Magical Realism

1
Magical Realism

• In application to Toni Morrisons Beloved

2
Spectrum of modern genres
Surrealism
Fantasy
Magical Realism
Realism
Escapism
Expressionism
Magic Science Fiction
Supernatural
3
Realism
Gustave Courbet, Stone-Breakers

• Focus on showing life as it really is. They try
  not to romanticize or idolize or hyperbolize.
• Mark Twain, Stephen Crane, Dostoyevsky
• 19th-20th century
• Early realists focused on representing lives not
  previously seen in fine arts (women, the poor,
  workers, street life, ethnicities) .

4
Expressionism

• Ma

• Presents the world in a subjective perspective,
  distorting it for emotional effect, to evoke
  moods or ideas.
• Seeks emotional experience and represents that
  over physical realism.
• Hemingway, Faulkner, Joyce
• Beginning of 20th century

5
Surrealism

• Salvador Dali, Persistence of Memory

• Inserts irrational and dreamlike images or
  elements into realistic style or setting.
• Surprising and unexpected juxtapositions
• Seeks to engage the unconscious mind in creating
  works of imagination.
• 1920s -40s

6
Magical Realism

• It is predominantly an art of surprises. Time
  exists in a kind of timeless fluidity and the
  unreal happens as part of reality.
• Magic becomes art when it has nothing to hide.
• a world view that is not based on natural or
  physical laws nor objective reality
• make the unseen or hidden elements of society
  visible.

Michael Parkes Gargoyles
7
Elements included in Magical Realism

• Hybridity - is illustrated in the inharmonious
  arenas of such opposites as urban and rural, and
  Western and indigenous. The plots of magical
  realist works involve issues of borders, mixing,
  and change often Latin American, Native
  American, Middle Eastern
• Irony Regarding Authors PerspectiveThe writer
  must have ironic distance from the magical world
  view for the realism not to be compromised.
  Authorial reticence refers to the lack of clear
  opinions about the accuracy of events and the
  credibility of the world views expressed by the
  characters in the text.
• Unusual sequence of events and POV fragmented
  time sequences, flashbacks, stream of
  consciousness, frequently switching point of view
• The Supernatural and NaturalIn magical realism,
  the supernatural is not displayed as
  questionable.
• Realistic setting and conflict (often points out
  or protests social or political concerns)
• Elements patterned on fairytales, tall tales,
  mythology, the mystic/spiritual, folklore, and a
  bond with the traditions or faith of a community.
  Events presented as absolutely real and often go
  unquestioned but have dreamlike or fairy-tale
  like qualities.

8
Well-known magical realist works

• Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of
  Solitude
• Laura Esquivel, Like Water for Chocolate
• Ben Okri, The Famished Road
• Toni Morrison, Beloved
• WP Kinsella, Shoeless Joe (made into the film,
  Field of Dreams)
• Salman Rushdie, Midnights Children
• These novels violate, in various ways, 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.

9
Problems with the term - Magical Realism

• Some claim that it is a postcolonial hangover, a
  category used by "whites" to marginalize the
  fiction of the "other."
• Others claim that it is a passé literary trend,
  or just a way to cash in on the Latin American
  "boom."
• Still others feel the term is simply too
  limiting, and acts to remove the fiction in
  question from the world of serious literature.

10
Application to Beloved

• Hybridity morphing from the living to the dead
  and the living dead (not zombies). Also
  morphing from African to American, from slave to
  free
• Supernatural a ghost haunts the house quite
  literally but also metaphorically. The ghost
  materializes into a girl (this is questionable
  but there are subtle hints)
• Realistic Setting Set in 1873 just after the
  American Civil War (18611865), it is based on
  the true story of the African-American slave,
  Margaret Garner, who escaped slavery in 1856 in
  Kentucky by fleeing to Ohio
• Experimental structure non-linear, flashbacks,
  fragmentation in stories, multiple POV switching
  frequently, stream of consciousness
• Incorporation of African folklore and beliefs
  about death

11
What we need to look for

• How does Morrisons techniques (elements of
  magical realism) affect our interpretation and
  experience of this story?
• How does magical realism and the structure of the
  story reinforce the themes and meaning of the
  work as a whole?