Magical Realism as a Fusion of Fantasy and Reality Essay -- Literature

wizardly Realism as a Fusion of Fantasy and Reality One month ago, I had never comprehend of witching(prenominal) Realism. Since reading the four essays by Franz Roh, Angel Flores, Luis Leal and Amaryll Chanaday and various internet articles, I have a much better understanding of Magical Realism - what it is, how it applies to literature, how it applies to art, and its theory, history, and style. Magical Realism is a fusion of fantasy and macrocosm. According to Flores, it is a transformation of common and everyday into the awesome and unreal (114). This is not point and equal mix. Magical Realism is reality-based with just one fantastic overstatement. This overstatement is described by Pietri as a kind of extreme state, and that it favors the unexpected fertility rate of reality (qtd. in Leal 121). This one fantastic element is always accepted as reality by the characters in the story. It to a fault has hidden meanings in a deeper realm. The mystery does not descend to the present world but rather hides and palpitates behind it (Roh 16). Magical Realism is subject to a certain dictation and is mainly used to show a different way of viewing the world. In this form of expression, the plots are always logic eachy conceived. Magical Realism also expresses emotions without evoking them. In Magical Realism, key events have no logical or psychological explanation and the author does not need to justify the mystery of events (Leal 123). as a science fiction or fantastic author would. Also, unlike in sci-fi and fantasy stories, the author clings to reality. Flores describes this characteristic by saying the authors cling to reality as if to prevent literature from getting in their way, as if to prevent their myth from flying off, as i... ...t be literature that is reality based but contains at least one fantastic element that is unexplained but accepted. Now that I understand what it is, I am beginning to find more examples of it all around me. I am lookin g forward to reading examples of this unusual and interesting genre. Works Cited Flores, Angel. Magical Realism in Spanish American Fiction. Magical Realism Theory, History, Community. Ed. Lois Parkison Zamora and Wendy B. Faris. shorthorn N.C. Duke UP,1995109-118. Leal, Luis. Magical Realism in Spanish American Literature. Magical Realism Theory, History, Community. Ed. Lois Parkison Zamora and Wendy B. Faris. Durham N.C. Duke UP,1995119-124. Roh, Franz. Magic Realism Post-Expressionism. Magical Realism Theory, History, Community. Ed. Lois Parkison Zamora and Wendy B. Faris. Durham N.C. Duke UP,199515-31.

Atrocities in Staffords Traveling Through the Dark Essay -- Traveling

Atrocities in Staffords Traveling Through the Dark   Is a drive just a drive, or is it a metaphor that imparts storage area for lifes fragility while simultaneously lamenting mans inability to appropriately confront, or understand, death? William Staffords Traveling Through the Dark illustrates the mechanisms by which seemingly mundane events go bad probes into the mystery and ambiguity of the human condition.   The poems situation is simple, a lone traveler driving along a desolate canyon road spots a felled deer the traveler, desiring neither to hit the deer, nor by swerving to avoid it, hurtle his car over the canyon precipice, stops his vehicle and proceeds to push the move animal over the canyon face, into the river below. As the driver struggles to displace the cold, stiff deer corpse he senses warmth emanating from its abdomen, its an unborn fawn. Realizing that life remains in the body he had assumed dead, the traveler hesitates. Finally, he pushes the deer, one dead and the other not yet alive, off the road and into the chasm.   While the poems situation is simple, its national is not. Stafford appears to be intimating that life is precious and fragile however, nothing so clearly discloses these attributes of life as confrontation with death. Furthermore, the very confrontations that engender appreciation of lifes delicacies force action-all to often callous action.   Hence, the poems tone contains elements of remorse as well as impassivity. The travelers detached description of the mother, ...a doe, a recent killing / she had stiffened already, almost cold (6-7), and the wistful point with which he depicts her unborn offspring, ...her fawn lay there waiting... ...iver. Because the deers killer was a man behind the wheel of an automobile the traveler shares some relation with him. The travelers anguish, his bleed, is the realization that he is implicated in the murder of the deer through his association to the actual killer.   If expanded further, this metaphor can be applied to the inviolate human experience. All humanity is like a traveler driving through the dark. At varying junctions in our experiences we are, inevitably, both the discoverers and perpetrators of atrocities the confusion surrounding our responses to theses junctions is the phantasma we travel through.   Stafford ends the poem after the traveler pushes the deer into the canyons depths. We dont need to be told he returns to his car and drives on, we know it intrinsically, its what each of us would have done, what each of us must do.