We recognize the world, although now-not only because we have emerged from
a dream--we look on it with new eyes.
--Alberto Rios
An Introduction to
Magical Realism
What is Magical Realism?
 First coined by
German art critic
 Used to explain art
looking at reality in
a new way
 Later applied to
literature
Elements of Magical Realism
Two conflicting perspectives:
-one based on a rational view of
reality
-the other on the acceptance of the
supernatural as reality
In other words…elements
of dreams, fairy tales, or
mythology combine with
the everyday.
Example: Franza Kafka’s The
Metamorphasis
“When Gregor Samsa woke up one
morning from unsettling dreams, he
found himself changed in his bed into a
monstrous vermin.”
The story is set in an otherwise
ordinary world, with familiar
historical and/or cultural realities.
Transformation of the common and
the everyday into the awesome and
the unreal.
Example: “An Act of
Vengeance”
-- Isabel Allende
Dulce’s hatred grows for
thirty years, until her
obsession becomes love
for Don Tadeo.
Example: One Hundred Years of
Solitude
– Gabriel Garcia Marquez
 woman who is so
beautiful that she is
followed everywhere
by a cloud of
butterflies
 all of the butterflies
have tattered wings.
 the miraculous,
looked at closely, is
mundane
Magic occurs without using devices typical
to the fantasy genre unless the devices (i.e.
ghosts, angels) are employed in a context
that makes them ordinary.
Ghosts or angels may exist in a magical
realist story, for instance, but not in a way
that is surprising or unusual to the
characters in the book.
Example: “A Very Old Man with
Enormous Wings”
--Gabriel Garcia Marquez
an old man with
enormous wings
appears in a
Colombian
village
Constructs of time do
not follow typical
Western conventions.
For instance, stories may be told in
spiraling shapes rather than in straight lines.
Contradictions, inconsistencies
and ambiguities color the point of
view, making the reader question
what he or she understands about
the world at large, as well as what
happens inside the story.
WHAT IS REAL…AND
WHAT IS MAGIC?