To what extent do magical realist texts offer a feminist perspective?
Magical Feminism
MR as a useful genre for political motives.
Key idea of MR- *** it refuses a totalizing structure of the world ***
MR is an extension, rather than a rejection, of realism.
It is about reimagining experiences.
MR invites us to challenge assumptions of rational thought.
Magical realism is a mode suited to exploring – and transgressing – boundaries, whether the
boundaries are ontological, political, geographical, or generic. Magical realism often facilitates
the fusion, or co-existence, of possible worlds, spaces, systems that would seem
irreconcilable in other modes of fiction. […] Mind and body, spirit and matter, life and death,
real and imaginary, self and other, male and female: these are boundaries to be erased,
transgressed, blurred, brought together, or otherwise fundamentally refashioned in magical
realist texts.
[…] Magical realist texts are subversive: their in-betweenness, their all-at-onceness
encourages resistance to monologic political and cultural structures, a feature that has made
the mode particularly useful to writers in postcolonial cultures and, increasingly, to women.
Lois Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B. Faris, ‘Introduction,’ in Magical Realism: Theory,
History, Community, ed. Lois Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B. Faris (Durham: Duke
University Press, 1995), pp. 1-11 (pp. 5-6).
MR is a useful way of challenging our assumptions about the world:
When we consider magical realism from the position of the ‘other’ and consider that it brings
into view non-logical and non-scientific explanations for things, we can see that the
transgressive power of magical realism provides a means to attack the assumptions of the
dominant culture and particularly the notion of scientifically and logically determined truth.
Maggie Ann Bowers, Magic(a)l Realism (London: Routledge, 2004), p. 69.
MR can be used to critique and revise patriarchal structures.
Picks up on idea of the exchange of women between men.
Feminism is about challenging ways of seeing the world > representation is a key
concern for feminists.
Woolf- says that representation has a magically transformative property >
representation, might therefore prioritise different ways of seeing things.
Cixous- ‘Sorties: Out and Out: Attacks/Ways Out/Forays,’ inThe Newly Born Woman
(London: I. B. Tauris, 1996), pp. 63-132 (pp. 63-64).
Cixous concerned with the way male experience is privileged.
Male/female binaries characterise western thought.
A Cartesian dichotomy- culture has privileged mind and masculinity over body and
femininity.
Note: how landscapes are often encoded as female bodies.
Gender and the ‘decolonisation’ of language
Idea of taking back language that women have been excluded from > re-appropriating
language.
It is enormously important for women to write fiction as women – it is part of the slow process
of decolonising our language and our basic habits of thought […] it is to do with the creation of
a means of expression for an infinitely greater variety of experience than has been possible
heretofore, to say things for which no language previously existed.
Angela Carter, ‘Notes From the Front Line,’ in On Gender and Writing, ed. Michelene Wandor
(London: Pandora, 1983), pp. 69-77 (p. 75).
, Foucault expresses a similar idea about language.
Note: the position of women is comparable to colonised subjects.
It is precisely these categories [women and non-Western people] that were traditionally
excluded from the “privileged centers” of culture, race, and gender, and therefore from the
operative discourses of power.
Theo L. D’haen, ‘Magical Realism and Postmodernism: Decentring Privileged Centers,’ in
Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community, ed. Lois Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B.
Faris
(Durham: Duke University Press, 1995), pp. 191-208 (pp. 200-201).
Women have been excluded from discourses of power > this is seen in the cultural
meanings that work to marginalise particular subjects.
Note: look at where the magic is located in HS > its located in the women e.g.
clairvoyance- associated with female experience.
To propose […] a connection between magical realism and a female sensibility is not to deny
differences among women and their texts but rather to suggest that magical realism has
affinities with and exemplifies certain aspects of the experience of women that have been
delineated by certain strains of feminist thought.
Wendy B. Faris, Ordinary Enchantments: Magical Realism and the Remystification of
Narrative (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2004), p. 170.
Cixous talks about moving out of the binary structures of language > freeing language
from its constraints > flying.
Beyond those formal and cultural properties, certain tropes that appear in magical realism,
especially in its texts by women, also align it with older ideas about female spheres of
influence, including houses and cooking, and newer ones concerning attention to the body.
Faris, Ordinary Enchantments, p. 171.
Note: pay attention to story-telling and gender.
Allende- The House of the Spirits
Political context- Chilean history- is key to HS.
o Allende was born in Peru in 1942- exiled from Chile after the military coup in
1973- since then been based in Venezuela and USA. In 1973- Allende’s 2 nd
cousin- was ousted and the right took power.
The magic in the novel is associated with women.
Has some key similarities with OYS- a family saga- BUT HS focuses on the female
generation.
Cf. OYS- focus on political moments- conflict between left and right > story of Trueba
family linked to the events of the Chilean coup.
The location of HS is never made explicit BUT the political context is clear AND
certain characters are factually recognisable e.g. poet.
A magical/fictional location of the text is necessary- otherwise it would be an outright
attack on Chilean politics.
Figure of female story-teller is important > oral narratives being passed down.
You can approach the text from a feminist critical perspective.
Essentially about 3 women- Clara, Blanca, Alba > their intersection with historical/
political issues > embroiled in domestic and political structures. All the women are
linked by their relationship with Esteban Trueba.
Allende does not confine the genre of MR to a geographical context:
(1) What I don’t believe is that the literary form often attributed to the works of […] Latin
American writers, that of magic realism, is a uniquely Latin American phenomenon. Magic
realism is a literary device or a way of seeing in which there is space for the invisible forces
that move the world: dreams, legends, myths, emotion, passion, history. All these forces find
Magical Feminism
MR as a useful genre for political motives.
Key idea of MR- *** it refuses a totalizing structure of the world ***
MR is an extension, rather than a rejection, of realism.
It is about reimagining experiences.
MR invites us to challenge assumptions of rational thought.
Magical realism is a mode suited to exploring – and transgressing – boundaries, whether the
boundaries are ontological, political, geographical, or generic. Magical realism often facilitates
the fusion, or co-existence, of possible worlds, spaces, systems that would seem
irreconcilable in other modes of fiction. […] Mind and body, spirit and matter, life and death,
real and imaginary, self and other, male and female: these are boundaries to be erased,
transgressed, blurred, brought together, or otherwise fundamentally refashioned in magical
realist texts.
[…] Magical realist texts are subversive: their in-betweenness, their all-at-onceness
encourages resistance to monologic political and cultural structures, a feature that has made
the mode particularly useful to writers in postcolonial cultures and, increasingly, to women.
Lois Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B. Faris, ‘Introduction,’ in Magical Realism: Theory,
History, Community, ed. Lois Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B. Faris (Durham: Duke
University Press, 1995), pp. 1-11 (pp. 5-6).
MR is a useful way of challenging our assumptions about the world:
When we consider magical realism from the position of the ‘other’ and consider that it brings
into view non-logical and non-scientific explanations for things, we can see that the
transgressive power of magical realism provides a means to attack the assumptions of the
dominant culture and particularly the notion of scientifically and logically determined truth.
Maggie Ann Bowers, Magic(a)l Realism (London: Routledge, 2004), p. 69.
MR can be used to critique and revise patriarchal structures.
Picks up on idea of the exchange of women between men.
Feminism is about challenging ways of seeing the world > representation is a key
concern for feminists.
Woolf- says that representation has a magically transformative property >
representation, might therefore prioritise different ways of seeing things.
Cixous- ‘Sorties: Out and Out: Attacks/Ways Out/Forays,’ inThe Newly Born Woman
(London: I. B. Tauris, 1996), pp. 63-132 (pp. 63-64).
Cixous concerned with the way male experience is privileged.
Male/female binaries characterise western thought.
A Cartesian dichotomy- culture has privileged mind and masculinity over body and
femininity.
Note: how landscapes are often encoded as female bodies.
Gender and the ‘decolonisation’ of language
Idea of taking back language that women have been excluded from > re-appropriating
language.
It is enormously important for women to write fiction as women – it is part of the slow process
of decolonising our language and our basic habits of thought […] it is to do with the creation of
a means of expression for an infinitely greater variety of experience than has been possible
heretofore, to say things for which no language previously existed.
Angela Carter, ‘Notes From the Front Line,’ in On Gender and Writing, ed. Michelene Wandor
(London: Pandora, 1983), pp. 69-77 (p. 75).
, Foucault expresses a similar idea about language.
Note: the position of women is comparable to colonised subjects.
It is precisely these categories [women and non-Western people] that were traditionally
excluded from the “privileged centers” of culture, race, and gender, and therefore from the
operative discourses of power.
Theo L. D’haen, ‘Magical Realism and Postmodernism: Decentring Privileged Centers,’ in
Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community, ed. Lois Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B.
Faris
(Durham: Duke University Press, 1995), pp. 191-208 (pp. 200-201).
Women have been excluded from discourses of power > this is seen in the cultural
meanings that work to marginalise particular subjects.
Note: look at where the magic is located in HS > its located in the women e.g.
clairvoyance- associated with female experience.
To propose […] a connection between magical realism and a female sensibility is not to deny
differences among women and their texts but rather to suggest that magical realism has
affinities with and exemplifies certain aspects of the experience of women that have been
delineated by certain strains of feminist thought.
Wendy B. Faris, Ordinary Enchantments: Magical Realism and the Remystification of
Narrative (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2004), p. 170.
Cixous talks about moving out of the binary structures of language > freeing language
from its constraints > flying.
Beyond those formal and cultural properties, certain tropes that appear in magical realism,
especially in its texts by women, also align it with older ideas about female spheres of
influence, including houses and cooking, and newer ones concerning attention to the body.
Faris, Ordinary Enchantments, p. 171.
Note: pay attention to story-telling and gender.
Allende- The House of the Spirits
Political context- Chilean history- is key to HS.
o Allende was born in Peru in 1942- exiled from Chile after the military coup in
1973- since then been based in Venezuela and USA. In 1973- Allende’s 2 nd
cousin- was ousted and the right took power.
The magic in the novel is associated with women.
Has some key similarities with OYS- a family saga- BUT HS focuses on the female
generation.
Cf. OYS- focus on political moments- conflict between left and right > story of Trueba
family linked to the events of the Chilean coup.
The location of HS is never made explicit BUT the political context is clear AND
certain characters are factually recognisable e.g. poet.
A magical/fictional location of the text is necessary- otherwise it would be an outright
attack on Chilean politics.
Figure of female story-teller is important > oral narratives being passed down.
You can approach the text from a feminist critical perspective.
Essentially about 3 women- Clara, Blanca, Alba > their intersection with historical/
political issues > embroiled in domestic and political structures. All the women are
linked by their relationship with Esteban Trueba.
Allende does not confine the genre of MR to a geographical context:
(1) What I don’t believe is that the literary form often attributed to the works of […] Latin
American writers, that of magic realism, is a uniquely Latin American phenomenon. Magic
realism is a literary device or a way of seeing in which there is space for the invisible forces
that move the world: dreams, legends, myths, emotion, passion, history. All these forces find
