Final Reflection

I think in the case of Isabel Allende's novel, elements of magical realism, like Clara's clairvoyance and Pedro Garcia's ant-eliminating strategy, are used because Allende herself lives in a magical world herself. In the interview that we listened to, she admits that Clara was based on her own grandmother. Allende believes that her grandmother had a sixth sense, and she was used to the presence of "spirits" in her household, although they were not necessarily the types of spirits that we usually think of - ghosts. Rather, they were shades of events and emotions past, remnants of the memories of past generations that remained with the household, like the spirits in the Big House on the Corner. For Allende, magical realism is simply realism.

I think Marquez uses elements of magical realism to distract from the supposedly journalistic style that an account of a murder case should be written in. For example, the interpretation of his dream in the beginning of the book seems like it should have some significance later in the book, but it really doesn't, except for Placido Linero's statement that she misinterpreted the symbols in his dream to be lucky, instead of unlucky. Let's face it, it wouldn't have mattered if she interpreted the symbols as unlucky. It wouldn't have prevented his death, or altered his course of action on the day of the murder. Magical realism is used to further cloud the memory of the day of the murder to an extent that not one of witness's or narrator's account can be trusted. Faulty memory, I think, can also attribute to images that resemble magical realism in retrospect.