Gabriel Garca Mrquez short stories Christopher Warnes Naturalizing
Gabriel García Márquez, short stories Christopher Warnes, “Naturalizing the Supernatural”
Warnes: 2 trends in Magical Realism (narrative technique) “NATURALIZING THE SUPERNATURAL” co-existence of 2 incompatible logics of the real naturalist real supernatural unquestioned; without privileging one or the other on same ontological plane (taken-for-granted reality) 1) faith-based fiction EX: Carpentier, The Kingdom of This World 2) irreverent, skeptical fiction
1) faith-based fiction Carp, Kingdom; Rulfo, PP; Anaya, Bless Me 2) irreverent, skeptical fiction Borges, García, Dreaming in Cuban historical sources: folk beliefs, etc. anthropological “the marvelous American real” employs fantastic to affirm authority of premodern & non-Western outlooks no historical sources: fantastic is invented closer to postmodernism (re-enchantment of Western fiction) Post-colonialism; cultural nationalism ontological (focused on cultural worlds) employs fantastic to *defamiliarize / critique modern reductivist rationalism *satirize phantasmagoric 20 th-century political/social realities (for strategic reasons: facetious, playful magic) epistemological skepticism (focused on critique of knowledge) What does it mean to know? What can I know & how can I know it? reality NOT reducible to scientific outlook (what can be counted, quantified, measured, weighed) e. g. certain kinds of material things (genes, neurons, atoms) immaterial things (cultural and mental phenomena) = ALSO real: have unique reality (think about race & religion!) Furthermore, science itself can be idolized, worshipped like a God
Questions for discussion: Which variety of MR do Gabriel García Márquez’s short stories belong to? Faith-based MR? Irreverent, skeptical MR? Discuss, using Warnes’ 3 questions: • What is the source of the supernatural in this text? (Invented or historicalethnographic? ) • What kind of dialogue does it enter into with the text’s more realistic elements? (easy, no privileging 1 or the other) • And why has the writer engages this particular mode at this particular time? (cultural affirmation or irreverent, playful uses? ) GROUP 1) “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings” GROUP 2) “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World”
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