Magical Realism: The Night Face Up
Magical Realism Essay
Magical realism is not a very well known genre yet many people encounter it and automatically classify it as fantasy or an author’s imagination. Magical realism does contain some elements of both fantasy and imagination but also has a distinct resemblance to reality as we know it. This genre has many ways to classify it and many of those resemble other genres.
Constructs of time in a story are a sign of magical realism. This is exemplified in the story “The Night Face Up”, a where time is constrained through a dream in the future and the reality of being sacrificed in Aztec times. “With one last hope he squeezed his eyelids together, moaning in desperation. For a second he thought he’d done it because once again …show more content…
One instance of this element being shown is in the novel Bless Me, Ultima in the scene where Ultima is taking out the evil spirits from Lucas’ body. “She lifted the three dolls and held them to my sick uncle’s mouth...in her hands” (101). Another example is in the story “The Moths”, where the narrator of the story treats the appearance of moths as normal. “Then the moths came.. We would never be alone again.” Both of these events are treated as normal and get the same reaction as something that would happen in the “real world”.
The other more distinguishable sign of magical realism is that there is a metamorphosis in the story and it is treated as normal. In the movie Big Fish, Edward Bloom transforms into a fish at the end of the story when he is dropped in the river. No one really thought anyone of it, they just waved him off as if turning into a fish is normal. This is also included in the story “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings” where a character in the story was turned into a spider. This is one of the more obvious signs of magical realism as opposed to constructing time or deciphering normal and abnormal
Magical realism is not a very well known genre yet many people encounter it and automatically classify it as fantasy or an author’s imagination. Magical realism does contain some elements of both fantasy and imagination but also has a distinct resemblance to reality as we know it. This genre has many ways to classify it and many of those resemble other genres.
Constructs of time in a story are a sign of magical realism. This is exemplified in the story “The Night Face Up”, a where time is constrained through a dream in the future and the reality of being sacrificed in Aztec times. “With one last hope he squeezed his eyelids together, moaning in desperation. For a second he thought he’d done it because once again …show more content…
One instance of this element being shown is in the novel Bless Me, Ultima in the scene where Ultima is taking out the evil spirits from Lucas’ body. “She lifted the three dolls and held them to my sick uncle’s mouth...in her hands” (101). Another example is in the story “The Moths”, where the narrator of the story treats the appearance of moths as normal. “Then the moths came.. We would never be alone again.” Both of these events are treated as normal and get the same reaction as something that would happen in the “real world”.
The other more distinguishable sign of magical realism is that there is a metamorphosis in the story and it is treated as normal. In the movie Big Fish, Edward Bloom transforms into a fish at the end of the story when he is dropped in the river. No one really thought anyone of it, they just waved him off as if turning into a fish is normal. This is also included in the story “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings” where a character in the story was turned into a spider. This is one of the more obvious signs of magical realism as opposed to constructing time or deciphering normal and abnormal