Magical Realism in One Hundred Years of Solitude

Magical realism is a genre supposedly of Latin American origin where the enchantment of magical concepts is incorporated with realistic ideals. It is a genre in which magic and reality are not two separate and autonomous types of literature. Instead, the two seemingly conflicting writing styles are merged to make a unique and unwonted, yet familiar style of literary work.

Various magical ideas ranging from flying carpets to floating up into the heavens are inputted into the daily lives of the Buendías as well as those who they interact with in Gabriel García Márquez’s book One Hundred Years of Solitude. It is not unusual to encounter the supernatural in this novel. Neither is it uncommon to find people, and even animals losing their sanity over what to us may seem like something not worthy of even bothering about. However, Macondo, along with the Buendías, does not lose its sense of reality in such a way that the town and its people retain their earthiness despite all of the unrealistic happenings in the story.

García Márquez starts off his novel with a flashback of the time when the town of Macondo was still young. Gypsies, who are generally considered to be a magical people, annually return to this town to show its few citizens their inventions. They bring in items such as metal ingots that attract metallic items unseen for a period of time. Unheard of to the very first citizens of the town of Macondo, it was definitely and invention that did not cease, but instead increased their curiosity. Nowadays, however, it is known that these two metal ingots were magnets. Still in the very first chapter of One Hundred Years of Solitude, a boy by the name of Aureliano is born to Úrsula Iguarán and José Arcadio Buendía. He is the first person to be born in Macondo. Aureliano is said to have wept while he was still in his mother’s womb, and he is also said to have been born with his eyes open. Babies cannot really cry whilst still in their mothers’ womb. Babies