Editing Magical realism (section)

==Characteristics==
The extent to which the characteristics below apply to a given magic realist text varies. Every text is different and employs a smattering of the qualities listed here. However, they accurately portray what one might expect from a magic realist text.

===Fantastical realism elements===
Magical realism portrays fantastical events in an otherwise realistic tone. It brings fables, folk tales, and myths into contemporary social relevance. Fantasy traits given to characters, such as [[Levitation (physics)|levitation]], [[telepathy]], and [[telekinesis]], help to encompass modern political realities that can be [[Phantasmagoria|phantasmagorical]].<ref>''The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms'' (3rd ed.). [[Oxford University Press]]. 2008.</ref>

===Real-world setting===
The existence of [[Fantastique|fantastic]] elements in the real world provides the basis for magical realism. Writers do not invent new worlds, but rather, they reveal the magical in the existing world, as was done by [[Gabriel García Márquez]], who wrote the seminal work ''[[One Hundred Years of Solitude]]''.<ref name=Leal89>García, ''Leal'', p. 89.</ref> In the world of magical realism, the supernatural realm blends with the natural, familiar world.<ref name=":0">Zlotchew, Clark. 2007. ''Varieties of Magical Realism.'' New Jersey: Academic Press ENE.</ref>{{Rp|15}}

===Authorial reticence===
''Authorial reticence'' is the "deliberate withholding of information and explanations about the disconcerting fictitious world".<ref name=":1">Chanady, Amaryll Beatrice. 1985. ''Magical Realism and the Fantastic: Resolved versus Unresolved Antinomy''. New York: [[Garland Publishing, Inc.|Garland Publishing Inc.]]</ref>{{Rp|16}} The narrator is indifferent, a characteristic enhanced by this absence of explanation of fantastic events; the story proceeds with "logical precision" as if nothing extraordinary had taken place.<ref name="jstor.org">{{cite journal |last1=Flores |first1=Angel |title=Magical Realism in Spanish American Fiction |journal=Hispania |date=May 1955 |volume=38 |issue=2 |pages=187–192 |doi=10.2307/335812 |jstor=335812}}</ref><ref name=":1" />{{Rp|30}} Magical events are presented as ordinary occurrences; therefore, the reader accepts the marvelous as normal and common.<ref name="Bowers25-27">Bowers, Maggie A. 2004. ''Magic(al) Realism''. New York: Routledge. Print. pp. 25–27.</ref>

===Plenitude===
In his essay "The Baroque and the Marvelous Real", [[Cubans|Cuban]] writer [[Alejo Carpentier]] defines the [[baroque]] by a lack of emptiness, a departure from structure or rules, and an "extraordinary" abundance (''plenitude'') of disorienting detail. (He cites [[Piet Mondrian|Mondrian]] as its opposite.) From this angle, Carpentier views the baroque as a layering of elements, which translates easily into the postcolonial or [[Transculturalism|transcultural]] Latin-American atmosphere that he emphasizes in ''[[The Kingdom of this World]]''.<ref>Carpentier, Alejo, ''El Reino de este Mundo''</ref> "America, a continent of symbiosis, mutations&nbsp;... [[mestizaje]], engenders the baroque",<ref name=":2" /> made explicit by elaborate Aztec temples and associative [[Nahuas|Nahuatl]] poetry. These mixing ethnicities grow together with the American baroque; the space in between is where the "marvelous real" is seen. Marvelous: not meaning beautiful and pleasant, but extraordinary, strange, and excellent. Such a complex system of layering—encompassed in the Latin-American "boom" novel, such as ''[[One Hundred Years of Solitude]]''—aims towards "translating the scope of America".<ref name=":2">Carpentier, Alejo. 1975. "The Baroque and the Marvelous Real". In ''Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community''.</ref>{{Rp|107}}

===Hybridity===
Magical realism plot lines characteristically employ hybrid multiple planes of reality that take place in "inharmonious arenas of such opposites as urban and rural, and Western and indigenous".<ref name="Post Colonial Studies at Emory">{{cite web
 |url         = http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/MagicalRealism.html
 |title       = Post Colonial Studies at Emory
 |year        = 1998
 |access-date  = June 18, 2009
 |url-status     = live
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20090620034827/http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/MagicalRealism.html
 |archive-date = June 20, 2009
}}</ref><ref name="Daniel, Lee A 1982">{{cite journal |last1=Daniel |first1=Lee A. |title=Realismo Mágico: True Realism with a Pinch of Magic |journal=The South Central Bulletin |date=1982 |volume=42 |issue=4 |pages=129–130 |doi=10.2307/3188273 |jstor=3188273}}</ref>

===Metafiction===
{{main|Metafiction}}

This trait centers on the reader's role in literature. With its multiple realities and specific reference to the reader's world, it explores the impact fiction has on reality, reality on fiction, and the reader's role in between; as such, it is well suited for drawing attention to social or political criticism. Furthermore, it is the tool paramount in the execution of a related and major magic-realist phenomenon: [[Textuality|textualization]]. This term defines two conditions&mdash;first, where a fictitious reader enters the [[story within a story]] while reading it, making them self-conscious of their status as readers&mdash;and secondly, where the textual world enters into the reader's (real) world. Good sense would negate this process, but "magic" is the flexible convention that allows it.<ref name=":3">Thiem, Jon. "The Textualization of the Reader in Magical Realist Fiction". In ''Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community''.</ref>

===Heightened awareness of mystery===
Magic realist literature tends to leave out explanation of its magical element or obfuscate elements of the story, creating a sense of confusion and mystery.<ref>{{Cite web |title=An Introduction to Magical Realism {{!}} Dr. Philip Irving Mitchell {{!}} Dallas Baptist University |url=https://www.dbu.edu/mitchell/post-colonial-resources/magical.html |access-date=2024-01-12 |website=www.dbu.edu}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2021 |title=How to Write Magical Realism |url=https://www.masterclass.com/articles/how-to-write-magical-realism}}</ref> For example, when reading ''[[One Hundred Years of Solitude]]'', the reader must let go of pre-existing ties to conventional [[exposition (literary technique)|exposition]], plot advancement, linear time structure, scientific reason, etc., to strive for a state of heightened awareness of life's connectedness or hidden meanings in order for the book to begin to make sense. [[Luis Leal (writer)|Luis Leal]] articulates this feeling as "to seize the mystery that breathes behind things",<ref>Leal, Luis. "Magical Realism in Spanish American Literature". In ''MR: Theory, History, Community''</ref> and supports the claim by saying a writer must heighten his senses to the point of {{lang|es|estado limite}} ('limit state' or 'extreme') in order to realize all levels of reality, most importantly that of mystery.<ref>Carpentier, Alej. "On the Marvelous Real in America". Introduction in ''[[The Kingdom of This World|The Kingdom of this World]]''.</ref>

===Political critique===
Magic realism contains an "implicit criticism of society, particularly the elite".<ref>{{cite web
 |publisher   = University of Texas Press
 |url         = http://www-english.tamu.edu/pers/fac/andreadis/474H_ahapw/Definition_Magic.Realism.html
 |title       = Twentieth-Century Spanish American Literature
 |year        = 194
 |access-date  = June 18, 2009
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 |archive-date = February 27, 2009
}}</ref> Especially with regard to Latin America, the style breaks from the inarguable discourse of "privileged centers of literature".<ref name=":4">D'haen, Theo. "Magical realism and postmodernism: decentering privileged centers". In ''Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community''.</ref> This is a mode primarily about and for "ex-centrics": the geographically, socially, and economically marginalized. Therefore, magic realism's "alternative world" works to correct the reality of established viewpoints (like [[Literary realism|realism]], [[Naturalism (literature)|naturalism]], [[Literary modernism|modernism]]). Magic-realist texts, under this logic, are [[Subversion|subversive]] texts, revolutionary against socially-dominant forces. Alternatively, the socially-dominant may implement magical realism to disassociate themselves from their "[[power discourse]]".<ref name=":4" />{{Rp|195}} Theo D'haen calls this change in perspective "decentering".

In his doctoral thesis ''Magical Insurrections: Cultural Resistance and the Magic Realist Novel in Latin America'', ([[University of Essex]], 1996), [[William Spindler]] argues that there is an underlying theme of cultural resistance in the Latin American magic realist novel,<ref name="Spindler">{{Cite thesis |last=Spindler |first=William |title=Magical Insurrections: Cultural Resistance and the Magic Realist Novel in Latin America |date=January 1996 |degree=doctoral |publisher=University of Essex |url=https://repository.essex.ac.uk/40531/ |language=en}}</ref> which draws its sustenance from the counter-hegemonic characteristics of [[popular culture]]. The thesis explores how the notion of cultural resistance has been incorporated into five Latin American magic realist novels: ''[[Men of Maize|Men of Maize by]]'' [[Miguel Ángel Asturias|Miguel Angel Asturias]], ''[[The Kingdom of This World]]'' [[Alejo Carpentier|by Alejo Carpentier]], [[José María Arguedas|Jose Maria Arguedas]]' ''[[Deep Rivers]]'', [[Gabriel García Márquez]]' ''[[One Hundred Years of Solitude]]'' and [[Abel Posse]]'s ''Daimón'' (1978). Other Latin American texts are also used for comparative purposes. The thesis explores the literary, historical and ideological characteristics of the Latin American magic realist novel in relation to cultural resistance, language, hegemony and popular culture in what Spindler calls the "political economy" of magic realism.<ref name="Spindler"/>

In his review of [[Gabriel García Márquez|Gabriel Garcia Márquez]]'s novel, ''[[Chronicle of a Death Foretold]]'', [[Salman Rushdie]] argues that the formal experiment of magic realism allows political ideas to be expressed in ways that might not be possible through more established literary forms:<ref>{{cite web|last1=Juul|first1=Jesper|title=Are Game Experiments Apolitical? Avant-garde and Magic Realism|url=https://www.jesperjuul.net/ludologist/2014/08/13/are-game-experiments-apolitical/|website=The Ludologist|access-date=4 July 2017|date=13 August 2014|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180425234831/https://www.jesperjuul.net/ludologist/2014/08/13/are-game-experiments-apolitical/|archive-date=25 April 2018}}</ref>

{{blockquote|{{lang|es|italic=no|"El realismo mágico"}}, magic realism, at least as practised by Márquez, is a development out of Surrealism that expresses a genuinely "Third World" consciousness. It deals with what [[V. S. Naipaul|Naipaul]] has called "half-made" societies, in which the impossibly old struggles against the appallingly new, in which public corruptions and private anguishes are somehow more garish and extreme than they ever get in the so-called "North", where centuries of wealth and power have formed thick layers over the surface of what's really going on. In the works of Márquez, as in the world he describes, impossible things happen constantly, and quite plausibly, out in the open under the midday sun.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Rushdie|first1=Salman|title=Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981–1991|date=1991|publisher=Granta Books|location=London|isbn=978-0-670-83952-0}}</ref>}}