Magical Realism Research Articles

티베트 역사 기억과 민족의 정체성

This study examines the historical memories and national identity of Tibetans in the novel 『Turbulent Shambhala』, written by Tashi Dawa, a contemporary Tibetan author. The lives and history of Tibetans have undergone major changes through the Democratic Reform Movement in 1959 and the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s. Using a unique Magical Realism technique, Tashi Dawa tries to recall the historical memories of Tibetans from that time and to find their identity in those memories. In particular, he utilizes the concepts of ‘reincarnation’ and ‘karma’ from Buddhism as magical elements. Thus, he uses magical elements to show how Tibetans view their forgotten history. It was confirmed that the loss experienced by Tibetans in the face of historical difficulties and social realities caused deep divisions and conflicts within Tibetan society, manifesting as neglect and indifference towards history, as well as conflict and criticism. The ambiguous delineation between reality and fantasy served as a means to induce change and reflection in the real world, ultimately reflecting the Tibetan desire to transcend the wounds and pains of reality.

Décentrer le réel dans la fiction post-coloniale

Postcolonial literature primarily emerged as a response to colonial representations of reality, so it comes as no surprise that a persistent dialogue with the real is one of its defining features. Since its initial attempt to question colonial constructions of the real and engage in self-representation, postcolonial literature has found “new angles at which to enter reality”. By exploring some of the commonly employed modes and genres in both early and contemporary postcolonial fiction, ranging from realism, magic(al) realism, historiographic metafiction, and science fiction to the Gothic, each illustrated by representative authors and works, this article intends to give a brief overview of postcolonial approaches to reality.

Search for Roots in Bharati Mukherjee's Tree Bride

"The Tree Bride" by Bharati Mukherjee is a novel that explores the complex interplay between tradition and modernity in the context of immigrant life. The protagonist, Tara Chatterjee, struggles to make sense of her Indian background and her newfound American reality, highlighting the difficulties of integration and the desire for a sense of identity. The story highlights the importance of striking a balance between one's cultural background and modern-day expectations, as well as the conflicts between the past and present. Mukherjee's use of symbolism and imagery enhances the story's depth of meaning, symbolizing the protagonist's quest for identification in a rapidly changing world. The tree symbolizes the lasting link to one's roots and cultural heritage, and the blossoms symbolize the resilience and beauty that may result from embracing one's ancestry. The novel challenges readers to seek out their own roots while negotiating the realities of modern life, forcing them to confront the intricacies of their own identities through Tara's experiences. In conclusion, "The Tree Bride" offers a moving examination of identity, history, and the intricate relationship between tradition and modernity. Through the integration of magical realism components with historical narratives, Mukherjee expertly navigates the challenges of forming an identity in a worldwide environment. The novel challenges readers to seek out their own roots while negotiating the realities of modern life, forcing them to confront the intricacies of their own identities through Tara's experiences.

“To the elements be free”: Carnivalising the legacy of Shakespeare in Margaret Atwood’s <i>Hag-Seed</i>

In her addition to the tradition of rewritings of The Tempest, Margaret Atwood makes Shakespeare travel through time, well beyond the confines of his desert island: Hag-Seed takes place inside a penitentiary in landlocked Ontario, Canada, thus prompting us to ponder how the Shakespearean text can yield new meanings for the contemporary postcolonial world. This essay shows how, in this intertextual novel, Atwood articulates a powerful reflection on freedom and imprisonment thanks to subversive Bakhtinian devices such as carnivalisation and dialogism. Indeed, the inmates of Fletcher Correctional, through their performance of a parodic version of The Tempest, subvert the authority of the Shakespearean text through a carnivalesque reversal of established rules of behaviour. The novel thus posits the importance of theatre as an educational and therapeutic tool. Further, Atwood enlists the help of popular culture as the prisoners reinterpret the Shakespearean model through a series of provocative rap numbers. Moreover, thanks to the imaginary scenarios Hag-Seed’s inmates write about the afterlives of the Shakespearean characters, the monologic authority of The Tempest is dialogised into a cacophony of unruly voices. Playful carnivalisation paradoxically enables a deeper emotional aspect of the novel: the ability of Atwood’s Prospero figure to come to terms with the trauma of the death of his daughter. In that sense, HagSeed can be seen as a long process of atonement and mourning. From an aesthetic point of view, the carnivalised performance of The Tempest illustrates Atwood’s use of metatheatricality and magical realism, the latter being rooted in a carnivalisation of the parameters of conventional realism. All in all, Hag-Seed can be construed as a novel at the crossroads between modernism and postmodernism: if it relies on a postmodern parodic gesture, it nevertheless foregrounds the epiphanic modernist agenda of achieving social justice and spiritual regeneration.

Diving into the Enigma: The Magic Realism of Haruki Murakami’s “Kafka on the Shore”

Diving into the Enigma: The Magic Realism of Haruki Murakami’s “Kafka on the Shore”

Magical Realism in Hussain's "The Swan's Wife": An Examination from a Postmodern Angle

The utilization of magical realism is pertinent to the postcolonial context and the consequent expression of dissent against the impact of postcolonialism on the political, social, and cultural aspects of formerly colonized countries. Magical realism, characterized as subversive, hybrid, and mestizo, has been recognized as a powerful means of social protest. Nevertheless, there has been a lack of comprehensive scholarly attention on the correlation between magical realism and social protest in the works of Hussain. This thesis examines the manner in which magical realism has aided Hussain in portraying and capturing the essence of "The Swan's Wife". The author's use of magical realism in his work has a clear and noticeable political aspect. It not only prompts the reader to question the supposedly fixed nature of reality, but also examines the boundaries of an implicitly politicized ideology that undermines the fundamental framework of his worldview. This theme investigation aims to illustrate that Hussain's fiction not only has explicit social consequences but also carries a subtle tone of protest against the social structure. To create the appropriate level of protest, the author used magical realism. This technique involves incorporating and contrasting different components from many sources, such as oral/folklore culture, myth, and stereotypes.

The magical paradigm in the V. Pelevin`s late novels

The issue of attribution of the creative method of V. Pelevin, implemented in later works, clarification of the author's artistic principles is acute for modern literary criticism. The article attempts to determine the specifics of the implementation of magical motif in Pelevin's works as artistic tool that allows to reflect reality in a work of art. The subject of the research is magical motif in artistic structure of late novel prose, namely in the novel «Secret Views of Mount Fuji» (2018). Such works as: «The Holy Book of the Werewolf» (2004), «Empire V» (2006), «Love for Three Zuckerbrins» (2014), «Invincible Sun» (2020) and «KGBT +» (2022) are also mentioned. The article is notable for its scientific novelty: for the first time magical elements are revealed in late novels of the author, specificity of the acting hero is indicated. The features of the embodiment of the magical in works at the level of the plot, the chronotopic organization of the text, in speech and the system of characters are presented. We additionally seek to answer the research question: is it right to consider V. Pelevin in the context of magical realism as a special type of thinking? It is noted that the author includes mythological and folklore reminiscences in the narrative: V. Pelevin refers to recognizable mythologemes, transfers well-known literary, mythological, folklore characters and typical magical creatures to a different chronotopic pattern, while maintaining their recognizability, which, together with the comparison by combining the components of magical prose with structural, plot and other elements of Pelevin's novels, allows us to answer the question in the affirmative. Structural and cultural-historical methods were used.

Overlapping spaces and identities in Quiara Alegría Hudes’s Water by the Spoonful: a metatheatrical approach

This article discusses the overlapping relationship between setting diversification and character creation as experimented by Puerto Rican American playwright Quiara Alegría Hudes (1977–) in her metatheatrical drama Water by the Spoonful (2011). The play, which emerges in a second chronological order in Hudes’s so-called Elliot Trilogy, presents diasporic characters of different ethnicities and mixed cultural backgrounds as operating interactively within three different, though intersecting, realms or spaces: the real world, virtual cyberspace, and metaphysical space. The real world of the play features interacting Puerto Rican Americans, Japanese Americans, African Americans, and White Americans in a way that highlights their ethnocultural diversity in real American, Puerto Rican, and Japanese settings. Some of these binational, bilingual, and bicultural characters, who belong to different generations (20 s, 30 s, 40 s, 50 s), also occupy, and actually favor, the virtual realm or cyberspace of the internet where they assume unreal identities but negotiate real issues spurred by real life circumstances and reveal secrets about themselves and their families through online group therapy sessions. The metaphysical space is used as a magical realist element and is exclusively reserved by Hudes for exposing her Puerto Rican American characters’ restless spiritual and mental struggle with the obsessive feelings of nostalgia, homesickness, regret, and displacement. The three realms or spaces intersect and collide in a way that determines the social attitudes and psychological moods of diasporic characters.

Entre le roman de la tragédie d’une nation et l’allégorie théâtrale grotesque. Ismail Kadaré et Matéi Visniec: une lecture parallèle


 
 
 Fine connoisseurs of totalitarian mechanisms and familiar with the experience of censorship and uprooting, Ismail Kadaré and Matei Vișniec are, in different proportions, followers of a type of literature that, often adopting the principles of allegory, illustrates the sunset of a nation crushed by political extremism. While the novels of the Albanian author evoke, in a style that combines macabre rough detail and shades of magical realism, the ruins of a people in the proximity of tragedy since its origins, the Romanian playwright orchestrates in his plays tragicomic metaphors about how the destiny of a country has been seized by the ambitions of an aberrant political system. This article1 2 proposes a parallel close reading exercise of the two authors who, although coming from different geographical spaces, share the same thematic obsession, in an attempt to capture a detailed yet painful picture of a people marked by the terror of a totalitarian history. 
 
 

Manifestations of the Utilization of the Magical Realism Technique in John Updike’s Novel Brazil

Although an obsessive meditation on a multiracial society, John Updike's Brazil is a magic-saturated reworking of the most romantic love story of them all, the Celtic legend of Tristan and Iseult. Apparently, Updike uses the medievalist legend as a vehicle to explore some typical Updikean themes: the social politics of love, class conflict, the question of gender and patriarchy, immorality and violence, etc. This paper is an attempt to point out how Updike digs into myth and uses the techniques of ‘magical realism’ to weave a narrative of his two young Brazilian lovers, Isabel and Tristão, who try to stay together despite various forces that conspire to keep them apart, notably opposition from their families. Updike's utilization of ‘magical realism’ will be analyzed in light of the five primary characteristics of this mood as suggested by Wendy B. Faris in her seminal work Ordinary Enchantments: Magical Realism and the Remystification of the Narrative. This paper is also meant to highlight how Updike's use of this device gives him an opportunity to hypothesize about the social and emotional consequences of a reversal of races. It is here that the link Updike creates between the indigenous peoples and the characters becomes key, for it allows the central characters, Isabel and Tristão, to experience the magic, and thus finally delve into what race means in their lives and for their identities. This paper argues how the characters manage, through magic too, to explore ethnic identity; an identity they previously ignored or abandoned. For all, this abandonment has negative consequences, leading to their devaluation of self. Isabel thinks that her being black and Tristão being white will solve much of their problems, but in reality it only makes them worse and Tristão ends up killed in the end.

‘So dense a commingling of the improbable and the mundane!’: writing Palestinian history in a magical realist key

ABSTRACT This article reflects on writing a history book in the style of a magical realist novel. The book, The Lives and Deaths of Jubrail Dabdoub, employs classic techniques from magical realist fiction to narrate the transformation of the Palestinian town of Bethlehem in the 19th century. In this article, I describe the process of writing the book, using this as an entry-point into a wider discussion on how historians can productively engage with literary form and genre. Drawing on fictional writing in Spanish, Arabic and English, the article argues magical realist prose is particularly well suited to capturing a sense of the fantastical, the uncanny and the absurd – areas of historical experience usually neglected in academic writing. I discuss how I experimented with specific techniques to tap into Bethlehem’s arresting, often bizarre encounters with global capitalism in the 19th century, as well as explore my own relationship to this history as a British historian writing about Palestine.

Exploring the Elements of Magic Realism in American Literature with Reference to the Works of Gabriel García Márquez In, Particularly “One Hundred Years of Solitude.”

This research paper examines how Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Márquez employs magic realism in his writings. This essay will look at the literary representations of reality and dreams in the twenty-first century. He used this strategy to create a plausible scenario that is influenced by Columbian culture in the book One Hundred Years of Solitude. The author wants to raise issues about the absurdity of life and encourage self-actualization. The mythical settlement of Macondo is situated in a realistic environment with some fantastic aspects. This study demonstrates how magic realism psychoanalysis may address some of the most challenging and important subjects in literature.

Haunted Transpositions in Violet Kupersmith’s Build Your House Around My Body (2021)

Twisting and uncanny, Build Your House Around My Body is a kaleidoscopic hallucination of a novel. Its story fits uneasily in multiple genres, from the Gothic to the bildungsroman, and it is told via the seemingly contradictory—yet ultimately sympathetic—techniques of magical realism and historical fiction. The primary protagonist of the book is Winnie, an American-Vietnamese woman whose biracial identity has alienated her from her dual cultures but also, crucially, from her self. Through her narrative we learn not only the histories of the characters around her, but also the recent history of Vietnam. The novel charts a sinuous and haunting movement across time, space and identity, creating a complex yet fascinating book of shifting narratives and meanings.

Exploring Queer Identity and Supernatural Realities in Katrina Leno's Summer of Salt and Sometime in Summer: A Comparative Analysis of Coming-of-Age and Magical Realism

This study examines the representation of queer identities in two popular young adult novels, “Summer of Salt” and Sometime in Summer, both authored by Katrina Leno. Utilising a queer theoretical framework, the analysis explores the use of coming-of-age narratives and elements of magical realism to create complex queer characters, mainly focusing on Felicity and Julep from Summer of Salt and Aiden from Sometime in Summer. The nuanced and complex experiences of these characters, as portrayed by Leno, are closely examined, with a particular focus on using magical realism as a genre to explore alternative realities and challenge established norms. The significance of young adult literature in reflecting and influencing the awareness of LGBTQ+ adolescents is also explored, with recognition of the decisive role that novels like these can play in cultivating a deeper understanding and acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community. The broader implications of Leno's work are analysed, emphasising its literary and cultural significance. The novels are placed within the context of the queer literary tradition and social advocacy, underscoring the importance of including diverse and authentic queer voices in young adult literature. Overall, this study highlights the significance of Leno's work in the ongoing discussion surrounding LGBTQ+ presence in the young adult genre, underscoring the need for continued efforts to promote understanding and acceptance of the diverse experiences of queer individuals.

Magical Realism and Social Critique in Latin American Literature: A Comparative Analysis of García Márquez and Isabel Allende

This comparative analysis explores the themes, narrative techniques, and cultural contexts of Gabriel García Márquez and Isabel Allende, two luminaries of Latin American literature. Both authors employ magical realism to delve into social and political issues, albeit in distinct ways. García Márquez’s intricate narratives critique power structures and societal decay, while Allende’s intimate stories focus on personal relationships and resilience. Despite their differences, both writers share a commitment to using literature as a tool for social critique and cultural exploration.

The Elasticity of Space in Karen Tei Yamashita’s "Tropic of Orange"

Karen Tei Yamashita’s novel Tropic of Orange is a study of space shaped by history, urbanism, globalisation, and ecology. Yamashita explores the social injustice, urban, and environmental changes happening in postmodern and futuristic Los Angeles through seven characters and their respective storylines, narrated by various narrators with different styles. Most characters experience spatial and temporal distortions in their everyday lives, allowing them to try to understand the events unfolding around them. Yamashita depicts space as an organic, changeable, and elastic unity. I argue that by viewing space more holistically, Yamashita offers solutions to some of the overarching problems California has been facing for a long time, namely racism, displacement, class differences, transformation of urban space, violence, and the threat of ecological catastrophe. The convergence of space and time in the narrative, mixed with magic realist tropes, enables Yamashita to interrogate and critique the contemporary socio-economic conditions of the Latin American community in Los Angeles.

Focalization, Subjectivity, and Magic(al) Realism in “Night in the Woods”

The main aim of our analysis is to consider the use and function of focalization in Night in the Woods (Infinite Fall, 2017) and the resulting magic(al) realism subjectivity of perception and fluidity of the gameworld in the framework of post-classical narratology. Our suggestion is that the specific ludonarrative features and functions of the game and its playable protagonist, Mae Borowski, pose questions pertaining to the ontological status of the gameworld, making it an in-between, undetermined magic(al) realism space. Taking into account the conventional formulas and themes utilized in the game, it has already been discussed as an American story following the tradition of the so-called Rust Belt Gothic. This approach, albeit highly accurate, fails to exhaust the possibility that the events presented in the game, specifically in the fourth act, are only subjectively perceived by the protagonist/focalizer, Mae Borowski. In our text, we discuss the potential markers of subjectivity present in the game, with a focus on the game music and soundscape.

Magic Realism and Fantastic in Contemporary Literature

Magical Realism and Fantastic are two widely used concepts in contemporary literature. Fantastic is such fiction that blends the realities of our physical world with the supernatural in an indistinguishable manner, with the aim of leading minds of varying abilities on different trails. Both are used in combination to complete the novel. The reader is amazed by the inability to differentiate between real life and the world of fantasy. In Magical Realism, as the name implies, magic, history, fiction and myths are employed. The characters often possess supernatural abilities. It is often mistaken for imaginary realism. The main difference between the two is that in Fantastic, the characters feel shocked and horrified by the happenings, as in  Harry Potter’s series, where the sudden disappearance of ‘the mirror’ causes shock. By contrast, in magical realism, the characters tend to react to the occurrence of magic. Another important point is the relation of both to scientific fiction, where events are analyzed on the basis of facts and scientific development in order to enable humans to face life intelligently.

Indigeneity at the Limits of Transculturation: Decolonial Aesthetics in Claudia Llosa's The Milk of Sorrow

Abstract: Elaborating decolonial and intersectional methods, aesthetics has developed rich tools for tackling power differences. A philosophical question arises about the nature of gendered embodied experience and materiality: How to comprehend the cultural field if it is at once a site of heinous expropriation and violence and one of vital social and political possibility? This essay explores this question through a reading of Claudia Llosa's film The Milk of Sorrow ( La teta asustada ) (2009). The film, we show, reworks racial, gendered, and colonial logics and supplants a model of transculturation, magical realism, and syncretism and its attendant figuration of resistance by a cultural vision of a web of multivalent, pluri-directional aesthetic promises and threats. Thus it presents a young Indigenous woman as a contemporary decolonial actor who, in encounter with popular culture and the global marketplace, renders memory livable and opens up unforeseen futures for her young town and country. We signal the implications for the positioning of the decolonial feminist spectator or culture maker and for a decolonial aesthetics. Aesthetic existence at the intersection of oppression and liberation, although impure and troubled, functions as a bountiful font of feminist energy and sustenance and a site of communal caring and imagination.

Multiculturality as a Subject of the Image in the Collection of Short Stories “The Stars of Manchuria” by A. P. Hejdok

The article is devoted to the study of the multicultural phenomenon of the short stories by the popular writer of the Harbin diaspora A. P. Hejdok, who published the collection “The Stars of Manchuria” in 1934. The author of the article analyzes in detail the events in the works, the behavioral priorities and mindset of the characters, which organically reflect the cultural elements of China, Russia, Mongolia, Egypt, Manchurian ethnic groups, as well as biblical plots. The emphasis is on analyzing the mysterious world of China through Buddhism and Taoism. During the research, the following short stories in the collection were mainly studied: “Three Duds” (1932), “The Manchu Princess” (1930), “Miami” (1931), “The Temple of Dreams” (1932), “The Unknown” (1931), “The Dogs Howl” (1929) and “The Path” (1931). The article uses descriptive, hermeneutic, comparative, historical-literary and historical-cultural methods to analyze the texts. The scientific novelty of this article lies in the fact that for the first time a comprehensive, interdisciplinary, including cultural, analysis of the short stories in the collection “The Stars of Manchuria” was carried out, details not touched upon in previously published works were examined, and based on the analysis of the multicultural phenomenon, the artistic method in the short stories is determined for the first time. The research resulted in the following conclusions: 1. Hejdok in the collection integrates various cultural details in his own way, which make the works expressive, engaging, and contribute to the development of the plot. 2. The multicultural phenomenon gives the short stories of the collection myth-making characteristics against the backdrop of historical reality. By combining realistic description and this cultural phenomenon, Hejdok creates a distinctive prose similar to magic realism, the appearance of which coincides with the beginning of the writer’s creative path.