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CHAPTER2
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
2.1 The Fundamentalist
The Magical Realism term
was
initially
used
by
a
German
art
critic,
Franz
Roh
to
describe
painting which
demonstrated
the
irrational reality.
On
his
essay
1925
where
the term
was coined, Roh expanded the
essay
in
which
he
first
used
the term
"Magic
Realism"
into a
book,
Nach-Expressionismus,
Magischer
Realismus (Magic Realism:
Post-Expressionism).
The essay was translated
into Spanish and
published, in
part,
in
Jose
Ortega
y
Gasset's
widely
read
journal,
Revista
Occidente,
in
Madrid
in
1927.
The
translated
book
was
distributed in both
in Spain
&
Latin America.
In Spanish,
the
book's
title
was
Rea/ismo
Magico, Post
Expresionismo,
a
positioning which
gave
the
new
term
"Magic
Realism"
additional
prominence.
Soon
after,
the
term
Magic
Realism
was
being
applied
to the
prose
of European writers
in
the literary circles
of Buenos Aires.
(Michaela
Django, 2008)
Alejo
Carpienter, Cuban cultural
historian of
Latin
America
on
his essay
On
the
Marvelous
Real
in
America
(1949),
referring
to
Realismo
Magico
coined
the
lo real
maravilloso- the real marvelous, to describe the magical
realism
in a unique
America,
"I
will
say
that
my
first
inkling
of
the
marvelous
real
[lo real
maravilloso]. [...]
I
saw the
possibility
of
bringing to
our
own
latitudes
certain European truths,
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where, just thirty
years ago, there was no
capacity to understand or
measure
those truths in their real dimensions" (Alejo Carpienter, 1995, pg 84)
Carpienter on
his
phrase describe America as the
form of
magical realism, judging by
the thriving
modem world but people
from
around the world who settled
in it still
practicing
traditional
beliefs
and surrounded by affluence
of mythologies.
These
two
substances
combine and
form the
new
America which very different
from thirty years
ago. To discover true
magical
realism, on his essay,
Alejo
Carpentier
suggested on
finding
the
fantastic element
mixture
in
human
nature,
reality
of
place
and time
and
not
by hiding
the marvelous event
behind
nonessential images.
On
the
time
of
the term
was
born,
many
people
with
influence,
mostly
were
artist
and
historian were
based on
Latin America and
travels
to
Europe.
Soon after,
the
terms
were become
very
influential among
the
literature society.
The
manifesto
of this lo
real
maravilloso considered as central
phase
of
the developing
Latin
American Novel
in
the
1940's
until
the released of One
Hundred
Year
of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez,
which published
for
the
very first time
in
Europe by
1970's
followed by
many others
successful Latin American writers such
as
Salman Rushdie; Midnight's
Children,
Joge
Luis Borges; Labyrinths,
Laura Esquire!;
Like Water
for Chocolate.(Michaela Django,
2011)
The
statement of
Franz Roh and
Alejo Carpienter regarding
the
"magical
realism"
makes both
of
them
considered as
the
two
fundamentalists
of Magical
Realism
Theory
besides Angel
Flores
and Luis Leal.
As the
literature theories expand,
the
Magical
Realism becomes
popular and
attracts
many writers,
students,
theorists and
literature readers
to explore
the literature
genre.
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2.2 The
Definitions
&
Study Review
As
it
has
been
mentioned
on
the
previous
sub
chapter,
Magical
Realism
attracts
many
writers,
students,
theorists
and
literature
readers
to
explore
the
literature
genre.
Theorists
and
critic
from Angel
Flores,
Luis
Leal,
Susan
J. Napier,
and
Louis Parkinson
Zamora,
Amaryll
Beatrice
Chanady
and
Wendy B
Faris have
their
own
definition
about
Magical
Realism in
literature.
According to
Angel
Flores,
on
his
1955
famous essay
describes
Magical
Realism
is
a
transformation
of
the
unreal
as part
of
reality (Angel
Flores, 1995, p. 113-116)
Luis
Leal
defined
Magical
Realism
as
inexplicable event
that
human
being
experiencing
as
a
mysterious relationship
in
their
life
and
not
the
principle
of
creation
or
circumstances of
imagination
(Luis
Leal, 1995, p.
119-123)
According
to
Susan
J. Napier,
Magical
realism takes
the upbringing
of
supernatural
accompanied
by the
acceptance
of the
society
(Susan
J.
Napier,
1995,
p.
451).
"
Magical
realist
fiction
is:
--A
disruption
of
modem
realist
fiction,
--creates a
space
for
interaction
and
diversity,
--no
less
'real'
than
traditional
'realism',
-
about
transgressing
boundaries,
multiple
worlds
,
--on
the
boundaries
and
destabilizes
normative
oppositions
,
--subversive,
--an
international
phenomenon
(Lois
Parkinson Zamora and
Wendy B.
Faris,
1995)
Brief
explanation
on the
quotation
can
be
said
that magical
realist
fiction
as
an
extraordinary
fiction
which
with
new
form
of
reality
giving
the
readers
an
international
phenomenon
to
see different
world
within
the
real world.
Magical
realist
fiction
giving
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rich
insight
delivers with
new
layer of
experience to
the
readers.
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Meanwhile,
Amaryll Beatrice Chanady mentioned that
magical realism often to
be connected
to the primeval
or miraculous
Indian mentalities,
which
exist m
conjunction
with European rationality.
She
borrowed Floyd Merrel description
of
magical realism as an expression of
the
new
world reality
which at once
combines
the
rational
elements
of the
European
super-civilization
and the
irrational
elements
of a
primitive America
(Amaryll
Beatrice
Chanady,
1985,
pg 16-31).
In
addition,
Erwin
Dale carter describes
magical
realism
is a
combination
of
reality and
fantasy which
magic
is adapted
from the second
world
intellectuality
so that
burst
the surprise
atmosphere (Erwin
Dale Carter, 1969, p. 3-4)
Many students
have been doing the
research on this
category. One of
them is
Ashley Carol Wilis, BA,
Texas State
University-San
Marcos, Department
of English.
Ashley Carol
on
her
thesis;
Theses
and
Dissertations-English.,
"Borderlands of
Magical
Realism:
Defining Magical Realism Found in Popular Children's
Literature"
proposed
four techniques
on
characterized Magical Realism in work
literature. The
four
of
them
are;
(I) There is
a
thin line
between
magic and
the
reality since the
magical is
part
of the
reality
world, blending
together in
the
society; (2)
The
tales
represent
on
the
novel or
story consists of
traditional
values
such
as
myth
or
tales that associate with
the
present
history;
(3) The people
or community could differentiate themselves
with the other
community
in the details of idea, custom and spiritual;
(4) the beliefs in something
mythical magical
is by caused
of blending
with true human
nature
qualities.
Seattle Schools on one
of
the primer
reading proposed background on
the
techniques of determines Magic
Realism on a text that
using
the figurative language for
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the functioning of the magic
details
which
inexplicable on the real senses
(Ashley
Carol
Wilis, 2006, pg. 23-5).
In
hybridity study, borrowing term
of hybridity from
Sarah
Habib
Bounse,
"Hybridity and Postcoloniality:
Formal, Social
and Historical
Innovations
in Salman
Rushdie's Midnight's Children
Hybridity and Postcoloniality: Formal, Social, and
Historical Innovations
in
Salman
Rushdie's
Midnight's
Children";
on
her
Thesis
Projects at University of
Tennessee Honors, that
hybridity describes
as various elements
that opposites or
integrates
includes the behaviours
in
a
society.
(Sarah Habib
Bounse,
2009, pg 3). Meanwhile
Anjali Prabhu
on
her
book Hybridity: Limit,
Transformations,
Prospect
mentioned that
hybridity through it
is differs,
heterogeneity and inequality is a
process of
understanding
the community
which has to be
part
of
a
world populations
(Anjali
Prabhu,
2007).
In addition,
Lindsay Moore,
on
her article, Magic
Realism,
defined hybridity as
a
linked study of
post-colonialism
that
show the
opposites
illustration as a form
of realism, the state of things
as they actually exist (Lindsay
Moore
,
2008)
Based
on
those
definitions
and
principle proposed above,
it
could be
highlighted
that
Magical Realism
is an
esthetic style
or
genre
of
fiction in
which
magical elements
appear
in
an otherwise realistic setting,
because it
set
in a
modem world
with
authentic
descriptions
of
human
and
society.
The
story
usually
challenges
the opposites
of
two
conflicting
perspectives,
one based
on
the personal acceptance of the
supernatural
miraculous occurrences
and
other one is
placing
the
rational
view of
reality.
Magical
Realism is
marked by combining
fantastic elements
with realistic
details.
By those
foundations as
well, I decided on
using
principal of
Magical Realism; Hybridity,
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Acceptance of
Supernatural
Events to be something
in
Common, Admiration of
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Mysterious
Miraculous without
Question and Strong
Narrative Drive using
Exaggerating
Words.
2.3 Biography of the
Writer
Born
in 1949,
Siiskind
was raised
in
Ambach, Germany, the eldest
son of
Wilhelm Emanuel
Siiskind,
a writer and journalist
best known
in Germany
for his
collection of
essays
on
language,
Aus
dem
Worterbuch
des
Unmenschen.
Suskind is
an
eccentric
writer,
proven with
refused to
give
any
interviews
for over
twenty
years,
and
only three published
photos of him exist.
In 1968 Siiskind
entered the University
of Munich
to study
history. He later
completed
a
Master of Arts degree at the University
of Aix-en-Provence,
France,
in
1974. While studying
in the perfume-producing
country of
southern
France, Siiskind
traveled
and gathered material
for what eventually became
the novel
Perfume.
Meanwhile,
in the
fall of 1981,
Siiskind's
play
The Double
Bass
premiered, establishing
him as
one of
the
most
popular playwrights of
German
theatre. Originally conceived
as
prose piece that was repeatedly rejected
for publication,
The
Double
Bass
eventually
appeared in
novella fonn in
1984.
Around
the same time,
Siiskind began
collaborating
with Helmut
Dietl on the hit German
television
series,
Monaco
Franze.
In
late
1984 the
newspaper
Frankfurter
Allgemeine
Zeitung
contracted
Siiskind
to serially publish his
first
prose work,
Perfitme.
Published in
book
form
the
following
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year, Perfitme
immediately became a German
best-seller and subsequently
sold over
six
million
copies
worldwide by 1991.
Wary of
his newfound celebrity, Siiskind declined a
five-thousand
dollar prize
for
best
first
novel
from
Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung in
1986, vowing
to
never again
accept
awards
for writing.
That
same
year,
Siiskind
resumed
his
collaboration
with
Dietl
by
co-writing the script
for another
popular television
series, Kir
Royal,
which
revolved
around
the adventures of a titular
Munich
gossip columnist.
In
1987 Siiskind published
the
novella Die
Taube (The Pigeon) which, though
critically well received,
failed to attain the popular
success of Perfiune. Siiskind and
Dietl reteamed
again
in 1996 to write the screenplay
for the film Rossini: oder die
morderische Frage,
wer mit wem schliej
which follows the careers of a variety of
characters
in the German
film industry as their
lives
intersect
in a Munich
restaurant.
Highly
regarded
by
German
critics
for
his
contributions to
German
literary
postmodernism,
Siiskind
has also been
recognized worldwide as one of the most popular
Gennan-language
writers
since Erich
Maria
Remarque published All
Quiet
on the
Western Front in 1929. (Perfume
Appendix; Character's
Personalities
in
Patrick
Suskind's Novel
Perfume,
2011)
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