LITR 4332: American Minority Literature

Sample Student Final Exam Answers 2005

Research Report

Title: Latin America’s Magical Realist Bent

            I was introduced to the idea of magical realism as a literary movement in my Modern Novel class last semester.  We read Of Love and other Demons by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.  It seemed fantastical, and I became fascinated with the magical elements that are integrated into magical realist narratives.  As we read Rudolfo Anaya’s Bless Me, Ultima in American Minority Literature, I was struck by the fact that this is a recurring theme in Latin American narrative texts.

            Magical realism is defined in a variety of ways, and it is hard to pin down just one definitive term to encompass the style.  Because of the confusion, it is apparent that the definitions are relatively loose, but most critics agree on its starting point.  German art critic Franz Roh first used the term “magical realism” to describe “painters trying to show reality in a new way.  A Venezuelan literary critic, Arturo Uslar Pietri, first associated it with Latin American Literature” (Golden 2).  He saw the short story changing thematically to “[consider] man as a mystery surrounded by realistic facts” (Zamora 120).  This literary form has been popularized by authors from Latin American countries, especially since “Miguel Angel Astuias used [the term] to describe his own novels when he won the Nobel Prize” (Golden 2).

            One definition of magical realism is that “the writer confronts reality and tries to untangle it, to discover what is mysterious in things, in life, in human acts” (Golden 3).  Angel Flores describes it as a novelty that consists “in the amalgamation of realism and fantasy” (Zamora 112), which are both prevalent in Latin American literature.  Luis Leal elaborates on Pietri’s position by saying that magical realism is “an attitude toward reality that can be expressed in popular or cultured forms, in elaborate or rustic styles, in  closed or open structures” (Zamora 121).  He also says that the key events taking place in a magical realist text defy logic and psychology: “The magical realist does not try to copy the surrounding reality (as the Realists did) or to wound it (as the Surrealists did) but to seize the mystery that breathes behind things” (Zamora 123).  All of these definitions are variations on the theme of narrative texts that combine reality with the unexplained mysteries of existence.

            I chose to investigate the cultural and regional traditions that make magical realism so appealing to authors in Spanish-speaking countries.  Although magical realism is “not a Latin American monopoly” (Zamora 2), they have mastered the mode and “have been prime movers in developing the critical concept…and are still primary voices in its discussion” (Zamora 2).  One of the common elements in Latino writing that is a natural transition to magic realism is the use of descriptive language.  These stories commonly contain lyrical passages.  For instance, in Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate, this Mexican-American author incorporates figurative language that leads directly into a magical event.

                        Chencha, weeping, was running alongside the carriage as they left

                        and barely managed to toss onto Tita’s shoulders the enormous

                        bedspread she had knit during her endless nights of insomnia.  It

                        was so large and heavy it didn’t fit inside the carriage.  Tita grabbed

                        it so tightly that there was no choice but to let it drag behind the

                        carriage like the huge train of a wedding gown that stretched for a

                        full kilometer.  Tita used any yarn she happened to have in her bed-

                        spread, no matter what the color, and it revealed a kaleidoscopic

                        combination of colors, textures, and forms that appeared and disap-

                        peared as if by magic in the gigantic cloud of dust that rose up behind

                        it (97-98).

The beautiful description lulls the reader into the event, and then the reader wakes up to find himself immersed in a magical moment. 

            Looking at this from a socio-geographical perspective, Latin American writers sometimes use magical realism in their writing as a tool for dealing with feelings of ambivalence.  Mexican-American minorities have been established in this course as the “ambivalent minority.”  This means that the narratives they write often deal with characters who struggle with making decisions or display contradictory attitudes. Geographical location plays an important role in literature because the “skillful use of lyrics and invocations…[in] a literary text can convey convincingly the essence of geographic reality” (Caviedes 58). The geographic reality of the Mexican ethnicity is the meshing of European lineage with the indigenous peoples of the Mexican landscape.  The process of acculturation of the Indian populations into the ways their European colonizers weaves together two very different traditional social fabrics.  The resulting population has a tendency toward ambiguity for social constructs because of their mestizo blood.  They question whether to accept or reject assimilation into mainstream culture as a way of life.

            In the forward to the book Magical Realism:  Theory, History, Community, Zamora explains that “In magical realism texts, ontological disruption serves the purpose of political and cultural disruption:  magic is often given as a cultural corrective, requiring readers to scrutinize accepted realistic conventions of causality, materialality, motivation” (3).  When a writer incorporates elements of magic into a realistic narrative, the reader should pay close attention to the change in tone.  It is a signal that the author is addressing a social issue that requires closer inspection.  Theo D’haen gives credence to this opinion with “this Latin American groundtone of an artistic and cultural practice voicing aesthetic needs and social revindications is also a magic realist tone” (Zamora 202-03). 

            When I started this research project, I was sure that I could make it fit the expectations for this report.  As I began to read through essays, articles, stories, I was able to see how the general “Latin American” literature theme also fits the Mexican-American minority perspective because of a shared history and common mestizo experience.  The first time I read Gabriel Garcia Marquez, I put the novel away fifty pages shy of finishing.  I had no respect for the writing style because it was so foreign to my experience.  After leaning about the elements of magical realism, I felt that I should try again.  I had a whole new understanding for the incorporation of magic into a realist text.  I think that it is important for a literature teacher to be familiar with the definition for magical realism and how it applies to the multicultural literary texts to which her students will be exposed.  It will help me foster a more sympathetic understanding of the texts among my students.

Works Cited

Anaya, Rudolfo. Bless Me, Ultima. Warner Books. New York, 1972.

Caviedes, Cesar.  “The Latin American Boom-Town in the Literary View of Jose Maria       Arguedas.” Geography and Literature. Ed. Mallory, Willaim E. and Simpson-Housley, Paul.  Syracuse U Press. New York, 1987.

Esquivel, Laura. Like Water for Chocolate. Bantam Doubleday. New York, 1992.

Golden, Barbara L., “Figuartive Language and Magical Realism in Latin American Short Stories.”  www.chatham.edu/PTI/Latin%20America%20&%20U.S.Pop%20culture/Golden_02

Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community.  Ed. Zamora, Lois and Faris, Wendy B..  Duke U Press.  London, 1995.

[JH]