Research Proposal on "Realism Some Literary Critics and Scholars"

Research Proposal 12 pages (3589 words) Sources: 1+ Style: MLA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Realism

Some literary critics and scholars would recommend to start reading Kafka in order to be able to be introduced in the world of magic realism in literature. but, is the guide into this world whose father is actually Borges.

The concept of "invisible reality" or "magical realism" was born in Germany in the early 20th Century and it was defined in the world of image. "Magischer Realismus" was created to describe the works of those painters who after the impressionism era returned to the figural instead of the abstract. The term traveled through Spain, over the Atlantic into Latin America and was contradicted by his own creator, the art critic Franz Roh. Nevertheless, it transgressed in the literature world on the American Continent and it designates the capacity to discover in a certain common object extraordinary attributes, thus showing its magic. (Zamora) Jorge Luis Borges and Gabriel Garcia Marques, two Latin American writers were among those who embraced what it became a literary genre (http://www.seattleschools.org/schools/hamilton/iac/magic/magic_primer.pdf).

These writers redefined reality and found magic aspects in its most ordinary aspects. They created what is presented as imaginary worlds inside their works of fiction. Beside reinventing the world, Borges reinvents a language that changes everything we now today through epistemology, for example. Some professor at an academy of theatre once said to his students that they were supposed to act as if they really inhabited the fictional world the author created, but they were supposed to keep their capacity to wonder a bit at any time, in order for their characters to be "real" to the public. The "magicrealism" makes the eyes of those who are in it to forget about not believing and start looking at the world around them with the eye of naivety, forgetting about the blaze attitude of common knowledge. Thus, continuously challenging the reality with its present order, the magical realism is aimed at making a point in politics or in culture in general. It represents the future in its anticipation of concepts that are going to change or be completely contradicted. It also represents the simple things that are so common that they have not awoken the wish to look at them from a different angle. It is an invitation to forget about prejudices, given facts, common knowledge.

Some literary critics and scholars recommend to start with Kafka in order to get a firm grasp of the idea the magic realism is about.

The major theme in Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius is that of idealism characteristic to George Berkeley. Two writers, the narrator and his friend, Bioy Casares discover during a conversation that what the latter thought to be an existing country somewhere in Iraq or Asia Minor, it was a fictional world named Uqbar. The existence of Uqbar was testified in a Encycoledia, which one knows it is the gathering of real facts, worlds, people. It turns out that the Anglo-American Cyclopedia both writers had were slightly different. The one in Bioy's possession had four page more than the other one and those were the ages containing the article about Uqbar. The narrator proceeds to a thorough research about this unknown and unlikely to be real world. He uses a descriptive style that combines real scientific research methods and names of real scientists or philosophers with the descriptive methods proper to the fictional genre. The tone is also a combination between the objective tone of a professional who undertakes a research and that of a man who is describing his feelings related to an unusual discovery. Eventually, there is a whole Encyclopedia dedicated to this strange country named Tlon the narrator discovers and studies. The fictional world differs to a great degree from what we know as the real world, it has a particular language that lacks nouns and thus the common concepts of philosophy, religion etc. In fact the world the narrator discovered "is the work of a secret society of astronomers, biologists, engineers, metaphysicians, poets, chemists, algebraists, moralists, painters, geometers...directed by an obscure man of genius "(Borges, pg. 27). It resembles the world of a totalitarian regime, recreated to fit the vision of its government and directed at changing people's lives according to the desire of those who are involved in the creation act. The recreated world, present only in a fictional encyclopedia will eventually be copied in reality and adopted successively by countries. People will start to believe in what they once new it was not reality and Borges uses here a recurrent motif he handles very well, that of clandestine reproduction. The Encyclopedias are unauthorized reproduction of originals, the objects have their copies that are almost similar but slightly different than there originals. "Centuries and centuries if idealism have not failed to influence reality. In the most ancient regions of Tlon, the duplication of lost objects is not infrequent" (Borges, pg. 34). The magic comes from the slight distortion and adaptation of a real object to fit into one's purposes. "Until recently the hronir were the accidental products of distraction and forgetfulness" (Borges, pg. 34).

The Garden of the Forking Paths is a short story where the magic realism comes from the alternatives time offers. The main theme is that of different possibilities time gives to the outcomes of an event. The symbol for the relationship between present past and future and the position men have between them is a labyrinth that exists on one temporal scale, that of the present. Dr. Yu Tsun, of Asian origin, living in England, leaves his testimony about his successful actions as a spy for the Germans during the First World War. The mixture of national origins of the characters in this short story, the setting and the time the events described by Dr. Yu Tsun create an atmosphere where everything seems interrelated and possible. The events occur depending on one judgment at a certain time and they can also occur differently, based on a different judgment of the same person at the same moment. The worlds are numerous and seem to exist not on different points in space, but on different plans in the same time. The story seems the result of a philosophical speculation.

Another result of a speculation Borges makes is that of the short story the Lottery in Babylon. This time it is the turn of fate and God to be put under the scrutiny of the writer and speculated on. He uses the symbol of a game completely depending of odds, the lottery and places it in Babylon. There are questions that were on people's minds since ancient times related to the very existence of a higher authority that Borges wants to put here forward. Babylon is like a symbol for people's attempts to reach God, but the short story gives it a slightly different significance than the tower of Babel. People are not daring the higher authority by building a tower to reach higher, but they are simply questioning his authority and very existence.

The theme of idealism reappears in the short story the Circular Ruins, completed by other theme like the significance of the oniric world and immortality. The motif of assuming the powers of as superior being who is able to recreate human life in the lab of one's mind is also appearing in this short story. The wizard retreated from the world in some circular ruins having magical powers resembles to a writer who is struggling to create the perfect character. The wizard is eventually helped by a God to bring his creation to life and into the real world. He finds out in the end that he, too, is the result of someone else's imagination. The idealism of those who are trying to find the gem of perfection in the human being is very powerfully felt in the description of the wizard;s intentions: "The purpose which guided him was not impossible, though it was supernatural. He wanted to dream a man: he wanted to dream him with minute integrity and insert him into reality" (Borges, pg. 73). Borges' hero wants to created a perfect being, overcoming thus Adam, the creation of God who was imperfect because he could not stand alone.

The symbol of labyrinth reappears in the story the Library of Babel. It is accompanied by some other themes used by Borges in his short stories such as the conclusions reached by philosophers supported by mathematics regarding the nature of the universe. Ultimately, it is the quest for the supreme truth about the universe that Borges seems to describe in every short story in the volume. The endless possibilities and the undiscovered are anticipated in the magic realism of what may seem common.

The theme of immortality, again, is present in the story the Immortal. This time, one man does not dream of the perfect human being, but seeks to become immortal, that being his only desire. The hero comes from Rome, in the Antiquity. Once he is able to reach the river he… READ MORE

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