In one of her interviews, Isabelle Allende asks, "What's truer than truth? Answer: The story." Marquez and Allende choose to create an alternate universe where elements of magic are acceptable in order to create a stronger emotional truth. Creating a new universe where magic is accepted makes the magic true. Like Tim O'Brien, these authors are creating their own emotional truth, where the story is the truth, past actual fact.
However, culturally, they may not even be creating a "alternate" universe. In both books, magic seems to be accepted by the society and the authors really don't need to create anything. As opposed to making the new universe in their writing, they're just making the settings of their books based on that of Latin American society. Allende even addresses the fact that supernatural characteristics, such as Clara's clairvoyance, Rosa's mermaid appearance, and Barrabas's size, are valued in Latin America when she writes why Marxism won't succeed saying, "Don't you know it doesn't allow for the magical side of things?" (306). In Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Marquez doesn't the same thing. He makes Nasar's mother able to see the future in her dreams, and puts value you on that by making her popular for this. Instead of creating an alternate universe, Allende and Marquez seem to be merely stating the value of magical elements in different Latin American societies.
No comments:
Post a Comment