Magic and fantasy

Magic and Fantasy

Introduction:

Magic is the power to use supernatural forces to make impossible things happen, such as making
people disappear or controlling events in nature. Or in other word magic is something beyond
human perception, imagination and understanding.

There’s a quote by Arthur C. Clarke;

"Magic's just science that we don't understand yet."

Here focus is not on science but rather on "not understand". For us what is now science would've
been magic for the people in the past. Just like the characters in this novel, for them the inventions
and the block of ice was magic but to the gypsies it was just science.

Fantasy is a genre that typically has no basis in scientific fact or speculation. It includes
implausible supernatural and magical elements, a type of story that is set in a world, or a version
of our world, that does not really exist and involves magic, monsters. A fantasy is something you
imagine, which might involve dragons, unicorns etc. If you live in a fantasy world, you're not
worrying much about reality pleasant, maybe, but not very practical. Fantasy is dreams and
imagination.

Magic, fantasy and Reality:

Gabriel Garcia Marquez fathered a new concept, where he merged the magical elements with
reality. It is called magical realism. Magic realism is a technique which combines the real and the
imaginary to create a fantastical, yet believable story. In the novel One Hundred Years of Solitude,
author Garcia Marquez uses magic realism as a tool to draw the reader in. In addition, he uses it
as a representation of the Columbian culture which strongly influences the culture of the people
Magic and fantasy

living in the mystical village of Macondo. More specifically, the magic realism used in this novel
serves two main purposes. It introduces the Columbian culture which the story revolves around
and also forces us to question the absurdity of our everyday lives. Colombian culture is made up
of many old traditions and superstitions.

In One Hundred Years of Solitude, Marquez ties in both aspects in order to represent the culture
of this era. However, his approach to magic realism is somewhat unconventional as he uses
exaggeration to create fantasy. This incestuous marriage resulted in Ursula and Jose having a child
with a pigtail. This “curse” fills Ursula with fear as she firmly believes that this will be the
outcome of her incestuous marriage as well. Consequently, through Ursula’s firm belief, Marquez
convinces the reader that the possibility of a child being born with a pig’s tail is not as ridiculous
as it sounds. In addition, the people of Macondo treat the magical and supernatural as
normal. “This time, along with many artifices, they brought a flying carpet. When gypsies present
the people of Macondo with the phenomenon of a flying carpet they are amused but not
amazed. The fantastical and magical aspect of the flying carpet is lost as the author is more
concerned about how it could be used to develop the village. Thus, Marquez once again allows
the reader to skip over the absurdity of this event as it entwined into a realistic, everyday
problem. This also reflects the Columbian culture as in those times they discovered and invented
many things for both work and entertainment and everything seemed to have a magical element to
them. The flying carpet can be viewed as an exaggeration of these discoveries that the Columbians
of this era discovered. The levitation of the priest is another magical occurrence in the novel. In
this case, however, Marquez combines magic and religion.

The rise and fall of Macondo and the seven generations of Buendia family are showcased
in this novel. Through magical realism Marquez speaks about the war, suffering and death with a
political outlook. La Violence, the Thousand Days of War and Banana Massacre are the political
disasters which swallowed the lives of many in Colombia. The protagonists in the novel are
controlled by the past and the complexity of time. Throughout the novel the characters are visited
by ghosts. Here, ghosts act as a symbol of the past. Garcia Marquez demonstrates magical
realism with the description of the characters. In Macondo, the occurrence of surprising events
cannot be explained by the dint of rationalism. Even there is a man whose age is two hundred years
is also an unbelievable element which is added by the writer in this novel;
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“Francisco the Man, an ancient vagabond who was almost two hundred years old and who
frequently passed through Macondo distributing songs that he composed himself”

Father Nicanor Reyna grows about six inches above the ground after drinking a cup of
hot chocolate, “Father Nicanor rose six inches above the level of the ground… raised his hands
and the four legs of the chair all landed on the ground at the same time” The blood from
Jose Arcadio’s slaughtered body finds its path from his home and back to the kitchen of the
Buendia’s house, where his mother is preparing food. The rain of yellow flower pours down in
Macondo, when Jose Arcadio Buendia is dead. The beauty of Remedio rises to the heaven along
with her lover Fernanda’s expensive sheets. The magical nature of this scene is lessened by the
various realistic details. At first Garcia Marquez gives a detailed description about the sheet. The
realistic detail about the wind allows the readers to visualize the extraordinary event.
At the beginning of the novel the small fictional town Macondo seems to be infantile and
biblical. The people who live in this town never become old and no one meets death. Ursula, the
great-great grandmother is alive during the period when there is an attack between Sir Frances
Drake and Rohacha. Actually, this attack has a trace in history, which took place during 1568. It
is impossible in reality, but there is evidence that Ursula, who lives in Macondo never reached
the state of ageing.

When Ursula dies, she takes away the memory of the town. Many unusual things
happened in her house after her death, which is also can be brought under the concept of magical
realism, “An empty flask that had been forgotten in a cupboard for a long time became so heavy
that it could not be moved. A pan of water on the worktable boiled without any fire under it for
half an hour until it completely evaporated. One day Amaranta’s basket began to move by itself
and made a complete turn about the room”

Concept of Utopia:

Sir Thomas More, was the first person to write of a 'utopia', a word used to describe a perfect
imaginary world. More's book imagines a complex, self-contained community set on an island, in
which people share a common culture and way of life. In his book he presented a dream of land
which would be homogeneous in all worldly aspects like men and women in utopia would be
perfectly equal, all Utopians would have same status either or be social or economical, or political.
Magic and fantasy

All of the cities would be built exactly alike except a capital one. They would have equal approach
to resources. Everyone would have to work, no one would be able to kill time, pre-marital or extra
marital sex would be highly condemned. The utopia would be an isolated place with no wars and
with no concept of death. In Gulliver's travel, Jonathan Swift gave his fantastical idea of Utopia
by imagining a world of horses where everything was perfect and happiness was all over the
Utopian world.

Like all these different writers and philosophers, Gabriel Garcia Marquez has also presented an
element of fantasy in his novel 100 years of solitude. As fantasy is the main element or we can say
it is a bait to lure a reader to read book, and the biggest fantasy of a man has had been always a
Utopian world, so many writers use it in their works. Similarly, G. G. Marquez through his
character Jose Arcadio has also presented the same idea. Jose Arcadio who has a quest for
knowledge and is inspired by the magical realism, dreams of city which is made of glass where
glass symbolizes the same standardized images of all people, and where all of the houses would
be built in a line with windows opening to the river so that everybody would have an equal view
of nature's beauty, everyone would get the equal sunlight, where everyone would be young and of
same age. It would be land without the fear of wars. This is the biggest fantasy displayed by
Gabriel. G. Marquez. Jose and his wife Ursula are even successful in finding such a land and they
named it Mocondo. But as fantasies are all about beyond reality and beyond human
perception which cannot be founded in real life, same happens to Jose fantasy of Utopia which
was made of glass and glass is meant to be broken. The Gypsies' advent destroys his world of glass
and made it dark utopia by bringing in the realities of the world. So the magic of fantasy breaks
leaving Jose broken.

Conclusion:

Though Garcia Marquez's essentially a unique artist in handling magic-realism. He also

Buendia tries to commit suicide and shoots himself in the chest, but the bullet exits out his back
without injuring a single organ. Throughout One Hundred Years of Solitude, Garcia Marquez
exaggerates events to gain fantasy. However, the exaggeration is almost always numerically
specific and gives each occurrence a sense of reality. Examples of this are Colonel Buendia’s
thirty- two defeated uprisings; the rainstorm that lasts four years, eleven months, and two days.
Magic realism as a technique of transforming the fantastic into reality is represented by Garcia
Marquez. He has the ability to turn the unbelievable into the believable, as demonstrated in One
Hundred Years of Solitude. One Hundred Years of Solitude includes realism and magic and
fantasy which seem at first to be opposites; they are, in fact, perfectly reconcilable. Both are
necessary in order to convey Marquez’s particular conception of the world. Marquez’s novel
reflects reality not as it is experienced by one observer, but as it is individually experienced by
those with different backgrounds. Through magical realism he conveys a reality that incorporates
magic, superstition, religion and history which is unquestionably infused into the world. In
conclusion, Garcia Marquez uses magical elements and relates them with reality unlike his novel
as a tool to exaggerate the Columbian culture which has strongly influenced this novel. He
amplifies the absurdity of this culture and the superstitions that it follows. However, he balances
these fantastical elements with reality by presenting them in a very “normal” way.

The End