Magical Realism in PP
By: Anand Pant
Student Engagement
What makes magic magical?
If "supernatural" occurrences lose the fantastical element through repetition, and assuming they are all relative and adhere to basic categorical limitations, are there any examples in your lives or history through which the fantastical became less so?
Overview
Presence in the novel:
- Extremely well incorporated
- Inseparable blend
- Founded in death, life, time, and space.
Quote #1 (death, life, and space)
Quote #2 (life, death)
Quote #3, #4 (life, death)
"Then it can't have been him. Besides, Abundio died. I'm sure he's dead. So you see? It
couldn't have been him" (Rulfo 8).
Quote #5 (space)
"The road rose and fell. It rises or falls depending on whether you're coming or going. If you
are leaving, it's uphill; but as you arrive it's downhill" (Rulfo 1).
Quote #6, #7 (time)
"The one sure thing is that he threw everyone off his land and sat himself down in his chair to stare down that road" (Rulfo 45).
"Don Pedro spoke to no one. He never left his room. He swore to wreak vengeance on Comala: "I will cross my arms and Comala will die of hunger." And that was what
happened" (Rulfo 65).
Quote #8 (life, death)
'"What was that I just heard, dona Eduviges?"
She shook her head as if waking from a dream.
"That’s Miguel Paramo's horse, galloping down the road to the Media Luna"?"
"Then someone's living there?"
"No, no one's living there"' (Rulfo 11).
Literary Criticism
"One Hundred Years of Solitude" and "Pedro Páramo": A Parallel
Suzanne Jill Levine
Books Abroad, Vol. 47, No. 3 (Summer, 1973), pp. 490-495
Published by: University of Oklahoma
Article DOI: 10.2307/40127323
Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40127323
Art
Ideas:
- Collapse of a fixed cosmetic order
- Surrealist
- Dead/sleeping man
Take Away
- Point out the place in the novel, where magical elements are portrayed.
- Relation to initial activity.
- Relativity of the circumstance to the novel.
Questions
- After learning that Juan is dead, does that make communication with the dead less magical? Or is it relative to the reader?
- Are there other categories to which you would assign the fantastical elements in the book? (not life, death, time, space)
- Does the incorporation of these elements discredit the novel, and or create emotional separation from the characters.
- Is there a value to not writing the work in a logical linear manner?
- Is the portrayal of form a jibe in the face of Mexican traditional ways? An illustration of reality?
- Do dreams illustrate inherent desires, or is your conscious self your identity?
- Are distortions in reality more significant than distortions in character or perception? Are they the same, a product of each other...?