similarities between gothic literature and magical realism

#Similarities between gothic literature and magical realism series

There must be a balance between the two where even when they are intermingled and mixed in the story, the readers can still discern which is fantasy and which is a reality. There is also a strong play of irony in stories of magical realism, where authors cannot fully write realistic ideas the same way they cannot fully write fantasy. The genre thrives on the mixing of normally different ideas. There could also be a mix of Western and Eastern culture. It could be that rural and urban settings take place simultaneously. There is a hybrid existence of two opposing ideas. In magical realism, writers incorporate hybridity in their work.

#Similarities between gothic literature and magical realism series

Writers of this genre employ a series of characteristics that, when combined, makes the genre different from the others and divergent from the norm. The finished work becomes an expression of reality with an infusion of magical elements that are normal and ordinary in the eyes of the characters and the readers. In Magical realism, these extraordinary things just happen naturally.Ī magical realist writer brings about things that only happen in dreams, nightmares, fantasy into reality. In Magical Literature, spells cast and wizards are necessary for these things to happen. Science fiction, for things like monsters, dragons, wizards, and transforming arrows to occur, there are mad scientists doing experiments or weird inventions involved. This is what makes magical realism different from other genres that have a similar theme of Science Fiction or Magical Literature.

They are considered daily occurrences in the story, so the characters do not have anything to be astonished of. There is no reason for the arrow to transform. The arrow just transforms on its own, as if that is what is the nature of arrows, to transform into birds. There is no machine that causes the arrow to transform either. There is no incantation or spell that the man utters before shooting the arrow. The transformation also happens without any prompt. When the arrow becomes a bird, the man does not think that there is anything wrong with it. For example, when an average man shoots an arrow towards a mark and the arrow transforms into a bird in mid-flight. In magical realistic literature, everything that is happening in the story, everything that the characters experience in daily life, no matter how absurd or far-fetched, are considered ordinary in the story. The things that separate magical realism to literary works of pure fantasy and purely objective reality is that it combines the best of both worlds. However, it was not until the early 1930s to the 1950s that the entire concept became a fad for literary artists, especially in Latin America where it was highly popularized by literary writers. He meant for the term to refer to works of art that showcase an artist’s understanding of expressionism while still portraying a concept that is objective and realistic. He wanted a category of art that is divergent from the conventional and strict guidelines of realism in art.

However, Roh used the concept as a category of art. The use of the term “magical realism” to refer to such genre of literature was started by the German historian of art, Franz Roh in the early 1920s. This combination of contradicting concepts and ideas into a play of words is truly an art. It is literature with an interplay of logic and magic, reality, and fantasy. Literary works of this nature present an amalgam of two opposing concepts. Literary works of the magical realism genre are epitomes of paradox. However, due to its popularity and unique sense of style, magical realism has also been incorporated in literature. Magical realism is a concept that has mostly been used in the art sector to refer to logical yet surreal art.