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Content uploaded by Mohammed Naoua
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All content in this area was uploaded by Mohammed Naoua on Nov 02, 2020
Content may be subject to copyright.
People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria
Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research
Echahid Hamma Lakhdhar University, Eloued
Faculty of Arts and Languages
Department of Arts and English Language
Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for
a Master Degree in Literature and Civilization
Submitted by: Supervisor: Dr. Mohammed NAOUA
Asma Chaia
Leila Slimani
Rahil Touansa
Board of Examiners
Chairman: Mr. Adel Djrebiai Echahid Hamma Lakhdhar University, Eloued
Supervisor: Dr. Mohammed NAOUA Echahid Hamma Lakhdhar University, Eloued
Examiner: Miss. Afaf Mega Echahid Hamma Lakhdhar University, Eloued
Academic Year: 2019/20
Magical Realism in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ s
“One Hundred Years Of Solitude”
I
Dedication
We are grateful for Allah to accomplish this paper after a long studying journey.
We dedicate our dissertation to our families and friends. A special feeling of gratitude to
the lovely parents, sisters and brothers, who have supported us throughout the educational
path.
In the hopes that this work may in some way contribute to the development of the
coming researches.
II
Acknowledgments
First and Foremost praise to ALLAH for giving us the strength and knowledge to
conduct this study.
We would like to express our deep gratitude to Dr. Mohammed NAOUA, our research
supervisor, for his guidance, mentorship, patience and useful instructions along the writing
of this dissertation, without his help, this work would not have been possible.
We are also indebted to the members of the board of examiners: the chairman, Mr. Adel
Djrebiai and the examiner, Miss. Afaf Mega for reading, reviewing and evaluating our
work.
Our thanks and gratitude are extended to all the persons who have contributed to our
training and education, mainly our teachers at the graduation and master levels, as well as
the head of department and his deputies.
We would like to declare that any errors or mistakes are solely ours, thus we accept to
take full responsibility.
III
Abstract
Over the years, magical realism has succeeded to become a popular genre of Latin
America and an international mode of postcolonial writings as well. In this perspective,
this dissertation attempts to conduct an empirical analysis to examine, on the one hand, the
extent to which this genre has been incorporated in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One
Hundred Years of Solitude, and the range of depicting the social and political life in Latin
America on the other. In order to conduct such analysis, two hypotheses have been
formulated: the first highlights the relationship between the incorporation of Magical
Realist elements in One Hundred Years of Solitude and the reinforcement of the literary
movement in Latin America and in the Third World; and the second examines the extent to
which magical realism in Garcia's novel has succeeded in mirroring the real social and
political life in Latin America. In order to investigate the validity of our hypotheses, we
selected the corpora subject to this study from the previously mentioned novel, using the
techniques of the historical and descriptive-analytical methods. The Findings of the study
have revealed that elements of magical realism are strongly present in the entire twenty
chapters of the novel through the plot, the characters, the themes and the style, which
contributes to the improvement of the literary movement in this area. In addition, we have
also found that this genre does really depict the social and political life in Latin America.
In conclusion, the inclusion of magical realist elements in this novel has contributed to the
development of the literary movements whether in Latin America, or in the Third World.
Keywords: Hybridity, Irony, Magical Realism, Post-colonialism, The super natural.
IV
List of figures
Figure 1. 1 Interior at Petworth (1837) By JMW Turner (‟Expressionism In Art”) ............ 7
Figure 1. 2 ‟Guernica” by Pablo Picasso (“Guernica”) ....................................................... 9
Figure 1. 3 ‟The scream” by the Norwegian artist Edward Munch (“The Scream”) .......... 10
Figure 1. 4 The Starry Night (1888) by Van Gogh .(“New York: The Museum of Modern
Art 2019”)....................................................................................................................... 11
Figure 3. 1 Family tree of the Buendías (Mellen 14) ......................................................... 45
Table of Contents
Dedication ......................................................................................................................... I
Acknowledgments ............................................................................................................ II
Abstract ........................................................................................................................... III
List of figures ................................................................................................................. IV
Table of Contents ............................................................................................................... I
General Introduction .......................................................................................................... 1
Background of the Study ................................................................................................ 1
Aim of the Study ............................................................................................................ 1
Previous Studies ............................................................................................................ 1
Research Questions ........................................................................................................ 2
Hypotheses Formulation ................................................................................................ 2
Research Methodology .................................................................................................. 3
Choice of the Method ..................................................................................................... 3
Corpus Selection and Analysis ....................................................................................... 3
Definition of Term ......................................................................................................... 4
Structure of the Thesis ................................................................................................... 4
Chapter One: Magical Realism
1.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 6
1.2 The early Expressionism and Post-expressionism ......................................................... 6
1.3 Magical Realism ........................................................................................................ 13
1.3.1 Historical context ................................................................................................ 13
1.3.2 Definition of Magical Realism............................................................................. 14
1.4 Themes of Magical Realism ....................................................................................... 15
1.4.1 Identity ................................................................................................................ 15
1.4.2 Magic and Myth .................................................................................................. 16
1.4.3 Questioning of Reality ......................................................................................... 16
1.5 Characteristics of Magical Realism ............................................................................ 17
1.5.1 Hybridity ............................................................................................................. 17
1.5.2 Irony ................................................................................................................... 17
1.5.3 The Supernatural and Natural .............................................................................. 17
1.5.4 Time ................................................................................................................... 18
1.6 Magical Realism in Latin American literature ............................................................ 18
1.7 Movement variations .................................................................................................. 20
1.7.1 Feminism ............................................................................................................ 20
1.7.2 Post-colonialism .................................................................................................. 21
1.7.3 Post-modernism .................................................................................................. 22
1.8 Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 23
Chapter Two: Magical Realism in Latin America: Maturity of the Genre and its
Expansion Worldwide
2.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 24
2.2 The Maturity of Magical Realism in Latin America .................................................... 24
2.2.1 Alejo Carpentier (1904 -1980) ............................................................................. 25
2.2.2 Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1927, 2014 ) ................................................................ 27
2.2.3 Miguel Angel Asturias (1899-1974) .................................................................... 29
2.3 The Boom of the Genre and its expansion outside Latin America ............................... 31
2.3.1 Salman Rushdie “Midnight’s Children” .............................................................. 31
2.3.2 Naguib Mahfouz “The Thousand and One Nights” ............................................. 32
2.3.3 Toni Morrison “Beloved” ................................................................................... 35
2.3.4 Ben Okri “The Famished Road” ......................................................................... 36
2.4 Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 38
Chapter Three: Findings and Discussion
3.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 40
3.2 Method....................................................................................................................... 40
3.3 Corpus Collection and Selection ................................................................................. 43
3.3.1 Plot Structure ...................................................................................................... 43
3.3.1.1 Exposition .................................................................................................... 43
3.3.1.2 Rising Action ............................................................................................... 43
3.3.1.3 Climax .......................................................................................................... 44
3.3.1.4 Falling Action............................................................................................... 44
3.3.1.5 Resolution .................................................................................................... 44
3.3.2. The Novel Major characters ............................................................................... 44
3.3.2.1 Jose Arcadio Buendía ................................................................................... 45
3.3.2.2 Úrsula Iguarán .............................................................................................. 46
3.3.2.3 Melquíades ................................................................................................... 47
3.3.2.4 Colonel Aureliano ........................................................................................ 47
3.3.2.5 Aureliano(II) ................................................................................................ 48
3.4 Elements of Magical Realism ..................................................................................... 49
3.4.1 Identity ................................................................................................................ 49
3.4.2 Solitude ............................................................................................................... 49
3.4.3 Propriety, Sexuality, and Incest ........................................................................... 50
3.4.4 Magic vs Reality ................................................................................................. 50
3.4.5 The Circularity of Time ....................................................................................... 51
3.5 Results and Corpus Collection .................................................................................... 51
3.5.1 The Setting .......................................................................................................... 51
3.5.2 Symbols .............................................................................................................. 53
3.5.3 Allegory .............................................................................................................. 55
3.5.4 Foreshadowing .................................................................................................... 56
3.6 Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 57
General Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 59
Works Cited ..................................................................................................................... 62
............................................................................................................................... 68
1
General Introduction
Background of the Study
Literature and society are connected in a dynamic way. Books can be visualized as an
art that reflects human life experiences about culture and politics. Writers carry the cultural
and political side of their society into fiction and to raise peoples’ awareness so they make
the necessary changes in their world. Speaking of which, Latin American authors create a
precious legacy, consisting of knowledge and experiences of social and political reality of
Latin America. The reality that is encountered in their texts is based on magical realism
narration. The latter amalgamates the indigenous myth, folkloric storytelling and imaginary
world to form the literary genre (Mudrovčić 3). The most famous example of literary
Magic Realism remains Gabriel García Márquez’s novel One Hundred Years of Solitude
which is the case study of the dissertation.
Aim of the Study
The study aims to investigate the use of magical realism genre as literary technique,
which enabled Latin American writers to mirror their cultural and historical experiences in
their writing. It also seeks to highlight the impact of this genre on Latin American novels,
and more specifically on Gabriel Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude.
Previous Studies
Many books tackled either magical realism or Gabriel Garcia’s One Hundred Years of
Solitude novel as a subject matter of their writings. Among these, Maggie Ann Bowers’ s
Magic (al) Realism (2004) which helped the field in tracing the origins and the history of
the magic (al) realism, it, also provides analysis of key works of magic (al) realists fiction.
In addition, there is Anne C. Hegerfeldt’ s Lies that Tell the Truth (2004) book which adds
2
a critical analysis of several works to reveal how magical realists techniques generate a
complex critique of the West’s rational-empirical worldview from the Western context
itself. Susan Muaddi Darraj’s The Great Hispanic Heritage: Gabriel García Márquez
(2006) presents biography of Gabriel García Márquez; his childhood, self-realization and
his career. Finally we cannot deny the fact that Eva Aldea’s Magical Realism and Deleuze
(2011) contributed to vanish the fusion of the idea of what drives the fantastic engine in
magical realism through Gilles Deleuze’s philosophy and readings of literature. These
books are the final results of a long process of research of magical realism that shows the
importance of the genre in the world literature.
Research Questions
For the purpose of achieving the research objectives, the following questions have been
asked.
- To what extent has magical realism contributed to the development of Latin
American literature?
- What is the extent to which the incorporation of magical realist elements in One
Hundred Years of Solitude have succeeded in depicting the social and political life
in Latin America?
Hypotheses Formulation
To search for the responses of the research questions, we find it logical to formulate
these hypotheses:
- The incorporation of the Magical realist elements in Latin American literature have
reinforced the literary movements in this area, and gave it primacy over Third World
post-colonialist literature.
3
- Magical Realism in Gabriel Garcia’s One Hundred Years of Solitude has succeeded
in depicting the social and political life in Latin America.
Research Methodology
This section encompasses three main constituents: the choice of the method, the corpus
subject to our analysis, as well as the source from which we intend to select the corpora,
Gabriel Garcia’s One Hundred Years of Solitude.
Choice of the Method
Since this study is concerned with the chronological development of Magical realism,
its maturity in Latin America, and its expansion worldwide, we find it wise to incorporate
the techniques of three methods: the historical, the descriptive and analytical methods. The
historical method attempts to trace the origin and progress of magical realism. It can also,
provide a general scope of the historical framework of Colombia, the host country of our
case of study. Equally important, the use descriptive-analytical techniques can help us
select and analyze the gathered Corpora in One Hundred Years of Solitude. Eventually we
stand on the chosen methods as the most suitable approach to answer our research
questions.
Corpus Selection and Analysis
In order to get comprehensive answers to our questions, and to test the validity of our
hypotheses, we decided to gather our data or corpora from Garcia's One Hundred Years of
Solitude. Of course, the aim is to measure the extent of the magical realist elements in the
novel, and examine whether they have really depicted the social life in Latin America, and
how they contributed to the development of the literary movement, in general. The
4
selection of One Hundred Years of Solitude is mainly related to its value in literature as a
great demonstration of magical realistic techniques. In short, the selected corpora analyses
tend to test and prove whether our hypotheses, which claim that Gabriel Garcia’s One
Hundred Years of Solitude is a vivid representation of magical realism that reinforced the
Latin American literature, are true or false.
Definition of Term
Expressionism: According to the Oxford Dictionary, expressionism is a style of art which
expresses the artist feelings and thoughts instead of the external reality.
Magical Realism: It is a term coined by Franz Roh in 1925. It refers to the art of blinding
the fantasy with the realist subjects.
Post-colonialism: It is the academic study of the cultural legacy of colonialism and
imperialism, focusing on the human consequences of the control and exploitation of
colonized people and their lands.
Post-modernism: It is the name given to the period a literary criticism that develops
toward the end of twentieth century. The theory was a reaction to the rational, scientific
and historical aspects of the modern age.
The boom: It is the narrative development of Latin American literature between 1960s and
1970s. In this period, the Latino literary works acquire an international recognition in the
World Literature.
Structure of the Thesis
The research is organized into three chapters. The first chapter introduces the magical
realism genre and its historical development in literature. It starts with the emergence of
5
the term in Germany. It also provides a definition for this genre, highlights its
characteristics and themes, and underlines its contribution to other literary movements.
The second chapter accounts for the maturity of the genre in Latin America and its
expansion to other third world literary movements. Moreover, it introduces some
prominent writers, who contributed to the genre development in Latin American literature,
mentioning their most prominent works.
The last chapter focuses on the selection, analysis and discussion of the corpora
available in ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’. The aim is to answer the research questions
and support the hypotheses. This section also outlines the plot structure, the major
characters, themes and the style; in particular, the chapter attempts to analyze the main
themes which include identity, solitude, propriety, sexuality, incest, magic vs reality and
the circularity of time. It also discusses the use of magical realism notions in the narrative
style.
6
Chapter One: Magical Realism
1.1 Introduction
This chapter attempts to present magical realism. It first section explores the artistic
movement of expressionism. This general art style affected the artistic taste of people at
that time and transformed them from being Superficial objective art receivers to emotive
subjective art receivers. This movement moved the perception to a deeper level. All of that
has smoothed the way to the emergence of post expressionism movement. It also explores
magical realism origins and provides a chronological sketch for its development. In this
context, it outlines the emergence of magic realism and magical realism in other fields
such as art, painting and media. The chapter also identifies the term of ‘magical realism’
with respect to authors’ perceptions and insights to erase confusion laying on its pure
meaning. In addition, it contains the genre significant characteristics along with its major
themes. Furthermore, the chapter explores the relation of magical realism to Latin
American literature, it explains the Boom scope. The final title brings together data about
magical realism genre and its influence over other movements such as, feminism,
postmodernism and postcolonialism. Ultimately, the first chapter is considered with the
basics of magical realism as literary genre.
1.2 The early Expressionism and Post-expressionism
Expressionism is an artistic movement which appears during the end of 19th century and
the beginning of 20th century in Germany, Europe and Latin America. It simulates strong
human emotions or feelings particularly that associated with war experience pain, horror,
fear, the reaction of facing death). It deals with the subjective expression of the artist’s
inner experiences that used their art to oppose the strong experience of the WWI (Rave 4).
At first, the emergence of expressionism was in 1905 by four Germanic architecture
7
students who decided to be painters( Enst Ludwig Kirchner, Fritz Bleyl, Karl schmidt-
Rottluff ,and Erich Heckel ) and formed a group called ‟The Bridge ”; it is inspired from
being a link between the internal world of the artist and the external world of the viewer.
After that , in 1911, another group was formed named ‟The Blue Rider”, one of its main
founders was Wassily Kandinsky , the owner of the rejected painting ‛The Last
Jugment′(1910) (‟Expressionism” ).Indeed, Expressionism as an art can be augured before
its emergence in the work of a British artist called JMW Tuner , ‟Intrior at
PetWorth”(1837), a painting of landscape(‟Expressionism In Art”).
The landscape Painting by the British landscape artist Joseph Mallord William Turner,
he demonstrates in his works impressionistic in style. In his works, he gives more attention
to the atmospheric effect than details .Turner mastered making light to play of it on
painting the landscape with disregarding for the objects. He uses more water-colors and
oil-painting.
Figure 1. 1 Interior at Petworth (1837) By JMW Turner (‟Expressionism In Art”)
8
In fact, expressionism had existed even before the 19th and 20th C. It had been noted in
prehistoric cave traces, unknowable art works by indefinite artists in previous ages,
continued by Italian Renaissance artists like Matthias Grunewald(c.1475ˍ1528),then
Mannerists,18th and 19th c, after that, the modernists like Picasso (‟Expressionism In Art”).
The term Expressionism has been coined in 1910 by Czech art historian named
‛Antonin Matejcek’ who opposed the style of impressionism and its sanctification of nature
and objects, he shifted into the inner world of the human (‟Expressionism”).
Expressionism is a personal art form, which tries to convey personal subjective feelings
about realistic objective issues. It seeks to achieve extreme mind taking of the viewer by its
distortion of painting accuracy. This art is characterized by the use of warm colors with
thick texture, rough extravagant painting. It suppressed the object and represents the
expressive deformation (Rave 10).This art is considered as an emotive or interpretive art
which reacts to the passive style of impressionism .In this subjective art style, the artists
express their feelings about what they see (‟Expressionism In Art”). Expressionists
preferred antique techniques and the primitive art than the urban world. Ernst Gombrich,
an art historian and the writer of ‛Art of Time ′, sees that the art experience is not about
imitating the nature, but about how we express the feeling through what how to choose
colors and lines (‟A Movement in a Movement”).
The following are expressionist figures :
9
The first painting: It is considered as a Youthful political message in which Picasso
reacted to the Destructive Nazi' practices on Guernica in Spain during the civil war. It
reflects the tragedies on individuals which makes this work classified as a powerful
antiwar symbol in the art world (“Guernica”).it is known as powerful anti-war painting in
the world
Figure 1. 2 ‟Guernica” by Pablo Picasso (“Guernica”)
The second painting: The painting of the scream is autobiographical work in which
Edvard Munch expresses his personal experience, he heard sharp scream through the
nature while he was walking on the bridge. At the first moment of seeing the work, It
stimulates strong destroying human emotions of the viewer (“The Scream”).
10
Figure 1. 3 ‟The scream” by the Norwegian artist Edward Munch (“The Scream”)
The third painting: Indicates the instable mind of the artist, who states that this art was
the night effect on him (“The starry night”), Van Gogh adds emotional, moody, and
expressive representation to the art due to his mental illness. Van Gogh made a series of
paintings during his Accommodation in Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum in Saint-Rémy, in
southern France which The Starry Night one of them.(“New York: The Museum of
Modern Art, 2019”).
Van Gogh: The father of self-expression in painting history, his works are considered
as a reflection to his thoughts ,feelings and even his life events(‟Expressionism In Art”).
11
Figure 1. 4 The Starry Night (1888) by Van Gogh .(“New York: The Museum of
Modern Art 2019”)
In Germany, expressionism formalized the aesthetic landscape and culture of the early
Weimar Republic. The history of Weimar and the First World War had dynamic role in the
art and writings of the time at the level of style and form. Later, the war deforms the
aesthetic landscape and artistic ideals norms. The total losses was close to 10 million,
many of the authors and artists of that time took part in the war or witnessed the
destruction the war made (Kennedy1-2). Additionally, the high number of deaths, the rapid
urbanization and mechanization, and the modernity had its impact on the artistic output.
This was how Expressionism flourished.
The expressionists wanted a change in society; they wanted to achieve “a new form of
liberty and liberation for the individual and by implication for society as a whole”
(Kennedy 6). First of all, In literature, Expressionism had come across the themes of
materialism, bourgeois world, mechanization and urbanization, and the role of
12
family(‟Expressionism in Literature”).Expressionist writers objected the values of society
and accommodated the developments that occur to the civilization. Expressionists tried to
take readers imaginations and emotions. For this Nell et al uses new techniques like:
Stream of consciousness to login characters minds and psychology in its paradox.
Expressionist literature was influenced by Sigmund Freud’s psychological theories and
Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy. Vivid examples that are proposed as expressionist
literary works: ‛The Transformation’(1915),‛In The Penal Settlement’(1919),and ‛The
Castle’(1926) by Franz Kafka. Then, in the visual arts, Expressionists tended to use the
natural form of an object and distorted it to convey inner feelings and primal emotions.
They also used blond and sharp colors to emphasize the unmediated experience. In
Addition, drama in expressionism focuses on what and how a character deals with the
surroundings in rational and irrational manners (Kennedy 9). Expressionist plays were full
of symbols representation. It emphasizes the internal state of individual, uses long
monologues with substantial language (‟Expressionism in Literature”). Besides, in film
and theater, they condensed the use of symbolism to convey emotions and life
representations (Kennedy 9). Furthermore, in painting, they utilized the light colors,
focused on the individual view into the world and less emphasis on the realistic details.
Also expressionism neglects the real human form and forces the viewer to receive the
harsh colors and reformatted figures psychology (Kennedy 29).
In 1933,the Nazis had controlled over the region of Germany. Expressionism had been
offended and called ‛degenerate art’, wheresoever its figures were exiled (Kennedy 34).
Post-expressionism is the following movement after expressionism. First, It has
flourished in the political, economic, and social anarchy of the Weimar republic(‟German
Post-Expressionism”) .For the first time, This term was coined by Franz Roh in 1925, who
utilized post-expressionism to express post war art. It is described as a variety of
13
movements that were affected by expressionism with rejecting its aesthetics. After losing
faith in expressionism, post expressionist tendencies were generated as a rejection to the
abstraction of expressionism toward nature. Those movements attempted to show realistic
matters with sense of profoundness and depth. The movements that are assembled under
the umbrella of post-expressionism were: New Objectivity and Varism by Gustav Friedrich
Hartland which were interested in returning to the unemotional objective reality that
opposed the expressionist perspectives(‟New Objectivity”), Animism which is a ‘believe
in innumerable spiritual beings concerned with human affairs and capable of helping or
harming human interests’ (Park), and magical realism. Roh, in his well-known essay:
‛Nach-Expressionismus, Magischer Realismus: Probleme der neuesten europäischen
Malerei’, indicates that post expressionism and magical realism are used interchangeably,
latter will be called magical realism (“Post-expressionism”).
1.3 Magical Realism
1.3.1 Historical context
The Issue of Origins and Definition
Magical realism, magic realism, marvellous realism are all terms used to describe and
refer to a specific narrative style. There is controversy about the origins of the exact
timeline of this movement. However “most of the prominences writers in this genre agree
upon, the fact, that there’s no typical or stander definition to this term. I.e. this term is
notoriously; hard to define. On the other hand, and to set and to associate the history of
magical realism specialists tend to follow its use in different fields of art, literature, and
media from its first use 1920, in the German art criticism until the recent days,
contemporary literary criticism” (Maggi 15). According to Roberto Gonzales “The general
absence of historical bearings in the formulation of magic realism is responsible for the
14
confusion surrounding the term” (Aldea 1). As he tends to highlight the origin of the term
in three distinct periods; the first period started in Germany in the 1920s. The second
appear in central America in the 1940s, and the last, began in 1955 in Latin America and
spread all over the world until the recent days. However a major reasoned for the spread
and the development of magic (al) realism, according to Maggi Anne this was due to
prominent figures, for instance, the German art critic Franz Roh, the Cuban author Alejo
Carpentier, the Italian writer Massimo Bontempelli, , and the well-known Latin-American
novelist GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZ:
“The first of Magic realism or ‘Magischer Realismus’ used is coined
from the German art critic Franz Roh works; in 1925, an article on post-
expressionist art concerning painting of the Weimar republic as an
attempt to mirror the miserable life behind the reality, the second of the
term ‘lo real maravilloso’ or marvellous realism; as a concept of a
multiple between reality and fantasy to express the different culture of
Latin American through art and literature, is introduced in Latin America
during 1940s.‘realismo màgico’ as a third term adopts in 1950 in related
to Latin American fiction” (Bowers 16).
Thus, magic realism starts to extend from Germany to many other European countries
and occasionally to North America. Finally, the three stages of its development, creates the
confusion to define magic realism or to select its particular meaning. The critics make the
term widely known to a large group of readers yet a very small category of them have a
clear idea about it. Magical realism has a sense of philosophy, art, and literature, but its
true nature flourished in the literature of Latin America.
1.3.2 Definition of Magical Realism
As readers we might think that the phrase magical realism seems to be contradictory.
After all, how can something be on the one hand magical and real on the other? The title of
Kenneth Reeds’s article, Magical Realism: A Problem of Definition, see that defining the
genre of magical realism has been a challenge. “Not only has an academic definition been
15
difficult, but even the literary classification of magical realism has been debated with some
proposing it as a genre” (Duncan 3). For the sake of illustrating the real meaning of
magical realism, it is important to discuss the norms of realism first (Dallin 7). The latter is
representing life’ s events in literature as they occur. This literary movement of 1865 to
1900 mainly provides insights on what is really happening in the society that time. Magic
(al) in the other hand, is all the fantastic elements and supernatural events. So, the
combination of realism and magic results magical realism genre, i.e. “the term magical
realism is an oxymoron, one that suggests a binary opposition between the representational
code of realism and that, roughly, of fantasy” (Slemon 2). Alejo Carpentier views that the
key of magical realist texts lies in the existing reality as platform for magical realism, “a
reality which is already in and of itself magical or fantastic”(4). According to Webster's
New Collegiate Dictionary, 1977, magical realism is a literary genre or a style associated
with Latin American literature that incorporates fantastical mythical elements into
otherwise realistic fiction called magical realism. Finally, it can be said that Magic realism
is a literary genre in which uncanny, peculiar, and dreamlike stories are combined as if the
events were not just possible but, also realistic (Geetha 1).
1.4 Themes of Magical Realism
Magical realists writers choose the genre as a mean to address many issues of the Latin
Americans, for instances, it attempts to mirror the issues of identity, magic and myth, and
questioning reality. All of these concerns are themes of magical realism.
1.4.1 Identity
“Magical realism is considered a tool in the search for a distinctive and positive Latin
American identity in the face of external ideas of what this identity should be, in particular
through a return to the myths and stories of Latin America.” (Aldea 41) It is all started
16
when identity was obliterated in Latin America, reality needed to be stated. The “identity
was racial, colonial and negative” (Hawkesworth 12) that resulted the South American
population loss of identity and culture diversity. Therefore the country writers saw the
necessity for the production of collective utterances capable of stating the roots of Latino
identity “through the invention of new myths” (Aldea 148). They incorporate, in their
writing, new myths in storytelling to present a new point of view about certain events,
either historical, political, economic, social, or cultural of the Latin America present time.
1.4.2 Magic and Myth
The creation of magical and mythical narration is an essential theme in magical realism.
Authors’ ability to reinvent visions, spells, omens and old myths with the uncanny,
marvellous and fantastic elements to new stories is very attracting as mode of writing.
Gabriel García Márquez is the best example in reinventing his grandmother old myths to
new ones by mixing it with the magic in his novel One Hundred Years of Solitude. Magic
realism use of “myths and magic” is considered as a tool in the search for the distinctive
Latin American identity, whether they be native, colonial or modern. This strategy
captivates readers to be engaged in this marvelous combination of the magical and
mythical events, which goes naturally in flow of narration, without antinomy (Aldea 12).
Therefore the theme of “magic and myth” is very important in magical realistic writings.
1.4.3 Questioning of Reality
Writers tend to create plots with very bazar and strange to the mind within a real setting.
Therefore, contradictions and inconsistencies of what is real and unreal, shapes the point of
view of readers. Based on questioning what the audience understands about the world at
large, as well as what happens inside the story. According to Angel Flores magical realism
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involves both real and fantasy in often quoted, but equally often found wanting as “the
amalgamation of reality and fantasy” (Naimi 15).
1.5 Characteristics of Magical Realism
Magical realists incorporate many techniques that strengthen its position as narrative
style in literature. The three following points fare its crucial features:
1.5.1 Hybridity
Magical realism is about mixing various multiple lines, that are reflected in mixing of
genres, plots and periods and skipping time and space Authors set up these elements to
reveal major themes of magical realism and deeper insights about the true reality of the
worlds. Hybridity is more than illustrating conventional realist techniques but rather
integrating in opposite worlds, reality with magic, dream with life, normal with abnormal
and Western with indigenous (“Magic Realism Characteristics”).
1.5.2 Irony
The postcolonial writers rebut the idea of “irony and postcolonial cannot meet
comfortably on the same page” (Takolander 9). Rather applying irony in writing edgy
ironic texts by redefining magical realist narrative, thus to make readers uncomfortable via
′defamiliarization′ to use fiction out of typical and usual context to complex and difficult
interpretations (9). As Echevarria points out, its distancing the individual from standard
beliefs held by a certain social group makes it impossible to be thought of as a
representative of that society.
1.5.3 The Supernatural and Natural
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The story is set in an ordinary world, with familiar historical and/or cultural realities.
Story events are not always explained by universal laws or familiar logic ( Sellman and
Deefholts ). It is treated not as a miracle, but as an everyday event. The plot, as it unfolds,
gives the reader a sense of being inside a puzzle or maze. As a result of the use of the
magical elements such as metamorphose, personification, allegory, and others in the story
keeps readers mind busy and always looking for answers ( Naimi 39).
1.5.4 Time
The usual chronological time order is different in the magical literature. Time does not
behave in the way the reader would expect it to behave in the real world. It is
unpredictable; it loops back, moves forward, skips or stay still. Therefore, for magic
realists, time is nonlinear (“Cyclical Time Structure in One Hundred Years of Solitude”).
1.6 Magical Realism in Latin American literature
“Latin America is widely considered as the place where magic realism developed
exponentially and began its rise as a global literary phenomenon” (Asayesh 9). It has been
applied extensively, almost carelessly, to gain recognition of this genre in literature. That is
to say, Latin-American writers started using magical realism in their writings to express
their culture as vibrant and complex, as well as, showing the true American identity. When
first landing in Latin America, the genre was first applied to literature by Cuban novelists
like Alejo Carpentier (1904-1980), Miguel Angel Asturias (1899-1974), Gabriel Garcia
Marquez (1927-2014), Julio Cortazar (1914-1984), Carlos Fuentes (1928-2012) and others
(Naimi 21). This narrative development in the Latin American literature (1940-1950) only
can be explained by The Boom. According to Doris Sommer and George Yudice, the boom
“hit[s] the international literary scene like a tornado, leaving behind a path strewn with
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prestigious literary prizes and starry eyed, awed, and even envious writers from the
European and North American centers of ‘World’ culture” (Hegerfeldt 20).
In Slemon’s Magic Realism as Post-Colonial Discourse, during the second half of the
20th Century, Latin America went through a convulsive period. Some countries, such as
Chile, Colombia and Mexico, were struggling with instability, dictatorships, and political
violence. This led to abrupt and, for the most part, confusing social changes, including the
Cuban Revolution, led by Ernesto Che Guevara and Fidel Castro, the same for the
Caribbean, India, Nigeria, and Canada. He believes that putting Canada in this category is
surprising, since, unlike the other areas, it is not part of the Third World (Slemon 9).
The idea of magic realism in a Canadian context, however, raises different questions,
referring to the country’s history of colonial domination over native peoples, ongoing
internal battles regarding the status of distinct societies residing within Canada
(particularly Francophones living in Québec), and the lengthy period of British
imperialism. In the late 1970s, Magic realism was first applied to define English-Canadian
novels and short stories, as Geoff Hancock declares in his book Magic Realism, or, the
Future of Fiction, in 1977, that the documentary realism in Canadian fiction is seen as
preposterous. Therefore, writers are suddenly free to be creative in applying dream
imagery to objective reality. Magic realism provided a new wave of writing, which
acknowledged both the realist conventions that had shaped the development of Canadian
literature and some of the innovative strategies being used to challenge the solidity of this
foundation (“Andrews”).
Back to Latin American writers, whom succeeded in making home their inspiration,
rather than relying on foreign treaties and ideas to fuel their imaginations. So they included
revolutionary ideas in their own lives, and articulated these same beliefs in their writings.
20
García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), is the best example for exploring
some of the key social, political, and economic struggles in South America’s history
through the story of the Buendía family.
All in all, magical realism is conceived of as a literary genre or artistic style in which
Latin American social, natural and cultural landscape flourished.
1.7 Movement variations
As might be expected in a relatively new philosophic movements, there are a variety of
different understandings, proposals, and approaches reflecting on the particular interests of
writers and contributors to that new philosophy. Magical realism’s distinguished features
attract the attention of the readers. By the time Isabel Allende and others were presenting
their major papers on the basics of magical realism individually; according to their own
understanding of the concept, as time passed magical realism started to be a worldwide
movement led by prominent writers. Among these variations are feminism,
postcolonialism and postmodernism.
1.7.1 Feminism
Feminism is a movement that supports women right, especially gender equality.
According to Maggie Ann Bowers feminism in literary criticism is an approach which
expresses the experiences, attitudes and status of women in fiction. Therefore, female
magical realist novelists have attempted to link feminism with magical realism. “Although
we can discern certain common strategies between feminist issues and magical realist
practices, magical realism is not a feminist genre” (Faris 172), however there are many
writings about women’s issues with “no single definable feminist ideology that joins them”
(172).
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This mode of fiction has open new doors for women to search for a cultural and
personal identity that is self-defined. Thus in its deconstruction of current ideology, has
become a quest to others of the world (Kolahjooei and Beyad 156). Females, as part of
others, obtain a position in the male-centered society. Female thinkers use magical realism
to enhance and empower women’s status “patriarchal society” (161). Isabel Allende is a
great example for feminists’ voice, who holds magical realism as sword to fight in the
men’s realm. Her ‘La Casa de los Espíritus’ ‘The House of the Spirits’ novel gained
worldwide recognition due to its support to female liberty, through the eyes of Nivea,
Clara, Blanca and Alba gradually symbolizing the phases of feminism. Whereas, Nivea
symbolizes the early struggle movement, Clara, more personal statement of freedom,
Blanca, the movement towards free and healthy passion, and Alba, the unification of this
special shapes of protest and their most recent achievements (“the House of the Spirits”).
Allende re-creates her own past by narrating stories of the Trueba family. She paints a
picture of women in battle against men and their oppressive government. Besides to García
Márquez ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’, Ann-Marie MacDonald ‘Fall On Your Knees’,
Laura Esquivel with her first novel ‘Like Water Like Chocolate’ , and Maggie Ann
Bowers.
1.7.2 Postcolonialism
Post-colonialism is considered to be purely Latin American phenomenon, magic realism
has come to be regarded as a mode available to postcolonial writers in general, providing
them with a means to challenge the dominant Western world-view. Many distinct
postcolonial texts, with many distinct experience of the same colonial influence, adapt
magical realism to express such experiences. The post-colonial thinkers believe that
realism is cultural representation and ideological domination of the colonizer. Magic
realism puts forward a strategic way to insert history into imaginative world (Slemon 3).
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This means, authors blend their fiction with unrealistic print while referring to their
historical incidents and resentments toward colonialism. Salman Rushdie is mostly famous
of his novel The Midnight Children. His remarkable novel has its special flavor where he
presents history in magical way, precisely Rushdie utilizes magical realism to create a very
powerful artistic mood of literature; a world full of fantasy and unexplainable events
within real life. Salman as a postcolonial writer highlights the Indian situation after British
rule. He pictures the postcolonial social, cultural, political, and religious activities that
where apparent in India.
1.7.3 Postmodernism
Magical realism can be considered as a postmodern mood. According to Wendy Faris
magical realism is “an important component of postmodernism with its postcolonial
considerations” (Faris 234). This quote indicates that magical realism genre and its
postcolonial techniques switched into postmodernism mean to an alternative modes of
thought (Duncan 5). In which the ordinary old regulation of traditions, fable and myths are
amalgamated, mixed and incorporated in the frame of the modern society (9). Faris states
that John Barth’s essay ‘The Literature of Replenishment’ considers García Márquez’s One
Hundred Years of Solitude as an excellent example of postmodernism fiction due to its
incorporation of fantastical elements besides the social and political matters of Latin
American with ironical sense (Aldea 9). In addition to Donald Barthelme’s Snow White
(1967) and Toni Morrison’s Songs of Solomon(1977) and Beloved (1987), who recently
won the Noble Prize for literature. To sum, any magical realists work can be seen from
postmodernism point of view.
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1.8 Conclusion
This chapter attempted to provide an overview of the concept of Magical Realism we
highlighted its origin and the literary movements that contributed to its appearance . In this
context we started with tracing back the early expressionism and its relation to magical
realism. Tracing back the issue of its origin and delimiting the term. Furthermore to
presented the themes and the characteristics of the genre. Last, we mentioned the influence
of magic realism over feminism postmodernism and postmodernism movements.
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Chapter Two: Magical Realism in Latin America: Maturity of
the Genre and its Expansion Worldwide
2.1 Introduction
The second chapter examines two components: the maturity of Magical Realism inside
Latin America and the boom of the genre and its expansion outside Latin America. The
first component focuses on the growth of the genre by its practitioners in the Latin
American context. The chosen writers have great contributions in shifting the European art
magical realism into the Latino American literature. These writers include: Alejo
Carpentier, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Isabel Allende and Miguel Angel Asturias. The
second component is mainly about significant writings that helped the genre gain its
international recognition. And the influential works are: Salman Rushdie’s “The Midnight
Children”, Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “One Hundred Years of Solitude”, Naguib
Mahfouz’s “The Arabian Nights”, Toni Morrison’s “Beloved” and “The Famished Road”
Ben Okri. In general, this chapter is an eye focus to the genre from Latin America and its
Boom to the international level.
2.2 The Maturity of Magical Realism in Latin America
The genre was firstly conducted by Roh in its visual art context. By the time it moved to
the Latin American continent. Yet, authors brought it with putting their fingerprint. Latin
American writers found magical realism as a space to express their imaginative thoughts.
So they adopted it with iron pens ready to fight for their cases and rights. Therefore, they
wrote about the political, economic, and cultural reality in mythical and fantastical texts.
The study selects Alejo Carpentier, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Isabel Allende and Miguel
Angel Asturias as models of magical realism founders.
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2.2.1 Alejo Carpentier (1904 -1980)
One of the noticeable figures of modern Latin American literature, is Alejo Carpentier,
in full Alejo Carpentier Valmont .The latter was born in Havana, Cuba. He wrote in several
forms that explore the pattern that history and politics essentially influenced the region's
culture (“Alejo Carpentier 1904-1980: Writer Biography”). Thus, he is considered as a
leading novelist of the 20th century, as well as a musicologist, an essayist, and a
playwright. Among the first practitioners of the style of “magic realism,” he exerted a
decisive influence on many Latin American writers throughout his works such as: The
Ecuk Yamba, The Kingdom of this World, The Lost Steps, Explosion in a Cathedral,
Reasons of State, Rite of Spring and the short novel The Harp and The Shadow
“His writing became known not just for its engagement with political and
historical themes but also for its encyclopedic scholarship. Carpentier's
knowledge of anthropology, history, geography, science, music, visual
art, folk traditions, and literature was on prominent display in his novels”
(“Alejo Carpentier: 1904-1980: Writer”)
The theory of the marvelous real, the one that is emerged in Alejo’ s thoughts and ideas,
is the closest concept to those items of Roh’ s Magic Realism (Rave 22). In his book, The
Baroque and the Marvelous Real, Carpentier declares:
““Baroque” is multiple, diverse, and enormous-more than the work of a
single architect or artist. Baroque is not an invention of the 17 the
century, it is a creative impulse that recurs throughout history, in art,
literature, architecture, or music, a spirit that emerges over
centuries”(22).
By comparison to other theories and artistic movements, the writer tends to create
lengths in order to explain what Baroque is and what he is not. It is not academism, the
latter is characterized by a settled time, it is also governed by some norms, whereas
baroque is innovative and rises during times of change or unrest(22-23).
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The author offers the idea of the American Baroque. He suggests that it flourished along
with the Criollo or Mestizo culture. The Criollo or Mestizo spirit, facing something new
and challenging, was itself the baroque spirit, thus, the various vision of Baroque; a
variety of mixed Spanish, Indians, and Blacks, engendered what he calls the "Marvelous
Real"(23-24). In contrast to what is common, marvelous is neither beautiful nor terrible;
rather, it is terrific because it is unique and extraordinary. Various thoughts on “marvelous
real” are presented in books, but what makes Carpentier' s version different is that “his
“Marvelous Real” is found uncluttered in its natural state in all that is Latin America,
where the extraordinary is commonplace and requires no invention”(24).
Lo real maravilloso americano’, is Alejo Carpentier’s expression that is entangled itself
with Franz Roh’s ‘Magischer Realismus’. Not only did Carpentier apply the concept to
deliver the Latin American reality but the extraordinary that is present within it.
Carpentier’s use of the term ‘maravillaso’ sought to take into account both the beautiful
and the terrible which are seen in the violence, discrimination and dictatorships of Latin
America. To Carpentier, even though it was not announced in the expression ‘lo real
maravilloso americano’ magic is an essential and a basic item to experience the marvelous.
According to his opinion, the whole Latin America’s history can be considered as a
marvelous which has earlier been described by the Conquistadors themselves and the
ethnic cultural base of Latin America made it possible to discover the marvelous in
everyday life (Nedungadi 52). The Kingdom of this World is Alejo’s most famous novel. It
addresses a message that “The meaning of things lies beyond any one point of view” and
“the prologue of the novel gave an ‘authoritative definition of Magical Realism” (52). ‘Lo
real maravillaso Americano’ gives the concept of Magical Realism “the stamp of cultural
authority, if not theoretical soundness”. It is Carpentier’s definition that led to the fact that
Latin America is the home of magical realism (52).
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Eventually, Carpentier’s thoughts, and debates about the ‘marvellous’ in Latin America
resulted in the second essential school of Magical Realism. Carpentier approached the term
from an anthropological vision. The school of critics took magical realism from different
angel which focuses on Latin American ontology, and breaking away from Roh’ s aesthetic
norms of magical realism(53). Alejo lunched a movement that found its basics in
nostalgia for “home” and the memory of what they had left behind(53).
While the French Surrealists based heavily on the power of imagination to conjure the
world of magic, the Latin American writers, felt the magic in diverse realities of Latin
America. Carpentier integrated magic into the landscape of Latin America. However, his
realization of the fact that French Surrealism encouraged writers to be conjurers “who had
to instill magic and a sense of wonder into a reality that was devoid of magic” (Rave 25),
can be noticed in his first novel, Ecue-Yamba where he released from the Surrealists norm
His shifting from surrealism to magical realism can heavily be seen in a collection of his
seven novels. Thus, in the debut of his career Carpentier’s use of magical realism was not
declared but gradually he adopted the magic elements to reach the aim of any magical
realistic author, which is mirroring the nation’s struggles against discrimination (25).
2.2.2 Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1927, 2014 )
Gabriel Garcia Marquez is one of the Boom of the genre’s central figures. Born on
March 6, 1927 in Colombia, the author, novelist, journalist, reporter, film critic, and the
winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982, is credited for spellbinding works, like:
Love in the Time of Cholera (adapted into a film in 2007), Autumn of the Patriarch, One
Hundred Years of Solitude, El Coronel No Tien Quien Le Escriba (No One Writes to the
Colonel) and Memories of My Melancholy Whores. The author introduces magical realism
genre the world in a very distinctive way which gained him international recognition.
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Gabriel Marquez remains truthful for his country and provides facts in magical layers of
events, especially in One Hundred Years of Solitude, where he focuses on truths that exist
in both worlds, the magic and the real. Through the life of Macondo, the reader
understands the nature of Latin American situation, at that time, and its twisted and
meandering political world besides to its cruel history, mostly defined by tyranny, by a
dictatorship, by military. Marquez introduces the reader to Colombia were myths and
substitutions, tails, and the supernatural stand side by side with technology and modernity
(Geetha 2). About his novel “One Hundred Years of Solitude”, the Chilean writer Isabel
Allende says “in his books I found my own family, my country, the people I have known
all my life, the coloure, the rhythm, and the abundance of my continent” (Sika 4:22 ).
Additionally, he used ‘objects’ from the real world in his texts. In Marquez short story
‘Balthazar’s Marvellous Afternoon’, for instance the use of the ‘object’ of a beautiful cage
for birds, is clearly perceivable. The cage symbolizes the landscape of Latin America
surrounded by exotic birds. It mirrors the continent culture and sensibility which loses its
aesthetic beauty in the world of reason and logic. Describing the cage in all its details
“with its enormous dome of wire, three stories inside, with passageways and compartments
especially for eating and sleeping and swings in the space set aside for the birds’
recreation, …” (Nedungadi 49-50)
1.3 Isabel Allende (1942 )
The first South American female writer, who has gained a significant status in Latin
American woman writers, is Isabel Allende. The latter was born in Peru and raised in
Chile. Allende is a novelist, journalist, and magical realist who wrote: The House of the
Spirits, Eva Luna, Paula, Aphrodite, and several other works (Rave 31). Like other
Magical Realist authors, Allende always uses the supernatural event almost intimately
29
related to a character in her story telling as a bridge between the real world and the world
of spirits ( Naimi 24).
According to Isabel Allende, the genre is a way of understanding life, emotionally and
spiritually. This is, of course, visible in the literature of the underdeveloped countries,
owing to everyday violence, brutality and sorrow. The reason why the writer use the world
of the supernatural seeking explanations and hope(Rave 31). “The supernatural serves as a
connector between the real and the unreal, the common and the strange, the known and the
unknown” (Naimi 25). Among the hidden aspects of Magical Realism she discovers myths,
fairy tales, legends, enigma, superstitions history, affections and magic. The "mystery"
grabs people attention when they are faced with uncontrolled situations. In relation to the
magical and the spiritual she says that “they are both unknown forces moving on the
unconscious level” (Rave 31). She is uncertain about the real differences between the
magical, the fantastic and the marvelous. Yet, she admits that magic may relate to
superstitions, psychic phenomena, faith, religious and visible manifestations, the fantastic
accounts for fantasy, miracles, imaginary stream of thought out of myths to science fiction;
while the marvelous involves the surprising and the phenomenal things.
2.2.3 Miguel Angel Asturias (1899-1974)
Miguel Angel Miguel Angel Asturias is a Guatemalan writer, poet, diplomat,
playwright, and novelist. He wrote several significant literary works in the history of Latin
American literature, among which : Legendas de Guatemala, ElSeñor Presidenta,
Hombres de Maize and several other novels that contributed to both Guatemalan politics
and literature (Rave 20)
Miguel Angel Asturias is one of the developers of the genre "magical realism" along
with Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Alejo Carpentier, Isabel Allende, and others. After the
30
German founder of the movement, Franz Roh, they contributed to the movement,
promoted it to another level, and gave the Latin American literature an important value in
the world (Naimi 65). Austrias illustrates this as he sees that magical realism is a
supernatural force with a direction of the below to the above. He supports his view with an
example of a horse incident. If a rider falls off his horse, the European would see that the
rider moves from above to below. Unlike the Latin American who would see that the
natural earth force from the below pull the rider off the horse from 'above' (Rave 20). He
introduces the richness of indigenous Guatemalan culture through his works, due to his
contact with indigenous people. He uses his writings to claim for their rights.
Concerning Asturias's writing style, we can say that it is a combination of Magical
Realism and surrealism. Those elements help him to be one of the leading lights of The
Latin American Boom of 1960s and 1970s. The writer is well-known for his opposition to
dictatorship in Guatemala and his attitude for the indigenous people can be noticed in both
of his literary and political works . Vivid representation to what has been mentioned is his
masterpiece “Hombres de Maíz”, which has been seen as a classic Latin American work in
which Asturias introduces the voice of the Mayan Indians of Guatemala. The novel is an
interweaving of the Mayan mythology with magical realism. The title of the novel is
inspired from a sacred Mayan text called “Popol Vuh”, which is translated by Asturias
before. Through the story events, Asturias poses the traditions, myths, costumes, culture,
history, and the modernizing community of the ancient Mayans. He has been awarded the
Nobel Prize in Literature in 1967 “for his vivid literary achievement, deep-rooted in the
national traits and traditions of Indian people of Latin America” (“Miguel Ángel
Asturias”).
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2.3 The Boom of the Genre and its expansion outside Latin America
Magical Realism began its trip from European painting to literature to describe the
Latino American novel. It was until the second half of the twentieth century that the genre
paved the way for more progress and faster development, especially between 1940 and
1950, when it reached its peak in Latin America known as the Boom. So achieving the
international image and printing its universal mark in story-telling structure and the world's
narrative style. There are numerous international writers whose used the genre in their
writings. We can for instance cite: the Indian Salman Rushdie “Midnights Children,
1
”, the Egyptian Naguib Mahfouz “The Thousand and One Nights, 1979”, the Afro-
American Toni Morrison “Beloved, 1987” and the Nigerian Ben Okri “The Famished
Road, 1991”.
2.3.1 Salman Rushdie “Midnight’s Children”
Ahmed Salman Rushdie is the most influential and controversial of modern time writers
(“Salman Rushdie Biography”). Born on June 19, 1947, in Bombay (now known as
Mumbai), India. And he is the only son of a wealthy Indian businessman. Graduated with
master degree from King's College in Cambridge in 1968, and later became a great
novelist, essayist, and critic. He started his journey in writing by the first novel, Grimus
(1975), followed by Midnight's Children(1981), Shame(1983), The Satanic Verses(1988)
and Haroun and the Sea of Stories(1990) next to other works (Rushdie 2).
“Midnight’s children” is considered to be his famous postcolonial novel published in
1981. The book brought him international fame and recognition; as a book that mixes facts
and fantasy with a linguistic extravaganza exclusive in Indian English literature. It is
mostly known as postcolonial literary piece, which underlines the postcolonial setting of
India after British colonization, in which it pictures the postcolonial social, cultural,
32
political and religious practices that were evident in India. In writing his masterpiece, he
created a significant style of mythical and fantastical elements incorporating metaphors for
nationhoodand a new idiom to interpret the complex reality of theland ( Khan 3).
The midnight’s children are the children who were born on the midnight of India’s
independence. They represent various provinces, which came into being on 15 Aug 1947,
when India got independence from Britain. The hero is also one of these midnight children
Saleem has powers of telepathy and a supernaturally sharp sense of smell. Likewise, the
midnight children have a telepathic power, they are not ordinary kids for sure. Saleem used
to hold conferences with them. Which has been referred to in the novel as “Midnight
Children's Conference”, where they used to discuss about political matters. In many
incidents, Rushdie incorporates magical realism in which it adds beauty and makes these
events an aesthetically pleasing pieces of literature rather than a boring historical
document.
All in all, Rushdie’s writings are about unique issues and delivering them with magical
style that give his texts appreciation worldwide, as a literary legacy.
2.3.2 Naguib Mahfouz “The Thousand and One Nights”
Naguib Mahfouz is An Egyptian novelist, screenplay writer, and the first Arabic writer
who was awarded the noble prize for literature in 1988. Mahfouz is known for his
prominent work “The Cairo Trilogy”, next to other successful writings, which have real
description of Egypt situation from World War I to the military coup over King Farouk in
1952 (“Naguib Mahfouz”). Most of his works have been transformed into movies and TV
series . He tends to realist literature. He was raised in a typical Egyptians quarter, where
there are poverty and deprivation, mosques, handcrafts, and cultural traditions. He has a
bachelor degree in philosophy from Cairo University in 1930. He spent his life in writing
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inspired from his birthplace, in which he refers to it in his most works. This opened him up
to be worldwide famous writer in 1930s. He wrote about the Pharaohs in some novels such
as: Khufu’s Wisdom(1939) and Rhodopis of Nubia(1943). According to some critics,
Mahfouz mirrors the social and political reality of Egypt(“Aljazeera”).
The main stories of The Thousand and One Nights is set in Schehrazade’ s imagination.
The character of Schehrazade narrates a series of stories to her husband, Shahryar the
sultan. It aims to make him craving to hear more till the end of the stories. She is trying to
deceive her husband to live more without killing her. Night after night, the characters
varied in this magical stories in which there are sultans, Genii, monkeys and others. And
when speaking about the written style of the text ,critics tend to think that the original text
is made by more than one author. It refers to a Persian origin while others think that it is
an Indian book with a contribution of the Arabs and Persians. The original text has been
translated into Turkish, French ,English and Arabic. The stories are from the cultural
heritage, and they are associated with magic and fantasy in the reader's mind (“brief
insight about Alf Laylah wa-Laylah”)
Mahfouz decided to rewrite The Thousand and One Nights, the famous Arabic ancient
set of stories, with an impression of his modernist thoughts and philosophy to produce
such a valued work, in 1979. To do this, he introduces his sharp thinking and creative style.
Mahfouz was interested in the legendary stories of the original text, that had already
existed from his early age. Indeed, he was amazed by the way such stories have that effect
to express the world variation in its perspectives, confessions, and imaginations. Through
this work, Mahfouz picked out thirteen unlinked stories from the original text with a touch
of modernism. The same characters, setting, symbols, motives and mode, that make the
stories reflect Naguib's philosophy about human and existence. Therefore, the work is
considered as an extension of the original text but not a reproduction of the same. To
34
express magic in The Arabian Nights, we` should have a glance at the magical realist text
that took place somewhere at some point of time. Mahfouz novel does not restrict time or
space rules. Thus, it started by "Once upon a time", which gives the writer a free creative
style. The stories are full of myths, legends, supernatural events and fantastical creations.
The novel is an allegory to express human tendency to utopia. According to authors,
including Naguib Mahfouz, utopia is where fair sovereign, prevalent morality, immortal
freedom, absolute happiness and perfect life exist . The Thousand and One Nights gives
voice to the marginalized people and speaks out against injustice (Shalan).
The novel presents a village in which the immorality and injustice are rooted. While the
security responsible is concerned with the religious minority who tried to defeat the ruler.
During this troubled period, the Genii come out of their places and control people ′s
destinies .
The story allows Mahfouz to criticize his unstable society status, in which religious trends
claim for radical political changes. The novel themes seek for goodness and justice with
sense of adventure and entertainment, resulting an epic literary work. It has a fantastical
pattern that is blinded with the real world without distinguishing between them. Therefore,
the novel takes an important place in the world. The stories create magical realist world,
where various characters have significant traits, we have Shahryar the sultan, his wife
Schehrazade, security responsible, the secret keeper, and the town's people who are divided
into high and low classes. The novel's up-and-down events impact the ruling class, that
result infear and hope in people hearts. Genii have potential over human actions and
control the novel events, to be at the end a projection of the writer's intellectual
thoughts(“Abu Rafia”).
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In short, the Thousand and One nights is the Arabic manifestation of magical realism. It is
a masterpiece of great mixture of fantasy with everyday reality in its narrations. The work
with its richness of magic, expands the limits of the readers’ understanding and perception
of the real world. Meanwhile it has its literature value in dealing with utopia.
2.3.3 Toni Morrison “Beloved”
Toni Morrison, full name, Chloe Anthony Wofford is an American writer noted for her
examination of black experience (precisely black female experience) within the black
community. She was born on February 18, 1931, Lorain Ohio and died August 5, 2019,
Bronx, New York. She gained an international recognition when she was awarded the
Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993. As an Afro-American writer who authenticated that the
truth has been obliterated and nothing has given the correct description of the miserable
life that the Afro-Americans have experienced, authors conductmyth and magic to portray
their sufferings to the world. The integration of mythical and magical elements depicts the
role of the social struggles of the Blacks against the Whites. As a first Afro-American
woman who won the Nobel Prize in literature and being heavily attached to Gabriel Garcia
Marquez (Naimi 26). Morrison engaged the Magical Realism genre in her novel, The
critically acclaimed “Beloved” (1987), the novel which won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction, is
inspired from the life of Margaret Garner a real life story of black life experience. A film
adaptation of the novel was released in 1998 (“Toni-Morrison”).
The novel which examines the impact of the civil war on the Afro-Americans, tells the
story of a slave woman called Sythe, who at a point of her recapture, kills her young
daughter to prevent her to return to slavery. The story begins when Sythe escapes from
Ohio with her kids before the end of the civil war. Sythe’s masters came after her and her
kids before slavery was abolished. At a point of fear, the mother sacrificed her infant to
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save them from slavery, she started by killing her two-year old daughter who names her
‘beloved’ and before she could kill the rest of her kids, a slave appears and holds her. A
year after the civil war ends, a shade of a young girl around the age of beloved shows
around the family’s home. Sythe believes that her daughter came back and then, she notice
that her daughter’s ghost returned asking for revenge. (Naimi 26)
According to Naimi “The traumatic experience of slavery enables the Afro-American
community to be given a voice and use it louder through different narrative structures in
which magical moments were regarded as main sophisticated weapons used against racism
and discrimination” (26). The author emphasizes on the idea of all the struggles, suffering
and discrimination that black societies have endured played a decisive role and became
part of the experiences that slave people left behind
Magical elements helped visualize Blacks life experiences. These come from authors’
imaginations which are expressed through words, and from these words writers produced
books that picture stories about their daily life experiences Moreover, magical realism
mirrors ideas, visions and adventures of Blacks’ real life, which can widen our knowledge
about Blacks challenges including, interests and cultures
2.3.4 Ben Okri “The Famished Road”
Ben Okri was born in 1959, in Minna, Northern Nigeria, spending his childhood in
London before going back to Nigeria with his family in 1968. In his home country, he
witnessed the violence of the Nigerian Civil War, which has profoundly influenced his
writings as a novelist, short storywriter and poet ( Naimi 27).
Okri offers his readers the experience of creativity throughout his style of writing,
whether in poetry or in short/ long fiction. He purposely writes texts that draw readers in
the deepest places of the fantastical world, and never forgetting his political responsibility
37
toward his home land. In this context, Baroness Helena Kennedy sees that Okri “has an
affinity with another great poetic spirit driven by the passionate advocacy of human
freedom; William Blake’s powers of prophetic speech resonate in Okri’ s work.” (Kennedy
5)
We should mention that Okri has a deep attraction for Scheherazade character of
Naguib Mahfouz’s “One Thousand and One Nights.” This is because the character weaves
her tales every morning just before dawn not only to avoid her execution but to rescue all
the young women of the kingdom and their brokenhearted families from the same fate
(Kennedy 5).
His first two novels were: Flowers and Shadows (1980) and the Landscapes Within
(1981), followed by the two collections of stories: Incidents at the Shrine (1986), Stars of
the New Curfew (1988). In 1991, The Famished Road is published. This won the most
prestigious literary award in the UK, the Booker Prize. In this novel, he pictures the
political status chaos of Nigeria, that has been experienced under the British rule and
during the Nigerian Civil War. It also highlights the cruel projects of deforestation pursued
by Western companies, and reveals his nation’s inability to restore a harmonious
relationship with the environment.
The novel begins with its narrator and protagonist, Azaro, an ‘Ubiku’ meaning for a
‘spirit child’. The young Nigerian boy who is caught between two worlds: the real world,
and the spirit world. In the first volume of Soyinka’s autobiography, it says that an Ubiku
is a “child which is born, dies, is born again and dies in a repetitive cycle”( Bharat 35). All
of that result a constant struggle for the child either to keep his soul in the real world or
with the spirits, who are trying to get him to join them again in their world, the reason why
his parents take care of him and sustained to keep him alive. Many times the parents
38
thought that their child died, yet he retune back safe. Burial and sadness transformed into
celebration and happiness.
Within Azaro' s daily life description and from small community neighbors, situated in
the suburbs, Okri pictures to us the social reality. That it is represented in violence and
poverty, corruption and political disorder of the real world, starvation and unhuman
conditions of labor. Deforestation projects, also, of the nearby area, in which it is affecting
the protagonist Azaro’s life. The forest is replaced by roads and houses. This incident
embodied terms: the trees scream and cry out, while their branches drip blood:
“I heard trees groaning as they crashed down on their neighbours. I
listened to trees being felled deep in the forest and heard the steady
rhythms of axes on hard, living wood. The silence magnified the rhythm.
I found a branch which seemed perfect. I broke off the long wood of the
forked ends, lacerating myself on the splinter and bled” (Brazzelli 6-7).
Not to forgot mentioning that he breaks the limits of the past and the present, mental
and physical reality, in the middle of political facts and collective fantasies, social reality
and individual hallucination. Furthermore, he turns the “children's novel into a metaphor of
modern Africa's frustrated hopes, using its magic and mythical traditions” (Zaya 2).
By using the Nigerian myths and culture in The Famished Road as magical elements,
and by portraying his society reality under the British colonization through the “spirit
child”, Okri calls readers’ mind to sink in the world of magic. His distinctive fictional style
might be a bridge between real and magical events.
2.4 Conclusion
This chapter accounted for the maturity of magical realism in Latin American and its
expansion to other countries. Therefore, the genre allows writers to do many things,
reliving their childhood memories, sharing experiences and expressing their counties
39
struggles in fiction and then communicates them to people (readers). We may say that
Magical Realism came to coordinate reality with magic, aiming for astonishing the reader
and making him a part of its endlessadventure.Authors like: Alejo Carpentier, Gabriel
Garcia Marquez, Isabel Allende and Miguel Angel Asturias, and others, support,
encouraged and carried its use. Throughout thelegacy of great works such as: “The
Midnight Children”, “One Hundred Years of Solitude”, “The Arabian Nights”, “Beloved”
and “The Famished Road”, the artistic literarygenre of Magical Realism won an aesthetic
appreciation and led to a greatartistic literary mood around the world.
40
Chapter Three: Findings and Discussion
3.1 Introduction
Garcia Marquez’s vivid imagination and experience in storytelling has influenced his
thoughts to write One Hundred Years of Solitude. The latter that is included under the
umbrella of magical realism, presents the notions of the genre as a way of resisting
persecution, and as a revolutionary act against dictatorship. In this perspective, the third
chapter provides the practical component of the study. This calls us to use historical,
descriptive and analytical techniques to highlight the genre of magical realism in
examining the case study, as we are studying the themes and style of the novel in the
corpus. As a matter of fact, this chapter aims to analyze the evident themes in the novel as
well as to study the author’s unique style of narration. So, it presents the analytical vision
of the work.
3.2 Method
The present study stands principally on historical, descriptive and analytical techniques
of research. Our study of One Hundred Years of Solitude strongly presents magical realism
genre in its imaginative narration. In order to identify the origins of the genre from
centering Latin America to an international image, we used books of Nedungadi Shireen’s
Facets of Magical Realism and Eva Aldea’s Magical Realism and Deleuze as our primary
sources.
It seems safe to assume that One Hundred Years of Solitude has taken place in
Colombia, García Márquez’s country of birth. This is evinced by certain historical parallels
with events. In analysis of these parallels, by using Susan Muaddi Darraj’s The Great
Hispanic Heritage: Gabriel García Márquez book, we notice the writer’s ideology in
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stating the reality of Latin America, precisely political, such as the violent conflict between
the Liberal and Conservative parties of Colombia; in particular, the war of thousand days,
in 1899(30) which is considered to be the most horrible massacres in the history country.
It witnessed a fully extensive extermination for three days called la violancia continued
and reached the extreme, towns and villages have been burned and thousands of people
were brutally murdered. la violancia claimed the lives of some 15000 Colombians(29).
In 1928, the hardships of United Fruit Company (UFC) that sets up a banana plantation
caused massacres for striking workers. The economy of Aracataca hits hard by growing
and selling bananas. As a result, many people quickly became wealthy. The UFC
employed over 80 % of the town’s population, but in poor working conditions. Many
workers were treated poorly and paid unfairly low wages that led them to go on strikes
against the United Fruit Company which caused hundreds of peaceful protesters’ death by
the Colombian Army, later known as the Santa Marta Massacre (13).
It is clear that Marques writings are affected by the history of Colombia. The
mainstream of One Hundred Years of Solitude events mirrors the real history of his country
and the continent.
The study can also be perceived from a descriptive quantitative approach, in which it is
designed to depict the author’s intended meaning in an accurate way. That is to say, the
study describes the novel elements. In reviewing the literature, we see how Gabriel Garcia
Marquez adopts magical realism in his writing like other founders of the genre such as
Isabel Allende, Miguel Angel Asturias and Alejo Carpentier; who approached the term
from an anthropological vision.
Novel’s description of events and characters may seem like a caricature, but magical
realism is built on exaggeration and the amalgamation of fantasy and reality. This
42
exaggerated description gives each occurrence a sense of reality ( Naimi 117). For
example, “it rained for four years, eleven months, and two days” (Marquez 154) is the
description of continuous raining is unlikely to happen in real life. Yet, the specific time
give, the event a significant sense of truth. Therefore, the prodigious events and myths
allow readers to enter the author fictional universe and incorporate it in the literary concept
of Latin America ( Naimi 28). Overall, the use of the descriptive methodology helps
interpret the fantastical elements in the author’s writing, so as to understand his thoughts
and believes.
The study uses the analytical approach after extracting and describing the data. The
analytical approach takes a considerable part of the study. In order to achieve a
comprehensive study of magical realism application in One Hundred Years of Solitude, we
tend to analyze its major themes and style. The selected themes are identity, the
supernatural, magic vs. reality, solitude, propriety, sexuality, incest, and the circularity of
time, as well as the style of writing which is portrayed in symbols, allegory and
foreshadowing. Marquez’s mythical style of writing arises many questions about his source
of inspiration. The answer was perceived in an interview with his friend Plinio Apuleyo
Mendoza, later published as The Fragrance of Guava, in which he declares “My
grandmother . . . used to tell me about the most atrocious things without turning a hair”,
and adds “I realized that it was her impassive manner and her wealth of images that made
her stories so credible. I wrote One Hundred Years of Solitude using my grandmother’s
method.” ( Naimi 103). From this quotation, we observe that Marquez admit his
grandmother’s influence in his writings. His grandmother believes in creatures with
magical powers and has great knowledge about ghosts, legends, and superstitions in the
storytelling. This creates Gabriel’s wild imagination to write his greatest novel One
Hundred Years of Solitude.
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Eventually, the implementation of historical, descriptive and analytical methods helps
introduce the genre of magical realism and clarify the book’s message about the Latin
American society and Colombian history.
3.3 Corpus Collection and Selection
One Hundred Years of Solitude is a literary masterpiece written by Gabriel García
Márquez, published in 1967. It has great success by the reason of being the marvelous
manifestation of the literary genre ‘magical realism’.The novel tells a fictional story of the
Buendía family who live in a fantastical place called Macondo.The tale represents the
history of seven generations of family over one hundred years.It is hard to get its value,
unless the reader is familiar with the Latin American history, due to the historical, political,
and cultural coding of the Colombian community.However, García tended to give a
message about the true history through this work
3.3.1 Plot Structure
The plot is the novel’s key events that affect these characters over a period of time The
events of the plot of One Hundred Years of Solitude are described as major turning points
in the lives of the Buendías of Macondo village: births, deaths and marriages.
3.3.1.1 Exposition
The novel’s events started with the establishment of a new town called Macondo, which
represented hope and optimism the characters were looking for. The new town that is
founded on the principles of equality and fairness later becomes connected with the outside
world.
3.3.1.2 Rising Action
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Rising action is summarized in the government corruption. There is a new mayor who
brings with him death and plague. As a result, Colonel Aureliano Buendía takes action to
face the injustice system.
3.3.1.3 Climax
The UFC is a solution with tow edges. It seems at first that the UFC seeks for benefit of
Macondo settlers, however; it turns that those investors were only profiteers. The Macondo
settlers who worked in the UFC stroke for better conditions, unfortunately; they had been
gunned down. This bloody episode of massacre represents the climax moment. Afterwards,
Macondo was shocked and refused to believe the ugly truth.
3.3.1.4 Falling Action
In fact, the history repeats itself with each following generation of Buendías. By
committing incest, sexual obsession, laziness, and corrupted manners. Suddenly, the events
of the story start to indicate that Macondo is falling down.
3.3.1.5 Resolution
The prediction comes true, Amaranta Úrsula and Aureliano (II), the last hope of the
Buendía family. They gave birth to deformed baby with pig tail. The town is doomed,
death and destruction has occurred. Meaning, that all of them die and Macondo is vanished
by a hurricane.
3.3.2. The Novel Major characters
One Hundred Years of Solitude characters are presented in the schema of Buendía
family:
45
Fig
ure 3. 1 Family tree of the Buendías (Mellen 14)
One Hundred Years of Solitude is a novel told from a third person omniscient narrator
who knows everything about the characters and events in the novel as it appears in the
following quote “José Arcadio Buendía had the certainty that it was the beginning of a
great friendship. The children were startled by his fantastic stories. Aureliano, who could
not have been more than five at the time, would remember him for the rest of his life as he
saw him that afternoon” (Márquez 1). But according to SparkNotes website sometimes the
author uses vivid descriptions to show the reader the world through the eyes of one of the
characters.
3.3.2.1 Jose Arcadio Buendía
José Arcadio Buendía is the patriarch of the Buendía family, and the first founder of
Macondo town. He represents both great leadership and an enterprising man. José Arcadio
Buendía has a wild imagination and an obsession for science especially with the fantastic
items the gypsies bring to Macondo. In telling the tale of Macondo founding the book in
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chapter two moves backward in time. While seeing the ice of the gypsies, he remembers
his dream:
José Arcadio Buendía dreamed that night that right there a noisy city
with houses having mirror wails rose up. He asked what city it was and
they answered him with a name that he had never heard, that had no
meaning at all, but that had a supernatural echo in his dream: Macondo.
On the following day he convinced his men that they would never find
the sea. He ordered them to cut down the trees to make a clearing beside
the river, at the coolest spot on the bank, and there they founded the
village.” (Márquez 18)
The above significant passage from chapter one shows José Arcadio Buendía dream of a
city built with mirror-walls and unfamiliar name: Macondo. This vision inspires him to be
determine about creating Macondo. This indicates that the character is passionate dreamer
fascinated by the unknown. He, also, tends to be far from reality and what he imagines can
always be further discovered with ultimate determination of revealing the truth of life. José
Arcadio Buendía excessive zeal enables him to discover Macondo. Unfortunately, he went
insane at the end of his life. The central thing in the novel events is his marriage with his
cousin Ursula, seeding the incest that will plague the family for generations.
3.3.2.2 Úrsula Iguarán
Úrsula character lives the longest in the novel and sees the most new generations born
(over 120 years). She is the wife of José Arcadio Buendía and the mother of Jose Arcadio
II, Colonel Aureliano and Amaranta. She is firm, psychic and wise. She seeks to ensure the
family's happiness and save its identity Úrsula is persona who realizes that the world is
repeating itself and time is moving in a circle as she mentioned many times in the novel.
The novel’s female characters emerge as protagonists in their own right. Particularly,
Úrsula’s endless resistance, her devotion, her moral control and affections are what keep
the Buendía family line going for over one hundred years. She and other strong female
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characters attain power and wise control in their roles as wives and mothers. Thus their
behavior reflect the real influence of Latin American feminists in the world (Naimi 119).
3.3.2.3 Melquíades
Melquíades is “a heavy gypsy with an untamed beard and sparrow hands” (Márquez 8).
Melquíades considers himself as “the eighth wonder of the learned al-chemists of
Macedonia” (Márquez 8); this seems logical due to the fact that his “knowledge had
reached unbearable extremes” (Márquez 11). During his visits to Macondo, he brings with
him various scientific and magical objects like telescope, manuscript and alchemy lab to
Jose Arcadio Buendía. Melquíades is viewed as the most manifestation of innovation,
knowledge, science, supernaturality and spirituality in Garcia text. He appeared in the
novel in various ways (as a human being or a ghost) with several deaths and rebirths in
order to give guidance to each generation of Buendías. He gave Jose Arcadio Buendía
mysterious parchments which passed down through the Buendía family generations. The
obscure manuscript had attempts by the family members to be revealed, but Melquíades
said: “No one must know their meaning until he has reached one hundred years of age”
(Márquez 94) about the parchments when he was asked by one of the Buendía’s to expose
the meaning. It should tell that Melquíades is almost the narrator of the story through his
manuscript. He recounts the historical progression of the town and Buendía’s’ fates
(“Character Analysis Melquíades, the Gypsy”). It can conclude that Garcia introduces
himself as a narrator through the presence of this character. His manuscript, though not
decoded until the end of the book, includes prophecies of the entire future of the Buendía
family and Macondo.
3.3.2.4 Colonel Aureliano
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He is the novel’s greatest artist figure: a poet, an accomplished silversmith, and the
creator of hundreds handmade golden fishes. Colonel Aureliano Buendía is One Hundred
Years of Solitude’s soldier figure, he leads the Liberal army throughout the civil war.
“Aureliano understood the disadvantages of being in the opposition. “If I were a
Liberal,” he said, “I’d go to war because of those ballots”” (Márquez 52-53). This succinct
quote presents colonial Aureliano political tendencies throughout the novel. It also depicts
his intention to get in war against conservatives party due to their manipulation of
elections. This illustrates the political violence conflicts of Colombia’s history which is
visualized in Colonel Aureliano Buendía character who declares the war against the
Conservatives who are facilitating the path of the imperialists to be in charged. Eventually
Aureliano interest in war has affected him deeply from being active in the rebellions of the
Liberal party to care free towards war in general
3.3.2.5 Aureliano(II)
He is considered the final Aureliano. He is the illegal son of Meme. This made his
parentage kept secret, and he was raised secretly in the hand of Fernanda del Carpio.
Aureliano (or Aureliano Babilonia like what has been revealed at the last lines of the
novel) spends most of his life trying to decode the mysterious parchments of Melquíades.
At the end of the novel plot, Aureliano Babilonia reached the ultimate truth:
“Prodigious instant Melquíades’ final keys were revealed to him
and he saw the epigraph of the parchments perfectly placed in the
order of man’s time and space: The first of the line is tied to a tree
and the last is being eaten by the ants ” (Márquez 200).
The quote declares that Aureliano(II) interpreted the manuscript left by Melquíades; he
concluded that the manuscript narrates the Buendía’s family history once he witnessed the
curse of tail of a pig in his son Aureliano (III), with Amaranta Úrsula. As he realized his
49
family fate, wild winds destroyed Macondo. The town “wiped out by the wind and exiled
from the memory of men” (Márquez 201).
3.4 Elements of Magical Realism
Marquez uses the form of magical realism and the content derived fromhistory and
politics to address some of the most difficult and meaningful themes. He addresses his
developed themes in the narrative flow of One Hundred Years of Solitude’s events and
characters. The selected themes of the text are identity, solitude, propriety, sexuality,
incest, magic vs reality and the circularity of time.
3.4.1 Identity
One hundred years of solitude’s characters faced loss of their identity due to many
factors. Thus, Macondo’s characters search for a sense of identity particularly common
cultural identity which forms the series of events throughout the plot. Two factors present
the loss of identity, internal inside the family and external outside of it. First, as an internal
factor, Fernanda is the only outsider folded into the Buendía family. She imposes her
traditions and beliefs in the house. Second, Macondo’s government, as external factor,
practice political violence, spread corrupted morals and imposes unethical labor by UFC.
Therefore, these irritants create conflict and contribute to the fall of the Buendías and
Macondo.
3.4.2 Solitude
All the other themes of ‘One hundred years of solitude’ flow from the central theme of
‘solitude’. The word ‘solitude or ‘solitary’ appears on almost every page of the novel. As it
is clear from the title, solitude is not defined by social isolation, but rather by
psychological state. It is strongly presented in the character of Colonel Aureliano who had
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gone insane and Aureliano (II) who spent his entire life isolated. The insane status of the
colonel portrays the extreme of solitude; however, his absolute power has corrupted him to
the extent of drawing a ten-foot circle around him at all times to keep people far away from
him. In the case of Rebecca character, she chooses to be solitary because of her
psychological state, sadness and depression after the death of her husband José Arcadio
(II). The three examples which express solitude are form of madness and sadness.
3.4.3 Propriety, Sexuality, and Incest
In the novel love and lust are inseparable. Familial love is confused with sexual love,
adultery of married couples and characters secret parentage raise the risk rate of incest.
Furthermore, the general fear of having a child with a pig tail and the real risk of incest
come from the social morals and psychological effects. This fear causes divisions in the
family and insecurity around the legitimacy of one’s parentage. For example, José Arcadio
Buendía is the first character in the story to commit an act of incest when he marries his
cousin Úrsula Iguaran (The Gale Group 26).
3.4.4 Magic vs Reality
Marquez recorded the history of Colombia that is shaped by the Conservative victors,
Macondo town experience with the UFC, and ‘the Violence’ period in the story events. He
used magical elements embodying the everyday real and horrific violence in Latin
America.
In 1928, Evidently, Troops of banana workers went for peaceful protest against the UFC
asking for better working conditions. But they were gunned down and thrown into the
ocean. In the novel, José Arcadio Segundo is the only survivor. When he returns to
Macondo he did not believe the happening massacre. Instead, he believed the newspaper
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story claiming that the strike ended peacefully. In this case, Márquez is clarifying that
historical narratives can be trusted, than the history itself.
3.4.5 The Circularity of Time
The nature of time plays an essential role in the advancement of the novel events and
characters fate. One Hundred Years of Solitude shows abundant zigzags in time by using
both flashbacks of past incidents and long leaps toward future events. The main index that
has been shown in the novel is the repetition of names and events, from one generation to
another. For example, the names of Aureliano and José Arcadio Segundo, next to the
familiarity of the events between Aureliano and his grandfather José Arcadio give Ursula
the impression that time is shifting. To sum up, “time is circular and recurrent rather than
rectilinear and progressive. In this novel readers are moved between present past and
future time” (Gustavo 173).
Overall, Márquez addresses a real life issue of Colombia throughout his themes as a
way to visualize the suffering that the nation has been experienced.
3.5 Results and Corpus Collection
The capitating style of Marquez in the novel incorporates magical realism in the sense
of strange and fantastic events. His style of writing seems to be simple but astonishing in
putting the reader in his adventurous world. In studying the style language and interpreting
its intended meaning we select setting, symbols, allegory and foreshadowing, in order to
highlight their specific purpose in the course of the events.
3.5.1 The Setting
The setting is a literary technique that is used by an author to include both time and
place. However, it is used in order to create a timeline and a bond between the reader and
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the story. The narrative structures differ from one novel to another as a technique that helps
in the development of the plot and enhances the clarification of the literary devices used
throughout the story. In the novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude, both traditional, or
linear, narrative time and cyclical narrative time structures work simultaneously to
emphasize the recurrent destructive behaviors of the Buendía family. A linear narrative
structure follows a straight line, starting from the beginning, moving to the middle, and
proceeding till the end of the story. It also follows a line of movements including an
ongoing plot, with a somewhat typical exposition, rising action, climax, and denouement.
However, One Hundred Years of Solitude is not a novel that primarily depends on a linear
narrative structure. In fact, the novel structure is also inclusive of a cyclical narrative. ““I
know all of this by heart,” Úrsula would shout. “It’s as if time had turned around and we
were back at the beginning”” (Márquez 98). The quote serves as setting to the cyclical time
“cycles through the story one event at a time to end back where the story originated”
(“cyclical time structure in one hundred years of solitude”), and reiteratively brings the
reader back to key plot occurrences as a means of highlighting the impact on the
characters. Garcia Marquez implements the technique of the cyclical time. In this context,
M Cruz Fernández says “time, in magic realist literature, can be distorted, that is, time may
be circular instead of linear, or jump around and go back and forth from past to future, or
just stand permanently” (2). Thus the time is span is unclear at times, but it is roughly from
the early-mid 19th century to mid-20th the century.
Nabila Naimi sees from the description of Macondo that it is a fictional town, which
reflects the author’s hometown Aracataca, Columbia. As the following passage says:
““God damn it!” he shouted. “Macondo is surrounded by water on all sides” The idea of a
peninsular Macondo prevailed for a long time, inspired by the arbitrary map that José
Arcadio Buendía sketched on his return from the expedition.” (Márquez 13)
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In the description above, he creates a wonderful geographical depiction for Macondo as
an isolated, peninsular, rural, and surrounded by water. Only who lives in there knows
about it. In sum Macondo serves as a setting as well as a metaphor for Colombia itself.
In general, the setting of One Hundred Years of Solitude serves as an opening door to
the imaginative work of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Thus, the shifting of time between
present, past and future allows the reader to create a virtual timeline to the events of the
novel.
3.5.2 Symbols
The masterpiece of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of solitude, tells the
story of the Buendía’s family life in fantastical village Macondo. There are numerous
symbols used the novel text which readers may notice immediately, but there are more
obscure symbols. The analyzed symbols in the novel are the repeated names, goldfishes
and Melquíades' Writings.
The names in the novel are repeated over the seven generations of the Buendía family,
indicating that destiny and personalities of the characters repeat themselves. The best
example is Úrsula’s observation of the repeating names.
“Throughout the long history of the family the insistent repetition of
names had made her (Úrsula) draw some conclusions that seemed to be
certain. While the Aurelianos were withdrawn, but with lucid minds, the
José Arcadios were impulsive and enterprising, but they were marked
with a tragic sign” (Márquez 93).
Úrsula’s notice, in this extensive passage, Macondo’s men are named either "José
Arcadio" or "Aureliano". Who’s name "José Arcadio" is featured by strong bodies and
tragical death and who’s name Aurelianos has tendencies to be solitary, passion for
knowledge, and has supernatural abilities. The same with female’s names, Úrsula,
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Amaranta and Remedios are repeated over the novel in the same or different forms. An
ironic say by Pilar Ternera is that she does not need to read the lines in the palms of a
Buendía to figure his fate. This cyclicity of names helps the reader to guess the character's
future.
Throughout the course of the novel there is the symbol of the group of small gold fishes
that Colonel Aureliano Buendía makes. The reader perceives the periodic vision of the way
humans live in Macondo, those who have a capability to use their power for the investment
and production. Like in the case of the Colonel Aureliano Buendía who “declined the
lifetime pension offered him after the war and until old age he made his living from the
little gold fishes that he manufactured in his workshop in Macondo” (Márquez 56).
Meaning that before the war, Colonel Aureliano Buendía has a successful goldsmith job.
He makes tiny decorative fish out of gold as part of the house income. After the war, the
contrary happens, “he had decided not to sell any, he kept on making two fishes a day and
when he finished twenty-five he would melt them down and start all over again ” (Márquez
131). That’s to say, the goldfishes become a useless way of passing time. He made fish
after fish and melts them to start all over again. He kept doing the same until he died.
Therefore, this job is symbolic to the colonel Aureliano, in Macondo.At the end, he “gave
each one a little gold fish” (Márquez 109) indicating that his seventeen sons are his effect
in the world.
Melquíades' writings are an important symbol in the novel. In which every few years, a
group of wandering gypsies arrives to Macondo. The most important presence in the group
is “a heavy gypsy with an untamed beard and sparrow hands, who introduced himself as
Melquíades” (Márquez 8). The character of Melquíades introduces Macondo to a host of
fabulous things. The gypsies in the novel represent knowledge because they deliver the
world scientific inventions to the village in which “they brought a telescope and a
55
magnifying glass the size of a drum” (Márquez 8), flying carpets, magnets, ice and
Alchemy lab. The superhuman Melquíades actually writes the history of Macondo, from
“the first of the line is tied to a tree and the last is being eaten by the ants” (Márquez
200).The manuscripts that tell the history of every person’s life in the Buendía’s family did
not seem to reveal something with the mystery shifts, but it is clarified at the end where
Aureliano II “knew then that his fate was written in Melquíades’ parchments” (Márquez
200), in other words at the end of the family. Finally, symbols that Marquez incorporate in
the book displayed a mystical and aesthetic role and gave it meaningful literary richness.
3.5.3 Allegory
Allegory is a literary technique through which a novel or story is understood at two
different levels. At one level it tells the story as it is a written, and at another, it tells a
deeper meaning of the writer’s message. One Hundred Years of Solitude is a powerful
allegory of the Latin American history, specifically of Colombia. The story addresses
many of the predominant issues in the region's troubled history: dictatorship, machismo,
rebellion, power, plagues, and political violence. Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s adoption of the
genre of “magical realism” is considered to be a whole metamorphic figuration. An
allegory appears in the text by Melquíades’s comprehensive coding of Macondo’s history
within the prophetic parchments. Therefore, magical realism in Marquez’s novel mainly
represents a defensive attitude toward a despotic regime. That creates its own demonic
script by spiriting people’s believes and thoughts. So, the disappearance of Macondo
together with the decoding of Melquíades’s parchments is more than functional events in a
fantastical story. Rather; “it’s also a consummate allegory for the death of drive of
repressive states, specifically, for the problem of disappearance as a political strategy or
state policy” (Clarke 71). To certify when an author of a fiction inserts the existence of
something that could not be excited in real is simply the reverse picture of political
56
repression. Therefore the disappearance of Macondo without trace can be seen as the
encoded history of the Colombian political strife. The described event of the Liberal and
the Conservative parties in the novel is the way Garcia Márquez seeks to visualize the real
political situation of Colombia. The liberal party political agenda are portrayed in the
unfair conditions appointed to Macondo’s population. Later, the young Aureliano Buendía
leads the rebellion against the landowner-supported Conservative government:
“The Liberals, he said, were Freemasons, bad people wanting to hang
priests, to institute civil marriage and divorce, to recognize the rights of
illegitimate children as equal to those of legitimate ones, and to cut the
country up into a federal system that would take power away from the
supreme authority. The Conservatives, on the other hand, who had
received their power directly from God, proposed the establishment of
public order and family morality. They were the defenders of the faith of
Christ, of the principle of authority, and were not prepared to permit the
country to be broken down into autonomous entities” (Márquez 52)
Significant ideas are presented in this extract about both parties the Liberal and the
Conservative. The former granted the civil marriage and the rights of “illegitimate”
children, while the latter took its source from God and encourages morals. At first, Colonel
Aureliano believes in the principles of the conservative but later, he was shocked with
manipulation of elections.
Thus, the entire novel functions as an allegory for human history generally and for the
Latin American precisely. Furthermore, it is an extended commentary on human nature
(Clarke 71)
3.5.4 Foreshadowing
Foreshadowing is a literally device that stands for the use of hints and clues to suggest
what will happen later in the plot. In One Hundred Years of Solitude, the novel starts with
a prediction of the death of colonel Aureliano. The novel begins with flashback where
57
Colonel Aureliano Buendía was facing a fire squad. During his waiting to be shot, he got
nostalgic memories in his childhood. Thus, a foreshadowing technique used as means to
emphasize the concurrently and inevitability of the events. This example also can be
considered as a memory motif. Another example of foreshadowing appears in Fernanda
judgment about Mauricio Babilonia once she said “ you can see in his face that he is going
to die” (Marquez 141), though she is unaware that he is meme’s secret beloved this
foreshadowing gets clear at the end of chapter 14 when Fernanda shoots him and dies. To
sum up, foreshadowing adds enthusiastic sense to the course of the novel events in order to
stimulate the reader's expectation.
The Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez employs a significant narrative style in
One Hundred Years of Solitude. It is characterized by its reliance on the imagination,
subjectivity, freedom of thought and expression, and idealization of nature. The analyzed
elements shows the shifting of time, the symbolic images, the allegorical texture and
foreshadowing, that creates a beguiling colorful saga in its political and social
presentations.
3.6 Conclusion
This chapter attempted to conduct an empirical study to see the extent to which the
hypotheses we have formulated are true and valid. To engage in this study, we have asked
questions which enabled us to delimit the scope of the analysis. Of course, This required us
to use the techniques of the historical and descriptive-analytical methods. In the selected
corpora, we have located, delimited, and analyzed the elements of magical realism .
Therefore, the analysis of the literary elements (plot, point of view, characterization,
themes and style) showed that Marquez’s novel is based on the key notions of magical
realism, repetition, solitude and circular time, besides Latin American demystification of
58
literature and reality. The findings revealed that magical realist elements are largely
incorporated in Gabriel Garcia’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, which mirrors the social
and political life of Latin America.
59
General Conclusion
The present dissertation attempted to investigate the literary genre of magical
realism which weaves dreamlike and fantastic elements into the real in its fiction. This
literary genre is significantly demonstrated in the work of the Latin American writer
Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. The book is considered as
the Bible of the genre and the greatest Spanish-language work in history (Santana-
Acuña). It also gives an essential message about the surrounding circumstances that
made a literary revolution in Latin America and beyond, through which the writer's
emphasis was on giving a voice to the indigenous people of Colombia and of Latin
America in general.
In order to synthesize the major studies related to the topic of the research, we
reviewed the related literature. The first chapter traced the steps of magical realism
genre and its historical development in literature. The second chapter presented the
maturity of the genre in Latin America and its global recognition worldwide. The last
chapter provided analytical discussions and interpretations of the collected data which
allowed us to answer the questions and confirm the hypotheses.
For the purpose of conducting such research, we asked two questions. The first
question inquired on the extent of magical realism contribution to the development of
Latin American literature. The second examined the incorporation of magical realist
elements in One Hundred Years of Solitude and its success in depicting the social and
political life in Latin America. Following the previously stated questions, we
formulated two hypotheses. Hypothesis one linked between the incorporation of
magical realist elements in Latin American literature and the primacy of the genre
over Third World post-colonial literature. Hypothesis two related between the
incorporation of magic realism in Gabriel Garcia’s One Hundred Years of Solitude
60
and its success in the depiction of the social and political life in Latin America. For
the sake of obtaining accurate answers and testing our hypotheses, we collected the
corpora from the novel text. In our analysis of the corpora, we incorporated the
historical and descriptive-analytical methods.
The findings of the research revealed that Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred
Years of Solitude demonstrates the best implementation of magical realism in
literature. The novel which represented the source of the corpus of the study permitted
us to select the element of magical realism such as themes, characters and style. After
the analysis of the corpora, the findings revealed that the elements of magical realism
are available in the chosen case of study. By investigating and discussing magical
realism elements which are integrated in the extracted passages from the novel, we
perceived how the Latin American continent went through historical and political
instabilities which gave birth to a revolutionary sense for writing literature that
reflects the real Latino identity. In addition, the Latin American literature has become
a sign of mixing opposite lines, reality with magic and the normal with the abnormal
which made One Hundred Years of Solitude an excellent representation for hybridity
elements of magical realism. We also noticed the importance of time circulation that
indicates the impossibility of overcoming the past and destiny. Eventually, we come
to conclude that One Hundred Years of Solitude bears within its chapters the real
representation of magical realism in literature.
Magical realism has an overarching impact on Latin American writings and the
world literature in general. As a qualifier, “magical realism” has been used in Latino
writings to sketch the histories of civil war, political violence and social violations of
the continent’s struggles against colonialism, thus the genre, in the long run, helped to
the contribution of shaping the Latin American unique identity. Latino fiction has
61
been acknowledged for the positive impact it laid on world literature; this reveals how
the Latin American postcolonial writings have greatly influenced the international
literature. Magical realism has emerged as an artistic movement and a source of
inspiration for many writers across Latin America, North America, Europe, Africa,
the Middle East, and the Far East, which enabled it to reach an international
audience(Moses).
To summarize, One Hundred Years of Solitude is a remarkable work; the tale
chronicles the fortunes and misfortunes of the Buendía family over seven generations
with its lush detailed sentences, large cast of characters and tangled narrative. One
Hundred Years of Solitude is not an easy book to read, but it is a deeply rewarding
one with an epic assortment of intense romances, civil war, political intrigue, glob-
trotting adventures (Díez-Buzo 1:04).After going through the analysis of the novel’s
characters, themes and style, we can say that magical realism elements are deeply
implicated in the novel. So, we conclude that the hypotheses that we have formulated
regarding the relationship between the incorporation of magical realist elements in
Gabriel Garcia’s One Hundred Years of Solitude have been confirmed since these
elements bore a vivid representation of the social and political life in Latin America
that reinforced the literary movements in both Latin America and third world
literature.
62
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