Magical realism is a literary method that inserts imaginative happenings into a largely realistic world. Lorna Robinson explains that magical realism’s purpose is to show that different people have different realities when she writes: “Communities of people have different ways of explaining the world around them and events that occur to them, and these codes for interpreting reality can clash when brought into contact with each other. Latin American writers and scholars have often said that such a clash produces the atmosphere we have come to label magical realism in literature; construing the theory in quite territorial terms, they have claimed that the specific circumstances of Latin America have produced magical realism” (1). Robinson states that the main goal of magical realism is to show that what to the reader is magical, to other groups is real simply because different groups of people have differing realities. She explains that this clash of people explaining their worlds in contrasting ways is what creates magical realism.
Critics have debated about the existence of magical realism in One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Márquez. In Someone Writes to the Future: Meditations on Hope and Violence in García Márquez, Ariel Dorfman objects to the term magical realism because “People in misdeveloped, twisted lands may not be able to dominate what really happens to them; but they can at least control the stories they tell about how they want what happened to them remembered” (89). Dorfman states that the stories with magical happenings are not magical at all, they are just everyday occurrences modified by the people with time. Dorfman writes that Márquez has these seemingly magical happenings to show how the people cope with their lives. She explains that to make their lives seem more interesting, they can stretch the truth of their lives. Furthermore, Dorfman clarifies this is how legends are born. People pass on a story with alterations each time, until it seems magical to the reader.
Despite these claims, magical realism does indeed exist in One Hundred Years of Solitude. Márquez blends real and imaginary happenings in a way that confuses the reader to what is real and what is not, not because that is his intent, but because different groups of people live different truths. In Macondo what is plausible is implausible and what is bizarre is normal. Ice and false teeth are a wonder to the people of Macondo, but someone ascending to heaven or an insomnia plague is accepted and normal. Gabriel Garcia Márquez uses hyperboles and specific details to successfully apply magical realism in order to demonstrate the difference in reality for varying communities of people.
In this essay I integrated quotations using verbs that make a claim or verbs for expressing agreement. They are introduced with a short summary and then I proceed to show my view while also showing quotes from the opposing side. I show both sides and also clearly convey what I believe.
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