How Does Jonathan Safran Foer Use Of Magical Realism
Stories tend to twist the way the mind perceives reality. The purpose of a story is to connect with the audience in an entertaining way. Even with historical events authors tend to draw the audience in with fictional characteristics that may stretch the truth. One of the most unique ways for an author to stretch the truth of reality is the use of magical realism. Mustanir Ahmad defines magical realism in the article, “Magical Realism, Social Protest and Anti-Colonial Sentiments in iOne Hundred Years of Solitudei: An Instance of Historiographic Metafiction.” It states, “Highlighting that magical realism enables a writer to challenge the authenticity of the so-called objective reality and at the same time attempts to “write back to the Centre”
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The Book of Recurrent Dreams is the book the slouchers used to record their dreams and document things that had the possibility of occurring. This book was part of the Book of Antecedents, which is a book the villagers in the shtetl of Trachimbrod used to keep track of occurring events. The Book of Recurrent Dreams added a magical realism effect to the story because it used realistic qualities, but added impossible elements to them that would not occur. For example, in the dream 4:525 it states “in the water I saw my father’s face, and that face saw the face of its father, and so on, and so on, reflecting backward to the beginning of time, to the face of God, in whose image we were created” (Foer 40). Another example of the Book of Recurrent Dreams is when Yankel dreams in dream 4:812 states “The dream of living forever with Brod. I have this dream every night. Even when I can’t remember it the next morning…” ( Foer 84). The Book of Recurrent Dreams uses both Ahmads’ and Faris’ magical realism definitions. Brod dreams of Trachimbrod being destroyed and that the end of the days is coming, but we do not know that comes true until we realize that the Nazis destroyed the town. This creates unsettling doubts amongst the reader because we cannot figure out if the other dreams are imaged or true. Does this mean that Brod was a prophet or had a lucky foreshadowing of what was to come? This then creates meaning in the
The Book of Recurrent Dreams is the book the slouchers used to record their dreams and document things that had the possibility of occurring. This book was part of the Book of Antecedents, which is a book the villagers in the shtetl of Trachimbrod used to keep track of occurring events. The Book of Recurrent Dreams added a magical realism effect to the story because it used realistic qualities, but added impossible elements to them that would not occur. For example, in the dream 4:525 it states “in the water I saw my father’s face, and that face saw the face of its father, and so on, and so on, reflecting backward to the beginning of time, to the face of God, in whose image we were created” (Foer 40). Another example of the Book of Recurrent Dreams is when Yankel dreams in dream 4:812 states “The dream of living forever with Brod. I have this dream every night. Even when I can’t remember it the next morning…” ( Foer 84). The Book of Recurrent Dreams uses both Ahmads’ and Faris’ magical realism definitions. Brod dreams of Trachimbrod being destroyed and that the end of the days is coming, but we do not know that comes true until we realize that the Nazis destroyed the town. This creates unsettling doubts amongst the reader because we cannot figure out if the other dreams are imaged or true. Does this mean that Brod was a prophet or had a lucky foreshadowing of what was to come? This then creates meaning in the