One Hundred Years Of Solitude

MAGICAL REALISM WITHIN ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE.

Magical realism is characterized by two conflicting perspectives, one based on a rational view of reality and the other on the acceptance of the supernatural as ordinary reality. Magical realism differs from pure fantasy primarily because it is set in a normal, modern world with authentic descriptions of humans and society.

In One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez incorporates many supernatural motifs like levitation and flying carpets. Marquez also creates the character of Melquiades, a gypsy with supernatural powers. His novel contains powerful images of absurd bodily disgust, hesitant celebration and laughter, and the reconstruction of different identities of humanity, all of which demonstrate characteristics of magical realism.

In this novel, Marquez utilizes irony; Civil war rages throughout, hearts break, dreams shatter, and lives are lost, yet the effect shows literary sentiment towards the characters among GarcÐ"­a MÐ"ÐŽrquez's magical realism. Consider, for example, the ghost of Prudencio Aguilar, whom JosÐ"© Arcadio BuendÐ"­a has killed in a fight. The man's shade is so lonely is that it haunts BuendÐ"­a's house, searching anxiously for water with which to clean its wound. BuendÐ"­a's wife, Ð"Ñ™rsula, is so moved that "the next time she saw the dead man uncovering the pots on the stove she understood what he was looking for, and from then on she placed water jugs all about the house.

I think there is an important connection between the fantasy and the reality in the novel; in other words they are not two separate elements. In fact, a particularly important point of this novel is that in many respects the civilization depicted here too often confronts the reality of life with fantasy, because it experiences life and its indentiities as fantasy rather than as historical fact.

There are many typical elements of magical realism in Song of Solomon, including fairy tales, mythology, culture and spiritual traditions; characters with magic powers who can see backward and forward in time, healers, witches and tricksters; ghosts, and characters who communicate with the dead and all of these have unique magical qualities all their own.

The two men in the following paragraph are Milkman Dead, whose search for meaning and a way out of his purposeless existence includes the primary thematic drive of the novel, and his friend Guitar, who is also wrestling with identity issues:

On autumn nights, in some parts of the city, the wind from the lake brings a sweetish smell to shore. An odor