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The Tradition of Magical Realism in American Letters

Given the abundance of criticisms labeled ‘European’ or ‘Latin American’ magical realism, one might think that the provenance of the genre is European or Latin American. Not so. Writers (of different generations) in the United States have a tradition of magical realism. If magical realism is considered as a literary genre that combines fantastic or dreamlike elements with realism; Placing surreal and fantastic narratives in a normal everyday contemporary world, then writers like Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ambrose Bierce, Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, John Cheever, Toni Morrison, and William Kennedy deserve to be included in the magical realism genre.

Drawing on native fables, folk tales, fairy tales, and Puritan myths, American writers, as we shall see, have a body of work that shows mind-blowing tricks, dream sequences, and often a distortion and fold of what we accept as the real and natural. world. Given the abundance of material, this article will deal only with the works of Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Instead of novels, Nathaniel Hawthorne cultivated ‘romances’, which allow the writer a quicker suspension of disbelief and more freedom than novels, which border on fantasies and dreams, it can be said that narratives such as The scarlet letter Y The house of the seven roofs contain elements of magical realism. In particular, I like the final scene of The house of the seven roofs in which Uncle Venner “seemed to hear a tune and imagined that Alice Pyncheon … had given a farewell touch of a spirit’s joy on her harpsichord as she floated skyward from the House of Seven Gables.” This scene recalls the fabulous scene by Gabriel García Márquez in which Remedios la Bella, a character from One Hundred Years of Solitude – ascends to heaven amid fluttering sheets.

But it is in the Hawthorne tales that we find magical realism in full bloom; or as critic RP Blackmur put it, these stories are the “daydreams that border the nightmare.” I want to focus on his short story “Young Goodman Brown” to highlight the characteristics of magical realism.

In this tale, “Young Goodman Brown,” like Dante, “had taken a gloomy path, obscured by all the gloomiest trees in the forest, which he barely stood aside to let the narrow path slide through. … “Forest Brown meets a traveler whom he suspects is the devil himself, but the stranger has a strong family resemblance, like that of father and son. If this scene isn’t terrifying in and of itself, it’s at least devilish enough to herald the worst to come. Delusional, bewildered, and in the midst of a hellish nightmare brought to life by tangible proof of his wife’s ties, young Goodman Brown observes the entire liturgy – singing, reading, preaching and communion included – of a black mass:

“There is my wife, Faith.” As he spoke, he pointed his cane at a female figure on the road, in whom Goodman Brown recognized a very pious and exemplary lady, who had taught him the catechism in his youth, and remained his moral and spiritual advisor, along with him. Minister. and Deacon Gookin “.

And the whole town sees him there in that wicked witch worship … of the devil! After delighting readers with eerie, delusional, and mind-blowing scenes, Hawthorne’s narrator asks, “Had Goodman Brown fallen asleep in the woods and had only dreamed a wild dream of a witch meeting?”

In an ironic twist, when young Goodman Brown dies, the entire community, all participants in the Black Mass, follow him in a long procession as he is “led to the grave.” Was this a second black mass? While many read this story as a horror story, there is more to it, as all the elements of magical realism, including accessories such as a staff that resembles a snake, materializing ribbons, clothing, and an animated forest, mentioned above. they are present.

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