Magical Realism

“Magical Realism “

In literature, there are several genres that depicts different opinions and literature styles. Magical realism is one of the genres in literature which illustrate the real world as having an undercurrent of magic and fantasy. It is a fragment of realism and fiction.  Magical realism revolves around stories in real world; however, they have fantasy elements which are considered normal in the world. Like fairy stories magical realism novels and stories revolve around fantasy and reality.

Magical realism stories are often confused with imaginative writing, to distinguish magical realism from the rest, they have unique characteristics that fall into almost all if not all stories. For instance, a magical realism story will depict situations and events that defy logic. In Laura Esquivel’s lighthearted novel, “like water for chocolate,” there is a woman is forbidden to marry, and in turn she pours magic into food. In the story, “beloved”, an American author Toni Morrison spins a darker tale: an escaped enslaved woman moves into a house haunted by the ghost of an infant who died long ago. These stories are very diverse, yet all are set in a world where truly anything can happen.

Magical realism dwell on myths and legends. These are mostly derived from folklore, religious parables and superstitions. In the novel, “the famished road” by Ben Okri, legends from divergent places and times are compared to create startling survival and dense, complex stories. The historic context and societal concerns are also another theme that magical realism include. Real world political events and social movements entwine with fantasy to explore issues such as racism, sexism, and other human failings.

“Midnight’s children’’ by Salman Rushdie is about a man born during India’s independence. The author tries to link events with the today’s experience in his novel. Distorted time and sequence, magical realism, characters may move backwards, leap forward between the past and the future. This is noticeable in Gabriel Garcia Marquez treats time in his novel “One hundred years of solitude” there is a sudden shift in narrative and the ubiquity of ghosts and feelings leaves the leader with the sense that events cycle through an endless loop.

Magical realism is not about space explores or wizards, its setting is on real world setting. We see in the novel “The telegraph,” Salman Rushdie noted that “the magic in magic realism has deep roots in the real. Despite the extra ordinary events in their lives, they use ordinary people for their characters. Finally, the most typical feature of magical realism is the composed narrative voice.  Apart from the themes, there are several examples of magical realism in literature. These include the “I crawl through it by A.S. king, it’s a novel concerning four teenagers who escape from their world in an invisible helicopter. It brings out all the themes that a magical realism storyportrays.

Magical realism would be the appropriate topic of choice in literature since it gives an author the chance to show alternatives to accepted realities through the characters used such as raising, intuition and psychokinesis which are an incredibly powerful tool against political regime.  Hence in conclusion, magical realism should be embraced by modern authors in their novels to bring out the fantasy in literature. This will enable them create a greater distinction between what is real and what is magical in the modern world.