Chapter 6 - 3

03 Literature

Magical Realism

Literature is broken down into smaller categories, called genres, which describe the type of story or book that is being read.

Magical realism is a 20th-century literary genre.

The literature of this genre is varied, but it can generally be characterized by the occurrence of magical aspects in otherwise realistic settings.

The term “magical realism” originated in the art world.

It was coined by a German art critic named Franz Roh.

Interestingly, it was originally used to describe art that portrayed very common and boring scenes.

But when a Venezuelan writer named Arturo Uslar-Pietri used the term, it had a different meaning.

Uslar-Pietri applied it to the work of a group of Latin American writers that had emerged in the 1960s.

In their work were the first elements of magical realism as it is known to literary critics today.

Contrary to its original meaning, there is nothing boring about magical realism in literature.

Although the definition for magical realism is broad, there are six features recognized as essential to any work created in the genre.

The first is that the story is told from the perspective of “the Other”.

The concept of “the Other” in literature refers to a person who is different and outside of society because of it.

For example, in Jorge Luis Borges’s short story “The Shape of the Sword,” very little is revealed about the main character and narrator.

Through the course of the story, however, the reader learns that the main character is actually a traitorous soldier who betrayed his captain.

His narrative focuses on how different he is from his peers and emphasizes his feelings of isolation.

Another element common to magical realism is the assumption of the “evolved duties” of the reader.

This means that writers presuppose that, in deciding to pick up one of their books, the reader implicitly agrees to go farther than the literal meaning of the text.

Instead, the author requires the reader to accept the magical and unrealistic aspects of the story, as bizarre as they might seem, in order to decipher the rest of the text.

This element underscores one of the primary concerns of magical realists: how to get the reader involved in the story.

The third characteristic of magical realism is that the setting is always very specific to a particular history, culture, or geography.

These features are seen as essential in creating an altered reality.

By doing this, the author uses specific examples to try to impart universal messages.

For instance, in The Gesticulator by Rodolfo Usigli, the main character assumes the identity of a missing war hero.

As he becomes more entangled in his web of lies, the character feels that he is becoming the person he is emulating until their histories are completely one and the same.

The fourth aspect is that reality is treated as a subjective human experience.

Therefore, each reality is different.

Additionally, in order to reveal each reality more completely, authors often include dream sequences and private thoughts of their characters.

For example, in Juna Rulfo’s Pedro Paramo, the narrator and main character is a man who returns to his hometown to find his mother.

Instead, he meets the ghosts of the city’s inhabitants.

Through a series of supernatural dreams and encounters, he learns about the harsh history that they suffered at the hands of the cruel Pedro Paramo.

The next element is that the style of writing in magical realism is generally very open and influenced by post-structuralism.

The authors always assume that the meaning that they try to express is secondary to how the reader interprets it.

In other words, there is no single function to any story because it is yet to be analyzed by someone else.

Also, the events in stories are often out of order and seemingly chaotic.

The non-linear storyline adds to the feeling of a disrupted history and also forces the reader to pay attention to other aspects of the story.

Finally, magical realism is defined by inexplicable events or sequences.

Those sequences play a significant role in the stories.

It would be erroneous to suppose, however, that the magical events that happen in the story are just parts of the setting or otherwise something that could be ignored.

Instead, the fantastical is used to force people to be critical of their own realities.