Relativizing Reality: Transgressing Boundaries of the Ordinary in British Magical Realism
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| Year of publication | 2018 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | While realist fiction evaluates and comments on history and life as we know it, the realms of magical realism reach far beyond our eyesight. The genre of magical realism profoundly combines two seemingly oppositional realities – fictional reality filled with extraordinary events, magical occurrences and matters incomprehensible to the pure rationality of human thought, and the very reality of humankind intertwined with historical events supported by factual information. The controversiality of magical realism then lies at the intersection of the magical and the real, with no clear boundaries which would reassure the reader about the fictionality or factuality of the studied subject. Where the evaluation of believability in historical accuracy ends, magical realists begin. British magical realist narratives by Angela Carter, Salman Rushdie, or Jeanette Winterson invite readers to reevaluate the previously firmly established concepts such as time, space, and reality itself. By transgressing binary oppositions, myths and stereotypes shatter and the reader is left alone with the decision on what to believe, accept, or completely deny. This poster proposal alludes to the relativity of thought and attempts at portraying the greatest magical realist contrast not only verbally, but visually as well. |
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