Latin American Magical Realism

Paper Summary:

In this essay, the writer discusses that in both 'The House of the Spirits' by Isabel Allende and 'One Hundred Years of Solitude' by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, females figure prominently in the authors' narratives of magical realism. The writer notes that in both novels, the struggles of the main female protagonist exist on a literal level of story and have a symbolic level of significance beyond the story, about the nature of politics or the nature of women, respectively. The writer concludes that Allende ultimately seeks to question the reasons for man's inhumanity to men, and women, in a political reality, and uses magical realism to heighten the consequences of her character's actions and cruelties, while Marquez relates his tale of a fictional village and family exclusively in the register of the fantastic and the surreal.

From the Paper:

"True, some of the actions of Allende's characters may be heightened by supernatural narrative motifs such as the matriarch Clara's ability to see into the future, but these plot points have ramifications beyond those of the psychological, symbolic, or merely mystical. For example, in a parallel of the terror that will come to Chile, Esteban hits his wife, and Clara takes a vow of silence, and never speaks to him until he dies. This act of defiance, although taken to an extreme in the novel, can also be read as a heightened example of a difficult relationship between husband and wife, and how the oppression within a patriarchal family structure mirrors the politics of the land."
"In contrast, Marquez's female archetypes lack the complex psychology of Allende's females, existing in the material dimension alone rather than on simultaneous spiritual and material planes."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Allende, Isabel. The House of the Spirits. New York: Bantam, 1986.
• Marquez, Gabriel Garcia. One Hundred Years of Solitude. New York: Perennial, 1998.

More papers on Latin American Magical Realism:

• Analytical Essay # 141629 : "Magic Realism in Latin American Fiction"
• Book Review # 113759 : "Magic Realism in "Chronicle of a Death Foretold"
• Comparison Essay # 33917 : "Reality and Moralism"

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