Magical Realism
In application to Toni Morrison’s Beloved
Spectrum of modern genres
Surrealism
Fantasy
Magical Realism
Escapism
Magic
Science Fiction
Supernatural
Realism
Expressionism
Realism
Focus on showing life
as it really is. They try
not to romanticize or
idolize or hyperbolize.
Mark Twain, Stephen
Crane, Dostoyevsky
19th-20th century
Early realists focused
on representing lives
not previously seen in
fine arts (women, the
poor, workers, street
life, ethnicities) .
Gustave Courbet,
Stone-Breakers
Expressionism
Presents the world in
a subjective
perspective, distorting
it for emotional effect,
to evoke moods or
ideas.
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Seeks emotional
experience and
represents that over
physical realism.
Hemingway, Faulkner,
Joyce
Beginning of 20th
century
Ma
Surrealism
Inserts irrational and
dreamlike images or
elements into realistic
style or setting.
Surprising and
unexpected
juxtapositions
Seeks to engage the
unconscious mind in
creating works of
imagination.
1920’s -40’s
Salvador Dali, “Persistence of Memory”
Magical Realism
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Michael Parkes “Gargoyles”
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QuickTime™ and a
decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
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“ It is predominantly an art of
surprises. Time exists in a
kind of timeless fluidity and
the unreal happens as part of
reality.”
“Magic becomes art when it
has nothing to hide.”
“a world view that is not
based on natural or physical
laws nor objective reality”
“make the unseen or hidden
elements of society visible.”
Elements included in Magical Realism
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Hybridity - is illustrated in the inharmonious arenas of such opposites as urban
and rural, and Western and indigenous. The plots of magical realist works
involve issues of borders, mixing, and change… often Latin American, Native
American, Middle Eastern
Irony Regarding Author’s Perspective—The writer must have ironic distance
from the magical world view for the realism not to be compromised. Authorial
reticence refers to the lack of clear opinions about the accuracy of events and
the credibility of the world views expressed by the characters in the text.
Unusual sequence of events and POV – fragmented time sequences,
flashbacks, stream of consciousness, frequently switching point of view
The Supernatural and Natural—In magical realism, the supernatural is not
displayed as questionable.
Realistic setting and conflict (often points out or protests social or political
concerns)
Elements patterned on fairytales, tall tales, mythology, the mystic/spiritual,
folklore, and a bond with the traditions or faith of a community. Events
presented as absolutely real and often go unquestioned but have dreamlike or
fairy-tale like qualities.
Well-known magical realist works
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Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude
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Laura Esquivel, Like Water for Chocolate
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Ben Okri, The Famished Road
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Toni Morrison, Beloved
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WP Kinsella, Shoeless Joe (made into the film, Field of
Dreams)
Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children
These novels violate, in various ways, standard novelistic
expectations by drastic experiments with subject matter,
form, style, temporal sequence, and fusions of the everyday,
the fantastic, the mythical, and the nightmarish, in
renderings that blur traditional distinctions between what is
serious or trivial, horrible or ludicrous, tragic or comic.
Problems with the term Magical Realism
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Some claim that it is a postcolonial hangover, a
category used by "whites" to marginalize the fiction of
the "other."
Others claim that it is a passé literary trend, or just a
way to cash in on the Latin American "boom."
Still others feel the term is simply too limiting, and
acts to remove the fiction in question from the world
of serious literature.
Application to Beloved
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Hybridity – morphing from the living to the dead and the
“living dead” (not zombies). Also morphing from African to
American, from slave to free…
Supernatural – a ghost haunts the house quite literally but
also metaphorically. The ghost materializes into a girl (this is
questionable but there are subtle hints)
Realistic Setting: Set in 1873 just after the American Civil
War (1861–1865), it is based on the true story of the AfricanAmerican slave, Margaret Garner, who escaped slavery in
1856 in Kentucky by fleeing to Ohio
Experimental structure: non-linear, flashbacks,
fragmentation in stories, multiple POV switching frequently,
stream of consciousness
Incorporation of African folklore and beliefs about death
What we need to look for…
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How does Morrison’s techniques (elements of
magical realism) affect our interpretation and
experience of this story?
How does magical realism and the structure of the
story reinforce the themes and meaning of the work
as a whole?