Harold Zarate Diaz
ENG101
Dr. Silva
The Latin American culture is showed by
Magical Realism in Gabriel Garcia Marquez literature.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez has been linked to a style called “Magical Realism”.
This type of literature is characterized by few elements of reality and a lot of fantasy. The
purpose of this essay is to show how Marquez represents the philosophy and idiosyncrasy
of Latin America culture. The term “Magical Realism” has a lot of controversies based
on the time when this kind of literature showed up and the themes or topics that have
been covered. Without any doubts this is literature with elements of fiction, fantasy and a
lot of imagination.
Few others authors around the world have been working with the exciting and
fantastic point of view where a simple ordinary event changes into an extraordinary
situation. Gunter Grass in Germany, John Fowels in England are few of them in Europe
as well as Jorge Luis Borges and Isabel Allende in South America. But why is Garcia
Marquez is different? Why did he win a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982? The answer
would be the authenticity of his narrative, the link with his cultural background.
Marquez is a natural storyteller. He wants to tell stories he knows from his grandmother
“She told things that sounded supernatural and fantastic, but she told them with
complete naturalness” This is exactly the tone used by Marquez, he just report incidents
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and events from his own culture in a natural tone. Supernatural things happen everyday,
this why the narrator doesn’t have to explain the inexplicable. It’s the particular
manifestation of the Latin American people. He tells stories without moral or
conventional criticism, he chose to employ a serious tone to present unbelievable ideas
seems real. Its difficult to find where the reality ends and the fantasy appears. The
power of his imagination came from his vast knowledge of Latin American, Marquez
doesn’t need names, places and stories from other cultures like Borges, he has enough
information from his family, friends, and neighbors to write a fantastic history.
Regarding this aspect is Garcia Marquez who says: “Speaking for myself, I only
became aware of it a few years ago, even though my experience as a writer and my
frequent contact with different societies and political systems have increased my
understanding or other aspects of Latin American culture”.
Besides of his personal experience, the cultural enrichment in Marquez literary
production has a combination of traditions, legends from Indian culture, myths and
legends from Spanish conquerors and the political situation in Latin America. Garcia
Marquez strongly shows his political position in favor of the oppressed poor people and
against the foreign economic exploitation. To condense all his “Magical Realism”
Garcia Marquez has created his own place, his own microcosms called “Macondo”
Since the end of 1940 his short stories are taking place in a particular town of Macondo,
this “magic town” is supposed to be a Garcia Marquez childhood town, Aracataca,
located near the north cost of Colombia, few km from Santa Marta. The name Macondo
was the name of a banana plantation and means “banana” in the Bantu language, the
language spoken by afrocariben people who came to Colombia as slaves by Spanish
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colonialist to work in a “New World” In Macondo everything could happen; flowers
rain from the sky, the “Mama Grande” could be the owner of the national and
international water, the sky, the national treasure and also the virginity of the young
women, the innocence girl could fly because she was virgin, a baby could born with a
pig tale as a consequence of original sin, but accordingly with Marquez it is a world
very much like our own. Marquez also suggest that cultures and countries differ in what
they call realism, because it is a cultural issue, it is no coincidence that magical realism
has more influence in countries like Colombia.
An example of culture we can see it in the short story "The Handsomest Drowned
Man in the World" starts with the children playing on the beach with the waterlogged
body of a dead man and ends with the town changing the appearance of their doors and
buildings to honor this dead man they never knew. This dead stranger, who "has the
face of someone called Esteban," according to the oldest woman in the town, is treated
to a cleaning by all the women in this town. They notice the vegetation and dirt they are
rubbing off of him is from "faraway oceans and deep water". He is not one of them.
This adds to his mysterious, exotic nature. They clean him up and stitch him a set of
clothes. Then, they sit around him, fascinated by his huge size and his beauty".
Oftentimes in our culture, celebrities live lives completely removed from ours, yet
people sit around fascinated by them. They endlessly discuss their beauty, their
clothing, and what they do with their time. And here, we have this same thing
happening. This handsome drowned man who lived his entire life completely removed
from this tiny village is suddenly now almost being worshipped by the villagers. They
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imagine him having the best house and the "happiest woman" for his wife. They
imagine that "he would have had so much authority that he could have drawn fish out
the sea simply by calling their names". This larger than life, skewed view of this man is
similar to our culture's view of celebrities.
Finally, in our culture's obsession with beauty and glamour, it is often tempting to
compare our significant others with the Brad Pitts or Angelina Jolies of the day. In the
same way, the women in this tiny little village look upon Esteban and "secretly (compare)
him to their own men, thinking that for all their lives (their own men) were incapable of
doing what (Esteban) could do in one night". They make assumptions based on Esteban's
looks and begin to fantasize about his accomplishments. This causes a great deal of
discontent with the men in their own lives, the men who have most likely loved them and
provided for them. Now, a handsome (but still very much dead) man shows up on their
beach, and the women decide he beats their husbands and brothers hands down. They
become enamored with his looks and the strength he most likely possessed and seem to
be willing to trade away the men in their lives now. They see him as "the most peaceful
and most obliging man on earth," when in all reality, he was just a man. He had his own
faults and shortcomings, but none of the women in the village seem to comprehend this.
They see him as perfect. This is a sad comment on celebrity culture this idea that there is
that ideal of perfection in another human being. All faults are glossed over, and only
Esteban's exotic, mysterious, fade of perfection is left for the villagers to mourn.
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