Abstract
The paper explains that magic realism is one type of imaginative realism, which is defined as a shifting away for a straightforward depiction of reality, while still depicting recognizable objects. The paper discusses how it developed alongside surrealism, but was more understandable and "real" than surrealism, and so appealed to a wider audience (Wechsler).

From the Paper
"Thesis: Amado's story "The Miracle of the Birds" is an excellent example of Magic Realism in the Latin American tradition. Definitions: Magic realism is one type of imaginative realism, which is..."

Tags:amado, magical, realism

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..."

Abstract
This paper discusses the history of the definitions of magic realism. It specifically focuses on magic realism within photography and if the term can be applied to specific forms of photography. The paper discusses the medium of photography and how the writer uses this medium. It also looks briefly at digital photography, as well as black and white photography.

From the Paper
" It is very difficult to apply the term magic realism to photography of any kind; perhaps because it seems that every kind of photography may be capable of being magic realism. Since the meaning of the term has come to encompass so many definitions, there is an argument for many kinds of photographs to be considered as magic realist photographs. In my photography, I truly want to infuse the logical even "normal" world with something as illogical as a state of mind, an imagination. By still using a representational language to do so, I believe my photographs can fit into the Roh and Hartlaub description of magic realism as well as the Carpentier and Uslar-Pietri description. It is possible to use objectifiable or representational art rather than abstract art to express a part of human reality. It may seem that the objective world is "crystallized" by a photograph, but the crystalline structure of a real external situation is easily fractured by the tiniest suggestion of an internal or psychological reality; the latter is in fact strengthened by the cold and certain detail of the former."

Tags:studio, distortion, expressionism

Abstract
Within the context of magical realism, this paper attempts to delineate the character of Angela Vicario ,from "Chronicle of a Death Foretold" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, primarily, as a product of her marginalized gender and class in a contemporary Latin American town. Further, it analyzes her as an individual who in spite of the rigid socio-cultural constructs of acceptable femininity, code of honor and marriage, 'magically' rises from subjection to subjectivity. The paper also examines the larger fabric of this novel which is fraught with rich suggestiveness, ambiguity and contradiction as it questions the legitimacy of an act of murder (Santiago's) which has been committed without its reason being either proved or justified.

From the Paper
"The interplay of several statements given by various witnesses and members of the society locates Angela as a "perfect" girl who was "reared to get married." The narrative fits her well within the model of traditional-cultural notions of attractive femininity. The omniscient narrator underlines her suitability as a prospective wife as she was the "prettiest" amongst the Vicario girls. Further, she could also "sew by machine, wash and iron ... and write engagement announcements." Moreover, to quote the narrator's mother, "any man will be happy with them (Vicario girls) because they have been raised to suffer". These quotes make important statements on the gender based marginalization of as Angela. It exposes the constructed nature of gender, wherein girls are trained to perform certain duties in order to fulfill a particular role in a patriarchal set-up. "

Tags:Angela, Vicario, Santiago

Abstract
This paper examines different definitions of magical realism in literature and, in particular, compares and contrasts the magic realism aspects of Isabelle Allende's "The House of the Spirits" and Garcia Marquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude." The books are analyzed within the context of plot, setting, characters, style, and narrative structure. It shows how Garcia Marquez takes his themes and his use of devices to explore these themes to such exquisite heights that the comparison between the two books is really an unfair one and how there really is no comparison between the masterpiece of Garcia Marquez, and Allende's rather one-dimensional, poor attempt at magic realism.

From the Paper
"Bell-Villada (2002) acknowledges that magic realism is not an original construct of Garcia Marquez, that, rather, it came from Kafka (Garcia Marquez continually acknowledges the great impact The Metamorphosis had on his writing), and from Faulkner, and that Garcia Marquez took the ideas from these authors, and built on them to give the world his complex, enchanting magic realist masterpiece. This view, of Bell-Villada (2002), differs from the euro-centric view of Zamora and Faris? (1995) book Magic Realism: Theory, History and Community, by putting Garcia-Marquez's achievement in its rightful place as the masterpiece of magic realist fiction, rather than downplaying this achievement, through analysis, interpretation and presentation of worldwide, magic realist texts (such as those by Toni Morrison, and Rushdie, most of which were written post-One Hundred Years of Solitude)."

Tags:clara, class, myth, legend, passion

Abstract
The paper first provides an overview of the style of writing known as magical realism. The paper then closely examines Nathaniel Hawthorne's works and shows how while they have moments of magical realism, they fail to consistently work in this mode, where the supernatural is just as valid as the rational. The paper explains the style of magical realists of Latin America, and explains why if circumstances were different, perhaps Hawthorne might have written more like these magical realists.

Outline:
Magical Realism
Hawthorne
Conclusion

From the Paper
"Magical Realism is typically considered a 20th century Latin American phenomenon in literature, with writers like Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Isabel Allende carrying the flag. Since the time of the first Magical Realism boom-writers, many critics have studied the mode of writing and pointed toward Magical Realism literature being present in cultures outside the South and Central Americas. Certainly, there are elements of Magical Realism in literature all over the world. Many contemporary writers--such as Toni Morrison--have been identified as having Magical Realism tendencies in their writing, but our area of interest here lies in the past--before the boom writers themselves--back into the 19th century, and with the writings of Nathaniel Hawthorne."

Tags:Latin, America, supernatural, rational, marvelous, myth, allegory

Abstract
In this article, the writer discusses magical realism in literature as demonstrated by the Mexican film 'Like Water for Chocolate', directed by Alfonso Arau and written by Laura Esquivel, who also wrote the novel upon which this film is based and 'The Turn of the Screw' by Henry James. The writer discusses that both of these stories are delivered in realistic styles, but are interspersed with interactions and utilizations of the supernatural in ways that are taken as almost ordinary by at least several of the characters. The writer also discusses that there are many differences in the two narratives, however, and an exploration of the use of magical realism in both James' The Turn of the Screw and Esquivel's Like Water for Chocolate reveals that despite the differences in the ways these two works employ that particular style, a clear definition of the term is allowed to emerge.

From the Paper
"The story the governess tells in her manuscript involves her becoming the sole caretaker of two children, Flora and Miles. She begins to see two figure, a man and woman, that she quickly comes to believe are ghosts. Though she is far from pleased at their appearance--the disturbance they create with her and as she believes with the children make up the action of the novel--she also does not react to them with the horror and shock the one would expect, but rather encounters them as a problem to be dealt with, which is typical of the way characters in magical realism deal with fantastical manifestations. In another type of story, this reaction would simply be the fantasy-action hero's resolve to beat the bad evil spirits. This story, however, is far more realistic, and there is even some question a to whether or not the ghosts are real. The governess convinces herself that the children, Flora and Miles, can see the ghosts and are pretending not to out of some sort of collusion with them against her."

Tags:fantasy, plot, mood, ghosts

Abstract
The paper explores how Ana Castillo overcomes the obstacles of the Latino patriarchal cultural restrictions and Latino Catholicism in presenting her Latino characters. The paper highlights the notion of home in Castillo's story and how Castillo deals with the men in the story. The paper shows us how, using the tool of magical realism, Castillo succeeds in creating a bond between women characters and readers.

Outline:
Introduction
Freeing the Women in So Far From God
The Home
Magical Realism
The Men in So Far From God
Conclusion

From the Paper
"Right away Castillo helps the reader to understand how she will move past the restrictions of the patriarchal society placed on her female Latino characters. The key is the use of humor, and by taking those situations which are, in the life of Latino women, consistent as identifiers of their role in their society. The reality of the Latino culture suggests that the women, Sofi and her four daughters, around whom this story unfolds, should be in the background, while their male counterparts are in the foreground of the story. Castillo quickly dispels this cultural norm with humor, and also with the magical realism of one daughter, the second daughter, Caridad, whose dream in life it is to have a storybook wedding to her fiance, Tom. With this character, the second daughter, Castillo is conforming to the traditional Latino values, which she must do in exchange for the leeway she will take later in the story. The sacrifice of the second daughter to the traditions of her Latino culture come later, after Castillo has first taken what she needs as a fiction writer to move her story beyond the traditions."

Tags:patriarchy, culture, men, Latino, Catholicism, stereotypes

Abstract
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."

Tags:female, mythic, Macondo, Pinochet

Abstract
The paper discusses how the use of Magical Realism, as a technique, in "Pedro Paramo" by Juan Rulfo and "Death Constant Beyond Love" by Gabriel-Garcia Marquez, is essentially one whereby elements of the unreal are inextricably woven into real life to question the difference, if any, between illusion and reality. The paper shows how the use of the technique is apparent in the overall story as well as in the way the principal protagonists are shown dealing with life.

From the Paper
"Similarly, in Death Constant Beyond Love, Gabriel Garca-Marquezs story of Senator Onesimo Sanchezs continual quest for life in the face of imminent death, the question of illusion and reality is highlighted through the Senator's continued campaigning and his indulgence in an affair that ultimately causes his downfall. Was the Senator deluding himself with the only reality being death or was the Senator only continuing to live what had always been his reality as in the false make-believe world of politics and in fact, being realistic, by making most of the time he had left with Laura ("he found the woman of his life": 2430)" Thus, the lines between illusion and reality begin to blur depending on the perspective from which it is considered " the Senator's or the reader's."

Tags:Susana, Senator, Pedro, P?ramo