Structural Configuration of Magic Realism in the Works of Gabriel García Márquez, Leslie Marmon Silko, Charles Johnson, and Julie Dash
Abstract
This article raises the question of how contemporary multicultural authors and film directors build upon the magic-realist convention, with its specific narra-tive-discourse configurations (the way the story is told) to allow their audience access to foreign, often bizarre worlds. The first section of the analysis deals with understanding the precise structural configurations that make a text work as magic realism and explores variations that complicate the schemata. The second section relies on the first section's discussion of magic-realist codes to look closely at Julie Dash's film
Daughters of the Dust
, a text type that utilizes its visual and auditory tracks to work as magic realism.
(Magic Realism; Visual and Literary Theory; Multicultural Images)
References (19)
Arau, A. (Director)
(
1992)
Como agua para chocolate [Film; Like water for chocolate]. Burbank, CA: Buena Vista Pictures.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Bakhtin, M.
(
1981)
The dialogic imagination: Four essays by M. M. Bakhtin (
M. Holquist Ed.,
C. Emerson &
M. Holquist Trans.). Austin: University of Texas Press.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Chatman, S.
(
1990)
Coming to terms: The rhetoric of narrative in fiction and film. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Coppola, F. F. (Director)
(
1992)
Bram Stoker's Dracula. [Film]. Burbank, CA: Columbia/ Tristar Home Video.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Dash, J. (Director)
(
1991)
Daughters of the dust. [Film]. New York: Kino International Corporation.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Disney, W. (Director)
(
1940)
Fantasia. [Film]. Burbank, CA: Walt Disney Home Video.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Flores, A.
(
1955)
Magic realism in Spanish American fiction.
Hispania, 38(2), 109.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Guerra, R. (Director)
(
1983)
Eréndira. [Film]. Mexico City: Cine Que Non.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Hermosillo, J. H. (Director)
(
1979)
Maria de mi corazόn. [Film; Mary of my heart]. Mexico: Azteca Films Universidad Veracruzana.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Johnson, C.
(
1987)
Faith and the good thing. New York: Athenaeum.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Kafka, F.
(
1948)
The metamorphosis. In
W. Muir &
E. Muir (Eds.)
Franz Kafka: The metamorphosis, the penal colony, and other stories. New York: Schocken. (Original work published 1912)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Leal, L.
(
1967)
El realismo magico en la literatura hispanomericana [Magic realism in Hispanic American literature].
Cuadernos Americanos, 1531, 234.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Márquez, G. G.
(
1971-1985)
A very old man with enormous wings. In
B. Litzenger &
J. C. Oates (Eds.)
Story: Fictions past and present. Lexington, MA: Health.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Menton, S.
(
1983)
Magic realism rediscovered: 1918-1981. Philadelphia: Art Alliance Press.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Mills, M. C., & Grönlund, E.
(
1989)
Magic realism and Garcia Márquez's Erendira.
Literature and Film Quarterly, 171, 113–122.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Roh, F.
(
1927)
Nach expressionismus, magischer realismus: Probleme der neuesten europäischen malerei [After expressionism, magic realism: Problems of the newest European painting] (
F. Vela Trans.). Madrid: Revista de Occidente. (Original work published 1925)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Saldivar, J.
(
1991)
Postmodern realism. In
E. Elliot (Ed.)
The Columbia history of the American novel (pp. 521–541). New York: Columbia University Press.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Silko, L. M.
(
1977)
Ceremony. New York: Viking.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Simpkins, S.
(
1988)
Magical strategies: The supplement of realism.
Twentieth Century Literature, 341, 140–155.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Cited by (2)
Cited by 2 other publications
NISSAN, EPHRAIM
2003.
IDENTIFICATION AND DOING WITHOUT IT, I: A SITUATIONAL CLASSIFICATION OF MISAPPLIED PERSONAL IDENTITY, WITH A FORMALISM FOR A CASE OF MULTIPLE USURPED IDENTITY IN MARIVAUX.
Cybernetics and Systems 34:4-5
► pp. 317 ff.
![DOI logo](//benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
Blythe, Richard
2000.
Magic realist architecture: three buildings by Robert Morris-Nunn.
Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art 1:1
► pp. 94 ff.
![DOI logo](//benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 5 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.