets paved with lead, a crystal theater, a golden c*ck that crows each morning on a tower. All these beauties will already be familiar to the visitor, who has seen them also in other cities. But the special quality of this city for the man who arrives there on a September evening, when the days are growing shorter and the multicolored lamps are lighted all at once at the doors of the food stalls and from a terrace a woman’s voice cries ooh!, is that he feels envy toward those who now believe they have once before lived an evening identical to this and who think they were happy, that time. This passage occurs in the collection of stories of Italo Calvino. The writer has used a “You-centric” narrative that does not seem a conventional way of narrating stories. This, too, does not seem a narrative. Rather, it shows the memories as if the writer is taking his readers along with him on a verbal tour of the cities he has seen in his life. This type of narrative shows how indigenous writers want the readers to see their indigenous world.