Magical Realism In La Noche Boca Arriba

Magical realism and its plethora of components is used by authors aiming to portray a message to readers in a style that will cause them to broaden their horizons and view life from a different standpoint. Its vast characteristics that offer a mirrored concept of real world themes create an underlying meaning in magical realism writing. Its integration in stories provide the opportunity for the audience to realize a new purpose and apply it in their lives, while simultaneously acting as a source of enjoyment. Thus, magical realism can vary in the way in which it is presented, but ultimately attempts to create an underlying meaning about life and the worlds that are present in our own.

Magical devices that are woven into the fabric of reality
Magical realist using the element of causality and subjectiveness according to Bruce Holland Rogers’s article, “What is Magical Realism, Really?” put “causally connected events side by side in a way that doesn't appear to violate objective reality, but attempts to convince us by details that the events described are linked by more than chance”. The short story “La Noche Boca Arriba” by Julio Cortazar manifest this form of magical realism seamlessly into the setting. The short story takes hold of two plots, one in the modern world and the other in Moteca-Aztec world. Throughout the plots, ideas seem to merge as if one action performed in one realm is reflected onto the parallel realm. The story begins when the protagonist crashes on a motorcycle in the modern world and is taken to the hospital for surgery. The modern world to him does not feel normal; it is to some extent out of place from what he knows. The man describes common things through their looks, “Smiling, the man in white approached him again with something shiny in his right hand”(6). The fact that the protagonist does not know the occupation name for “the man in white” as doctor and other cases similar, suggests that he is not of this world but of the Aztec world where, “...all of this was so natural”(6). Soon, other similarities and parallels come to rise therefore incorporating the magical element of
The reaction of a given people will dictate whether it is magical realism or fantasy.It is how society treats such extraordinary behavior that is significant to the genre of magical realism. Gabriel García Márquez’ short story “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” includes such a transformation. The people of this this small Catholic town in Colombia are suaded by the supernatural they encounter. At first a man with enormous wings is found in the mud after a great rain storm. People debate its angelicness but ultimately do not accept it as an angel but rather just a very old man with enormous wings hence the title. The people decide to lock it up in a chicken coop and disrespect it to such an extent that it is cruel and inhuman. That occurs until another supernatural being comes about during the traveling show and the townspeople move away from the man with wings to, “the women who had been changed into a spider for having disobeyed her parents”(10). Everyone in town is of acceptance of the spider women as shown through their easy persuasion of the extraordinary. They treat the metamorphosis as an everyday occurrence and therefore combining the both the mundane and the extraordinary in a setting in which religion has a major impact on its people beliefs and actions thus indicating a reliance of religion to explain and reason life. In like manner, Tim