Name of Group 4 : 1.
WiwinWidyawati (200110101003)
2. Amelia Ivana Limantra (200110101005)
3. Siti Mei Rahmadayanti (200110101009)
4. Wike Risky Putri Utami (200110101020)
5. Hotilah (200110101027)
6. A. Fathor Rahman (200110101050)
7. Sari Nur RizkiFitria
(200110101057)
8. AlmiahZanjabila (200110101110)
Assignment : Literary Enjoyment B (Minipaper Analysis in Magical
Realism), “Death Constant Beyond Love”
I. Opening
Magic Realism is a style of fiction and literary genre in the 20th century.
The form “Magic Realism” relates to the concept of a powerful artistic form
that dominates creative and performing arts in Latin America (Rave in Wati
& Ayu, 2019). The Rupkatha Journal stated that magic realism is some kind
of belief, in reality, the reality that is more mysterious and complex and we
can specify it as a method for explaining some story that is based on reality,
and also we can specify it as some technique to tell a story (Rajabi & Akbari,
2020). Magical realism, or magic realism, is an approach to literature that
transforms fantasy and myth into everyday life (reality). Magic realism
resembles myth in its symbolic representation of desire, yet it also resembles
realism because it embeds this constant in a particular time and place. In
contrast to the symbolic narratives of fables or fairy tales, magic realism
combines its fantastic elements with ordinary empirical experience. Irony and
understatement often mitigate the unbelievable aspect of the magic. Yet in
magic realist texts, time and space obey laws of desire rather than physics.
Characters return from death, the logic of cause and effect is reversed,
memory is hereditary and communal, and prophecy comes true.
Although magic realism includes certain magical elements, it is generally
thought to be a different genre of fantasy because magical realism uses a large
number of realistic details and uses magical elements to make points about reality,
while fantasy stories are often separate from reality. Magical realism is often seen
as an amalgam of real and magical elements that produce a writing form more
inclusive than fantasy. Faris in her book Ordinary Enchantments Magical Realism
and the Remystification of Narrative stated that magic realism is classified by five
elements that type the building blocks of magic realism (Faris in Wati & Ayu,
2019). The five primary of characteristic of Magic realism:
1. The irreducible elements
Irreducible element can be presented in the form of person or thing that
has either extraordinary appearance or magical power. The irreducible element
has a function to serve the magical element in the magical realism fiction (Faris
in Hasanah, 2021).
2. The Phenomenal World
The phenomenal world is the second feature of magical realism.
Textually, magical events are typically based in a traditional realistic, if not
explicitly factual, manner.
3. The Unsetting Doubts
It typically arises from the story's underlying conflict of cultural systems.
Due to the diversity of belief systems, some readers in different cultures will
hesitate less than others, depending on their beliefs and narrative traditions.
4. Merging realism
This trait allows the reader to sense the proximity or near confluence of
two realms or realities. Magical realism frequently combines ancient or traditional
worlds with modern worlds in terms of cultural history. The magical realist
narrative line is akin to the world axis, which is supposed to connect the realms of
the underworld, the earth, and the heavens in many systems of thinking
5. Time, Space, and Identity Disruption
Magical realist fictions disrupt popular concepts about time, location, and
identity, in addition to mixing multiple universes. The narrative nature of magical
realism, as well as the cultural hybridity that characterizes it, extends to its
characters, which tends to be radical.
Death consonant beyond love is a magic realism short story written by
Gabriel Garcia Marquez in 1970. The main theme in the short story is about
loneliness, death, and love. The theme is presented through the character of
Senator Onesimo Sanche. In its story, it is told that Senayor Onesimo Sanche
isolates himself after finding out that he has short time to live. He doesn’t tell
anyone about his illness and he feels lonely because of that. The senator decides to
continue his political duties. He goes to Rosal de Varriey to give speech. After his
speech, Senator comes to Nelson Farina and his daughter, Laura. Knowing that
the senator is attracted to Laura, Nelson offers his daughter to him. However,
before he can sleep with Laura, he dies in bed with her, causing the scandal and
disgracing his family. The writer employs the genre of magic realism in its story
and it can be known by the way of the writer takes whoever reads it into two kinds
of worlds, one is magic world and the other is real world. In a whole story, there
are some events that are not based on the natural law such as paper butterflies
flying over the room which is never going to happen in real life. Butterflies come
from creatures called worms, and it is impossible to be born from a paper.
The social-background of its story is based on the writer’s childhood
experience. Marquez was born in Colombia in 1927 and he was brought up by his
grandparents. There was civilian war between FARC (communism) and
Colombian government (anti-communism) in Colombia at that time. Its story is
actually written based on political and social war in Colombia. The war which
happened in his childhood shaped his political and ideology views. Marquez’s
political and ideology views were developed by his grandfather. His Grandfather
was a colonel who worked for the liberal side of Colombian civil war. Instead of
telling his grandchild about fairy tales, Marquez’s grandfather told him about the
horrifying of accounts of the civil war, which free-thinkers and anti-cleric against
the government. Those of his experiences shaped him to be socialist and anti-
imperialistic, which are presented on his majority work. In its story, an ideology is
presented among the people of Rosal del virrey, which regard Senator as their
potential savior. In its work, he satirized the ideology that was spread by the
conservaty party in Colombia. In its story, He also satirized how the act of
conservative party has hidden purpose, in which put poor people as their power to
fight the government. In its story, it is presented where the Senator use Indians
and Rosal del Virrey citizens to boost his political advancements; Sanchez
actually has no real sympathy to Rosal del Virrey citizens and Indians people.
II. Characteristics Analysis of Magical Realism in Story “Death
Constant Beyond Love”
A. Irreducible elements:
According to Eralingua journal, irreducible element is like a magic thing
that exists in the story. In other words, irreducible element is the phenomenon that
happens within the story that cannot be explained (Asmida, 2020).
Evidence 1:
There was a pattern to his circus. As he spoke, his aides threw clusters of paper
birds into the air and the artificial creatures took on life, flew about the platform
of planks, and went out to sea.
Evidence 2:
Laura Farina was struck dumb standing in the doorway to the room: thousands of
banknotes were floating in the air, flapping like the butterfly. But the senator
turned off the fan and the bills were left without air and alighted on the objects in
the room. “You see,” he smiled, “even shit can fly.”
From all of the evidence we found above, it shows that this story contains the
irreducible elements because these phenomena simply cannot be explained by
logic, it is magic. It is not possible for a piece of paper to be alive or able to fly
like a butterfly.
B. Unsettling Doubt:
Another point of discussion is the merging realms unsettling that gives rise
to doubts, namely crack the doubts of understanding of an event, whether this was
an event magical or a real ordinary phenomenon. Narrative magical realism often
gives rise to this kind of pattern so that it put the reader in a situation which
perplexes in event that is being read (Mahmudah, 2016).
Evidence 1:
Laura Farina saw the paper butterfly come out. Only she saw it because the guards
in the vestibule had fallen asleep on the steps, hugging their rifles. After a few
turns, the large lithographed butterfly unfolded completely, flattened against the
wall,
and remained stuck there. Laura Farina tried to pull it off with her nails. One of
the guards, who woke up with the applause from the next room,
noticed her vain attempt.
“It won’t come off,” he said sleepily. “It’s painted on the wall.”
The quotation tells us about the flying paper butterfly that flattened on the wall
and then painted itself. How it is possible for an origami butterfly to paint itself on
a wall. It made no sense even when Laura Farina tried to remove it from the wall
the paper butterfly had completely fused to the wall.
C. Phenomenal Worlds:
Based on Lakon Journal by Sandra, phenomenal worlds are the real part of
magical realism and it happens in the real world, not just fiction or fantasy. So, the
phenomenal world is real and it can be that phenomenon is happening in text or it
can happen in another place and time. It can be that's story is from the past too.
But this phenomenon is a real thing that happens in this world and we can feel it
and see it too. Just like the Gabriel Marquez "Death constant beyond Love" short
story. This story is using beautiful words that might try to trick us and think it's
just fantasy. But the real thing is that phenomena are real and happen to us, we
can see many politicians that cover their ears and ignore the poor people that ask
for some help. And we can know that he has a luxurious life and we can see that
many corrupt politicians live a luxurious life (Sandra, 2016).
Evidence 1:
Rosal del Virrey, an illusory village which by night was the furtive wharf for
smugglers’ ships, and yet it seemed in broad daylight the most useless inlet on the
desert, looking out on an arid and directionless sea ….
This text told us about the magical realism in phenomenal worlds, because it’s not
made a sense that this illusory village is told us that it can have a ship even though
it’s look like a desert, but this can have another meaning that this village is real
but it’s so poor and dry out, it’s like there’s no clean water in here and It’s look
like there’s no sign of life in this village but actually some people is live in here
but they are so poor. And the word that said looking out an arid and directionless
sea, is meaning that the people that live in here also want some good life not a
poor life. So yes, this illusory village it’s just not an illusion but there’s many
villages that’s still look so bad in their condition and the people that live there. So,
my point is Senator Onesimo and his wife is not rich and live in a poor village
before he tried to candidate being a politician.
Evidence 2 :
At the same time, other men took some prop trees with felt leaves out of the
wagons and planted them in the saltpeter soil behind the crowd. They finished by
setting up a cardboard facade with make believe houses of red brick that had
glass windows, and with it they covered the miserable shacks of real life.
This line also showed magical realism in phenomenal worlds, because There’s no
way some prop trees can be planted in the soil, but in my opinion what I can see
here is he is trying to not care about the people protesting about him, he is just
trying to ignore them and take refuge in his place. And about they finished by
setting up cardboard… meaning that he has a nice place being a politician and
hiding from their word, he just doesn't want to see the people's poor life and just
hide in his place and shelter. This has happened in real life. You know that many
politicians get criticized so badly, but they try to hide themselves and go on with
his speech to be a politician even when people try to hurt him, they are always
somewhere safe for them. So, this happens in real life.
D. Merging Realms
One of the magical realism genre's characteristics is a merging of two
different realm's dimension. As we know that magical realism consists of two
ideas: magical and also realism. In this genre, we could see that the description of
reality is always affiliated with the existence of magical power as well. The
contrast was united in one world so that this genre seems logical and irrational at
the same time. The world that appears in magical realism can be divided into
some categories (Mahmudah,2016). Categorized it as the world of life and death,
the world of ghosts and humans, or the world of the physical and metaphysical. In
the story Love Constant Beyond Death itself, the world that describes it was
included in the physical and metaphysical world. This is proved from the scene of
flying papers that were thrown by senator's aides come alive. Paper should be a
passive object that cannot move without the help of external factors, but in this
story the papers can move to the other place without any scientific explanation.
Not only evidenced from this scene, the scene of flying butterfly paper that Laura
Farina witnessed also clarifies that this story is set in the real world in which
metaphysics power exists. This merged realm causes the disruption in the story,
whether it's from the place, time, or identity that will doubt the readers about
occurred events in the story.
E. Disruption of Time, Space and Identity
The cultural hybridity of magical realism does not only interrupt time and
space, but also the identity of the character in the story. The disruption is caused
by magical events that happen in the real world of the main character (protagonist)
(Faris in Hasanah, 2021). Our knowledge of places might be compromised too,
as the worlds of magic and realism mix into one. The disruption of identity of
magical realism is characterized by the multifocal nature of narrative and cultural
hybridity, this also extends to its character towards radical or personal
multiplicity.
In short story Death Constant Beyond Love, there are only 2 disruption that is
space and identity.
• Disruption of Space
Evidence 1:
“an illusory village which by night was the furtive wharf for smugglers’ ships,
and yet it seemed in broad daylight the most useless inlet on the desert,
looking out on an arid and directionless sea, so far removed from everything
that no one would have suspected that someone capable of changing the
destiny of anyone lived there”
The statement above is an example of the magical realism that is disruption of
space because it makes the reader drawn between two views of reality in one
place. When Marquez depicts two different villages day and night and it can
change the fate of anyone who lives there or force the reader to focus on the
reality of what lies within. At the beginning of the story we learn that the
village is an “illusion village which at night becomes a stealth dock for
smugglers' ships, and on the other hand, in broad daylight looks like the most
useless entrance in the desert.” At night, smuggling occurs and during the day
it looks “useless”, in other words corruption occurs at night while during the
day it becomes a cover for the corruption. The fact that the village is defined
as the village of illusion signifies everything and everyone in this village will
have two sides, one of which is corruption.
• Disruption of identity
Evidence 2:
The existence of a disruption of identity is shown in the figure, namely the
two-faced Senator. In this story, the character, the Senator, conveys a message
to the public during his campaign that they are no longer God's children from
the use of the word "orphan". By building an ideal world, the Senator
promises them the beautiful lifestyle he dreams of. The senator saw himself as
some kind of God over these “God orphans.” Senator made promises to the
desperate and gave medicine to the sick. The residents of Rosal del Virrey felt
confident in the Senator's speech at his campaign and they put their trust in the
Senator. But all of that was a lie from the Senator. His act of compassion for
society was just an ulterior motive to keep him in his high position of political
power. The senator views everyone around him as lowly, and they are only
used for his personal advancement. Senator lack real empathy and compassion
for citizens. His economic prosperity is the product of his corrupt and selfish
campaign
III. Closing
To sum up everything that has been explained before, the story by
Gabriel Garcia Marquez titled “Death Constant Beyond Love” has lots of
elements of life we could analyze as a reader. Those elements are such as the
social background and the characteristics of this magical realism story. We
could conclude that this story criticize the government who does the
corruption and bribe to win the election. Those who take control as a
government or idealist of a country could manipulate their people and take
their advantages for their own shake, and this event is shown when Sanchez
would have a sex with Laura whose reason is for his father's command and for
Sanchez willingness to make her false card identity. Apart from the analyses,
this story is light to read and amusing with those magical events that happened
in the story.
REFERENCES
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