Magical Realism in Literature

• Magic Realism was originally coined by Franz Roh, a German art critic, to describe the emerging style in painting.
• “Magischer Realismus” or magic realism blurs the line between fantasy and reality. It aligns with the developing genre called “New Objectivity” that uses the fusion of magic, reality and fantasy to make ordinary things seem odd, eccentric, extraordinary or awesome.
• Alejo Carpentier, a French-Russian Cuban writer made use of Roh’s Definition which he improvised later as “Marvelous Realism”.
• It was in 1955 when a literary critic, Angel Flores coined the term “Magical Realism” because it was possible to combine elements of magic realism and marvelous realism
• Published in 1915, The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, for example, has every element that modern writers and readers would consider Magical Realism.
• The reader does not have any difficulty relating to the story since the story took place in a real (or portrayed as real) setting with real (or seemingly real ) people.

  Realistic Settings
• It can range from the supernatural ability to talk to spirits, telepathy, talking animals or objects, not aging or aging too fast, giants, monsters, extra-terrestrials and a whole lot more. No matter how absurd and how fantastical these may be, they are regarded as normal within the story.


  Magical Elements
• Authors often leave the magical element unexplained so that it may be regarded as a natural thing to occur in one’s life


  Limited Information
• Authors use Magical Realism in an attempt to criticize social issues Latin American writers, for example, were mostly fueled by the prevailing political, economic, and social problems in their countries. Magical Realism highlights the miseries, pain and struggle of real people. At the same time it celebrates the triumph of the human spirit - the ability to do what seems to be impossible.


  Critique
• In Magical realism, the plot is not usually arranged in chronological order. Although this may not be true for all stories, it still has some unexpected twists and turns which will leave the reader clueless regarding subsequent events. Time is either warped, absent or irrelevant.

  Unique Plot Structure