From the Paper "This study will examine Alejo Carpentier's novel The Kingdom of This World, focusing on the role of miscegenation in both biological and cultural senses. The study will focus on the racism inherent in the nation examined by Carpentier and in the relationships between whites and blacks. However, the book is hardly a portrayal of blacks as all-good and whites as all-evil. To the contrary, Carpentier portrays almost every character as significantly flawed, although he clearly means to indict the system of slavery, blatant or de facto, which prevails in the nation he portrays.
The issue of miscegenation is basically one of control and domination. In other words, the race in control will control the interrelationships of blacks and whites. In a nation controlled by whites, blacks will be treated as secondary citizens at best.."
Abstract This paper discusses the part of the process of staging a play that makes the familiar unfamiliar, that isolates elements so as to suggest reality, the familiar, in an unfamiliar way. Maria Irene Fornes' play, "Conduct of Life", is examined and compared with other literary works. A brief background of Fornes is presented.
From the Paper "Part of the process of staging a play is to make the familiar unfamiliar, to isolate elements so as to suggest reality, the familiar, in an unfamiliar way. Plays do not take place in the real world but in a created world, a world set in one isolated spot (the stage) with several specific individuals isolated from real life (characters) interacting in a manner that conveys thematic issues and concerns to the audience. Such communication is controlled in a way that real life is not. Issues are isolated from the extraneous and conveyed in a way that has been shaped by the playwright for maximum impact. In the play "Conduct of Life" by Maria Irene Fornes, the familiar is made unfamiliar first in the setting, which is suggested as a set of four horizontal planes selectively illuminated and selectively populated as characters move from one area to another, evoking images of life but not life itself."
Tags: orlando, leticia, alejo, nena, olimpia, home, society, domestic, public
Abstract Discusses the magic realism literary style of Cristina Garcia's novel DREAMING IN CUBA. Traces concept of magic realist to Cuba and Cuban novelist Alejo Carpentier. Critical review of characters, and their interaction in Cuba and New York. Themes of family, politics, love, dreams, visions, memory. Author's attitude toward magic realism.
From the Paper "It is altogether fitting that Cristina Garcia should plunge us into a world defined by the always shifting definitions of the world of magical realism, for Garcia's books are essentially Cuban, and the concept of magical realism itself was born in Cuba. Although this style of writing is perhaps best known through the work of Argentine writers like Jorge Luis Borges, the term itself and the literary style that this sometimes elusive phrase refers to were the children of Cuban novelist Alejo Carpentier. Carpentier was seeking for a literary style (and concept) broad enough to accommodate both the events of everyday life as he saw it unfolding before him in the years after World War II in Cuba and the fabulous nature of Latin American geography and history (Zamora and Faris, 1995, p. 36).
Carpentier's ideas about the kind of writing that could span such..."
