Magical realism as a genre is often associated with Latin
litterateurs who, like Gabriel Garcia Marquez, make good use of the richness of their
native tongue to produce powerful parables, and situations of a dissociative nature
which allow the reader to create a metaphor or allegory on their own
accord.
An example of magical realism in
Chronicle of a Death Foretold is the importance placed on symbols
and premonitory dreams as factual pieces of information. The fact that these symbols
help to guide the plot of the story lead us to understand the important role which they
play within it. Also, the disguising of the brothel when it is described as a form of
magical place whose scent and strange elegance invites the reader to wonder what kind of
place it actually is happens to be an instance of magical realism. It is as if something
surreal was in the atmosphere taking the place of what is actually
there.
These forms of allegory are similarly exposed
in One Hundred Years of Solitudewhere we encounter the character of
Pilar Ternera, for example, whose specific "scent of smoke" seemed to hypnotize her
lovers and rendered them weak in her presence.
Therefore,
you could argue that magical realism is, in a way, a form of existential literature with
less depth but more allegorical content, and Marquez is the absolute conqueror of this
type of genre.
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