The formation of magical realism literary genre can not be separated from the influence and stimulation of western modernist literature. Latin American literary tradition comes from two aspects. On the one hand, Indian folk literature and ancient Mayan literature, especially the fantastic and grotesque elements in ancient myths, folklore and witchcraft, have become the creative nourishment of Latin American writers. On the other hand, it is the European literary tradition. Latin American writers who speak Portuguese (Brazil), French (Haiti) and Spanish (most Latin American countries) have profound European and American literary accomplishment. The exaggeration, strangeness and satire of rabelais and Cervantes, and the criticism, exposure, delicacy and profundity of Balzac, Zola and Dostoevsky are all absorbed by Latin American writers. Since the 20th century, under the impact of the powerful trend of western modernist literature, the Latin American literary world has also undergone tremendous changes. Latin American writers realize that Latin American literature can gain a place in the world literary world only by absorbing the spirit of western modern art, constantly innovating artistic techniques and expressing the real life of Latin America in the 20th century with modern artistic techniques. Some outstanding writers in Latin America have traveled and studied in Europe. Angel asturias of Guatemala and Alejo Carpentier of Cuba joined French surrealist literary groups during their stay in Paris. Garcia Marquez of Colombia was deeply influenced by European and American modernist writers such as Joyce, Kafka and Faulkner. Of course, the influence of western modernist literature, especially surrealism, on Latin American writers is not to "teach them what to write and how to write", as some people say, but to inspire them to look at Latin American "magic reality" with new eyes and stimulate them to describe Latin American "magic of reality" in new ways.
Generally speaking, magic realism has two characteristics: first, the ideological content of the works reflects the political awakening of Latin American people to varying degrees, exposing and attacking colonialism, military dictatorship, religious rule and feudal ignorance. Secondly, the artistic techniques of the works are deeply influenced by modern European and American literature. Surrealism techniques can be clearly seen in many works, such as paying attention to expressing subconscious, dreams and hallucinations, and boldly using strange metaphors, bizarre imaginations and mysterious symbols. However, these works not only copy the creative techniques of European and American modernists, but also combine the local culture of Latin America, especially the primitive Indian myths and folklore, enriching and developing the above creative techniques, thus forming a unique "magic technique." In magical realistic literary works, realistic scenes and plots are intertwined with completely fictional situations, giving people a specious and specious feeling. According to the creative method of magical realism, the writer combines shocking reality with dreamy illusion, and traps people and weaves plots through extremely exaggerated and interwoven artistic brushstrokes, thus achieving the purpose of attacking the darkness, filth and chaos of society. They skillfully combine reality with fantasy, write what seems unreal very realistically, and write what seems completely impossible vividly. In other words, let the real life content coexist with the illusory artistic situation without damaging the authenticity of reality.
One Hundred Years of Solitude is Garcia Marquez's most famous novel. By describing the rise and fall of seven generations of Buendia family in Macondo town, the novel shows readers the political situation and social life in Colombia in the past hundred years, and castigates the cruelty of American imperialism in enslaving Latin American countries politically and squeezing Latin American countries economically. Macondo was originally a primitive village, and later it gradually developed into a small town. In the past hundred years, this town has experienced a lot: brutal civil war, American economic aggression, and workers' resistance was brutally suppressed. Finally, "it rained heavily for four years, eleven months and two days", and a hurricane swept away the town, leaving "a piece of white land". One Hundred Years of Solitude follows the creative principle of magical realism of "turning reality into fantasy without losing reality", thus achieving the "magical" artistic effect of "specious, specious". For example, the government killed a large number of strikers, loaded them on trains and transported them to the sea to throw them away. The monster-like train has two hundred carriages, and the front, middle and rear * * * are towed away; Another example is the silence of the night. People can actually hear "the cries of ants in the moonlight, the loud noise of moths eating and the persistent and clear screams of weeds growing"; In One Hundred Years of Solitude, sometimes the dead come back to life, the living ascend to heaven, ghosts talk to the living, and sometimes the carpet is empty and raining. These whimsy make the plot and scene of this work like a kaleidoscope, as real as fantasy and confusing. However, as John Womax Jr, a professor at Harvard University in the United States, pointed out: "Latin American readers have seen a true portrayal of themselves and society from his works. People regard his works as magical literature, but in fact, most of his descriptions are real life in Latin America. "
Magic realism writers attach great importance to artistic skills and language, which is often dazzling. In fact, they regard skills and language as a tool, a tool to introduce people into "another reality". And "this kind of reality, we agree to call it mythical reality or magical reality." However, as Andersen Ambert, a famous Argentine literary critic and writer, said: "In the magical realistic novels, the author's fundamental purpose is to express reality with the help of magic, not to express magic as reality. The characters, things and events in the novel could have been known, but in order to make readers feel weird, the author deliberately wrote beyond recognition, made no sense, and did not give a reasonable explanation. He changed his true colors like a magician. As a result, the reality disappeared in the author's illusory imagination ... Between the disappearance of reality (that is, magic) and the performance of reality (that is, realism), the effect of magical realism is as magical as watching a new play, and it is also like observing the world with new eyes in the new morning sunshine: the scenes of this world are rarely bizarre, if not magical. In this novel, even if the event is true, it will make people feel unreal. The author intends to create an atmosphere that is both supernatural and not divorced from nature; Technology is the illusion that turns reality into a neurotic patient. " Ambert's exposition has important reference value for us to deeply understand the artistic text of magical realism and explore its mystery.
Latin America is a multi-ethnic melting pot, mainly inhabited by Indians, Spanish invaders and African blacks trafficked here. They represent three coexisting cultures, namely Indian culture, European culture and African culture. Intermarriage of different races eliminates ethnic barriers, and cultural identity bridges cultural differences, forming a unique multicultural structure. Therefore, in this land, modern metropolises, primitive tribes in Lin Mang, Catholic churches in Shan Ye, and ancient religious customs of Indians and blacks coexist. Magic realism, like other literary schools in Latin America, is rooted in the reality of the Latin American continent, reflects the real life more deeply, exposes the Indian soul, subconscious, irrationality and unique way of thinking naked, makes the reality bizarre and makes Latin America more mysterious. And this mystery is also reflected in its political reality. Latin American writers are not only immersed in the reflection on magical reality, but also reflect the profound exploration of reality. Latin American writers began to pay attention to the future of the country and the destiny of the nation, exposed and criticized social abuses with pen as a weapon, or directly participated in the discussion of state affairs and participated in political activities, striving to free Latin American people from colonial rule, eliminate social injustice, overthrow military dictatorship and accelerate the pace of Latin American progress. This special environment in Latin America provides writers with a lot of materials to discuss and think about reality and power, and a sense of continuous innovation, which also endows writers with cultural mission and political responsibility.
Magic realism strengthens the national cultural consciousness and breaks through the traditional norms of the concept of "reality". The origin of "magic realism" mainly comes from two aspects: one is the magical reality between nature and people in Latin America, and the other is the traditional ideas and beliefs of local residents (Indians or blacks). The traditional ideas and beliefs of Latin American people are mainly contained in myths and legends. For most Spanish-speaking Americans-Indians and Americans-myth is an inseparable part of their daily life, a product of the indispensable relationship between people and their surroundings, and a cultural field that distinguishes them from other nationalities. This national cultural consciousness is deeply rooted in the hearts of Latin American magic realists. In their view, the reality includes not only the endless nature, the people who are sick and sick, the turbulent social life, but also myths and legends. Therefore, "magic realism" essentially means Latin American writers' "mastery of typical Latin American cultural treasures" and "a belief in turning myths and legends into reality". With the awakening of "Latin American consciousness" in the whole Latin American continent, Latin American writers' national cultural consciousness has also been strengthened. They no longer look at and grasp the reality of Latin America from the perspective of Europeans, but feel and understand the reality of Latin America with the unique mentality of Latin Americans. The "reality" understood by magic realists is the reality that permeates Latin American people's life and death beliefs and myths, and it is a mixture of nature, society and myths, and this "reality" itself has magical significance and magical color. When people often ask how "magic" is made, Alejo Carpentier and Garcí a Marquez, the representative writers of magical realism, have repeatedly stressed that they are absolutely loyal to "reality" and have neither created anything nor changed anything. Magic realism's new understanding of "reality" is a major breakthrough to traditional realism. Structural realism is also called new realism. In Latin America, this concept was put forward by Jose Louis Martin, a literary critic, and was applied in the field of literature. Structural realism novel is one of the schools of Latin American contemporary novel creation, also known as "whole novel" and "comprehensive novel". Peruvian writer Vargas Luesa and others transplanted cubist painting method into novel creation, while maintaining the tradition of realism, and advocated recreating reality, that is, reorganization, without distorting realistic materials. All these seemingly chaotic structures make the works look completely different from traditional realism, and have achieved remarkable "three-dimensional" artistic effect.
The concept of "structuralism" comes from the background of Europe and America pursuing industrial production efficiency and social division of labor at the end of 19. It emphasizes the systematic and holistic characteristics of things in an anti-individualistic way of thinking. The first application of structuralism in linguistics produced Saussure's linguistic sign system; As a cultural concept involving anthropology, structuralism has influenced many fields of art, from theory to creation, from drama, novel, poetry to film and television. Transferred to the field of literature, structuralism and realism combined to form structural realism literature. Restricted by linguistics, traditional literature is used to flattening the original "three-dimensional" social life and carrying out single-line "narrative" from the "omniscient perspective" through a specific "narrator". Structural realism literature changes the narrative techniques and styles of traditional literature, and strives to make real social life "stand up" through "diverse" and "rich" three-dimensional structure and creative techniques. As a master of "three-dimensional novels", Lu Sa ignored the creation norms of "plane novels" in order to achieve the novelty of literary structure. With the creative ambition of "building a pure inner world of time and space", he skillfully used structuralist narrative techniques in his literary works, which showed the complexity and diversity of social life reflected in his literature in a three-dimensional way and created one Borges-style "divergent gardens" after another.
The basic feature of structural realism is to break the traditional novel structural form, adopt various novel structural modes, arrange plots artistically, tell stories and reflect social reality. For example, a green house consists of five floors. In the traditional way, the author can tell five stories one by one, in normal time order. But Lue Sa refused to obey the rules. He believes that real life is rich and varied, and literary works should also be poetic works of art, otherwise it will not reflect the complexity and diversity of reality, and the works will become mediocre, dull and unattractive. He advocated the artistic representation of reality and the creation of artistic novels. Therefore, he adopted a new structural form different from the traditional one in The Green House, that is, he divided five stories into several segments and told them in turn. For example, the first and third films, each chapter includes five episodes, that is, five scenes, telling five stories respectively. The second and fourth parts, each chapter includes four segments, namely four scenes, telling four stories, because Hume's story disappeared, and Bonifaci's story and the prodigal son's story merged into one.
Due to this structural arrangement, the temporal and spatial order is disrupted, and the narrative methods become diversified: jumping, reversing, independence, crossing, dispersion and integration. The use of these forms enriches the narrative. In addition, the author also uses the "box-setting technique" to make the story set again and the dialogue sandwiched in the dialogue. The narrative method of this structural form is novel and unique, and its effect is like a kaleidoscope, which makes real life present to readers with a brand-new look and makes readers have some curiosity and interest in reading the book.
Vargas Lusa once said: The angle of observing reality is infinite. Although it is impossible to cover all angles, the more realistic the angle, the better the novel will be. This is the case with War and Peace, and so are some knight novels. Knight novels include mystery, religion, history, society, instinct and so on. Nowadays, the attempts of novels always want to express reality from one channel and one angle. On the contrary, I advocate creating a general novel, that is, reflecting it ambitiously from all aspects and forms of reality.
This is the theoretical basis of Vargas Lusa's creative method of structural realism. He believes that people's observation of reality is multi-angle and multi-level. The more angles and levels a novel presents reality, the more successful it will be. In order to fully express reality and write great novels, writers should grasp and express reality from as many angles and levels as possible. Therefore, in order to achieve multi-angle and multi-level in the novel, Rusa adopts various techniques, such as various forms of dialogue, plot division and combination, full use of official documents or letters, film and television performance skills, perspective in painting, frequent time-space conversion and so on. Its artistic effect can make readers have a comprehensive feeling or understanding of the real world displayed in the works, or have a three-dimensional sense and a sense of wholeness. During the outbreak of Latin American literature, fantasy novel also occupied a certain share. The representative writer of fantasy novels is Julio Cortázar, an Argentine writer deeply influenced by Borges. Borges acknowledged the role of imagination in literary creation, but did not put literature in vague imagination. He expressed his thoughts on time and space, life and death, dreams and so on. With his imaginary dreams, mazes, eternal cities, mirrors, etc. Borges' handling of imagination cleverly avoids the disadvantages of generalizing in fantasy novels. Putting imagination into concrete images is also unique in the choice of images. The maze, dream, mirror and tiger he chose all have rich meanings. It is on the unique application of this imaginative skill that Borges established the style and position of literary creation and became a wonderful flower in the field of Latin American literature.
Cortaza's fantasy novels are deeply influenced by Borges. He said, "Borges is deeply branded as a writer of our generation, and he points out the infinite possibilities of strangeness for us." Both writers prefer magical themes, use simple language and carefully construct novel plots, but their works are quite different, no matter how they look at the world or how they handle stories. Most of Borges' fantasies come from philosophical thinking, but Koltaza realized the magic from reality, or dismantled, reorganized and assembled reality, or added fantasy elements to reality as a whole, in order to find the door to reality from a different road, rather than to escape from reality. This is a new kind of magic literature. In the writer's words, "almost all my stories belong to the category of' magic literature', as opposed to pseudo-realism. That kind of realism thinks that everything can be described ... of course, it is in a world dominated by some kind of "harmonious" system-this system includes laws, causality, clear psychology and geography drawn into a map, but I thought of another program that is more secret and difficult to express ... "Take occupied room, one of Kotaza's first two novels, as an example. This is a novel with a bizarre plot. Brother and sister live in a spacious ancestral home. Neither brother nor sister is married. They live quietly with the house. My sister does endless knitting, while my brother spends his time on French literature or collecting stamps. The quiet life was suddenly broken: one night, the ancestral home was suddenly occupied by half, and the brothers and sisters didn't know who the occupier was and didn't have the courage to look. They continued to live in the remaining half of the house, and then the occupation continued. The space that the two brothers and sisters have is getting smaller and smaller, and finally they have to leave their keys and abandon their homes. The strange thing about the story is that the other half of the protagonist, that is, the person who occupies the house, never appears and does not explain why he occupies the room. Just like Kafka's The Trial, the protagonist never understood why he was tried, but was forced to leave instead of dying. Is this a fable about the living conditions of modern people or an allusion to Argentine society at that time? The work did not provide an answer. This is quite different from the mysterious and strange structure of Borges' explanation of the story at the end of the novel. The intentional exaggeration of the atmosphere of terror in Kortaza's story is obviously different from Borges's.
Borges' fantasy novels can be seen in his initial short story creation, but they are different from them. If Borges' novels are mostly the result of logical speculation, then Cortaza's fantasy novels are another type: the works are full of fantasy, magic and absurdity, but they are closely related to reality. The real transformation of his creation from fantasy to reality began with his novella The Chaser, which showed readers the confusion of the "Beat Generation" and reflected the author's concern for human existence. It is a work with existentialism tendency.