Last week, I explored the differences and similarities between Gothic writing and that of Dark Romanticism. Those two genres are more similar than different. But can we say the same of Gothic versus Magical Realism?
What is Realism & Magical Realism
In order to understand Magical Realism, we need to start with a quick look at Realism. Realism came about in the mid-1800s as a response to the idyllic art forms prior to that period. Whereas artists had glamorized, or at least cleaned up, representations of life in all forms of art, realism sought to display…you guessed it…reality.
They presented the ugliness and hardships of life as they truly were. Painters portrayed people who struggled in agrarian lifestyles as they often were: tired, sometimes oppressed, often discouraged. Or they painted food that spoiled quickly without refrigeration and pesticides as imperfectly as it appears in real life.
As you can imagine, realism, with its unvarnished approach, gave writers a greater ability to make strong statements about various social and political concerns. Magical realism – a subgenre of realism – sprang from Latin America and added to this, layering magical elements into real world settings.
It’s important to note that this isn’t the same thing as fantasy writing with a real-world setting. Magical Realism is essentially literary fiction with touches of fantasy. This type of writing tends not to follow the type of plot structure you would expect in genre fiction (such as fantasy writing). Furthermore, in Magical Realism, the magical elements are symbolic of an internal reality for the protagonist. Therefore, stories such as American Gods by Neil Gaiman would generally be considered to be fantasy writing despite their real world setting.
Example
As an example of Magical Realism, suppose you have a main character who lives on a farm in Mexico. She’s the wife of a discouraged and emotionally distant husband. One day she opens a leather box and finds an antique bottle of perfume. She applies some and awakens the next day to discover that she has grown wings.
Simultaneously, she discovers several ways that she can contribute to the family’s income and assets. She shares the perfume with her sisters and mother, and they in turn share it with other close friends and family members. As the bottle makes its rounds, the other women in the village grow wings and take newfound positions of influence in their families and in the community.
Rather than a fantasy story in which there might be winged creatures simply for the sake of having them – though they might also have a symbolic purpose – in this story, the women’s wings are a symbol of their newly-discovered inner power. The wings represent a rise in female assertion in business and in the family. In specific, they parallel the inner journey of the protagonist from quiet subjection to her lot in life to strength and independence.
Writers in this genre include Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Isabel Allende, and Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved.
Similarities
You can probably already see a few possible similarities between Gothic writing and that of Magical Realism. Both Magical Realism and Gothic tend to be set in the real world. And both of them – although Gothic occasionally doesn’t contain any – use fantastical elements to make some form of reality more tangible to the reader. But that’s where most of the similarities end.
I would also argue that Gothic writing is the genre fiction that’s the closest to literary fiction, making that somewhat of a similarity. However, Gothic writing does follow a plot structure and sits squarely [enough] in the genre fiction category for this to be more of a distinction than a similarity.
Differences
That said, there are at least four significant differences between Gothic writing and that of Magical Realism.
Themes
The first one is huge. Gothic is defined by its exploration of irrational themes: generally spiritual and psychological truths that can’t be proven through reason or empirical data. Magical realism, in contrast, doesn’t tend to pursue those types of themes.
Political Nature
Rather, Magical Realism’s themes tend to be political in nature. This stems from the genre’s origins in Latin America. As the writers of Central and South American countries explored their use of magic in real settings, they sought to speak to the state of their own nations during and post-colonialism.
The political nature of Magical Realism is a significant – and some would argue an essential – component of the genre.
Use of Fantastical Elements
As you may have gathered from my example above featuring the Mexican woman who grows wings, the use of fantastical elements tends to be quite different in Magical Realism. There these elements reflect the inner state of the protagonist. In contrast, Gothic fiction may or may not use fantastical elements at all. When it does, these, like other Gothic tropes, are meant to make the theme more accessible to readers.
Thus, while both genres use these elements to point to an unseen mystery, in Magical Realism it’s an intangible facet of the protagonist (or the other characters) and in Gothic writing it’s an intangible component of the theme.
People Represented
Lastly, as you might expect, Magical Realism almost never features the aristocracy or upper class of a country or region. It’s concerned with presenting the common man and his struggles. This goes hand-in-hand with the political nature of this type of writing. The political statements these writers seek to make tend to relate to the impacts that various conditions have on the common person.
Gothic writing very often features the upper class, but this is not a requirement and is not done exclusively.
Conclusion
In summary, though Gothic writing and Magical Realism share a real world setting and fantastical elements, they are otherwise quite different. They pursue very different types of themes, often with different types of characters and, in the case of Magical Realism, a political bent.
I’ll admit that I don’t read Magical Realism so it’s been something of an intriguing journey to dig into this genre. I owe a lot of credit to the following two sources that were wonderfully useful in explaining the bones of this genre. If this is a genre you’d like to understand more, or would like to try writing, check out these two websites:
What is Magical Realism in Literature
11 Questions You’re Too Embarrassed to Ask About Magical Realism
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