Gabriel
Garcia Marquez is one of the leading exponents of magic realism in the arena of
literature. The writer of this school interweaves realistic ordinary events and
descriptive details with fantastic and dreamlike elements as well as with
materials derived from myth and fairy tales. In Strange Pilgrims Marquez represents dreamlike magical events in a
way that even the descriptive details achieve magical touch of brilliant
imagination. The twelve stories of this volume embrace life’s oddness, its
poetic incongruities whether they are joyous, disastrous or bewildering.
In
the first story “Bon Voyage Mr. President the president’s present tour of Geneva differs from his
fist visit. During the first visit the lake was “calm and clear” and there were
“tame gully” that would feed out of one’s hands and woman for hire seemed like
six-in-the picture has now turned into a nightmarish one when the President
contemplates the dusty swans sitting on a wooden bench in the deserted park and
sees a flower vendor on the deserted pier. The change of tonal mode is
pertinent to the change in the president’s life. The president who has come to
treat his “improbable and devious pain finds himself in a serious condition. He
has to submit to a dangerous and inescapable operation. So, the president now
finds the lake as rough as an angry sea and the gulls frightened by an outlaw
wind. HE decides to face death alone in a stoical.
Based
on the notion that there is no inherent division between the natural and the supernatural,
magical realism juxtaposes detailed description of the mundane events, with
fantastical occurrences. Combining the natural and supernatural Marquez,
strives to capture the magic of everyday life. Homero, the ambulance driver as
well as his countryman gets himself acquainted with him for personal gain. The
president wins the heart of Homero and his wife Lazara Devis through his
miserable condition. He is a lonely person with nothing but some jeweler pieces
to bear the medical expense. Homero and
Lazara decide to help him. When they return from the hotel the President lives
in, after setting the medical affair with him, they are intoxicated on their
way home by the song of Georges, Brassens and the remembered “scent of
hyacinth”. The sign of turn about it hinted at here. The president recovers
from the serious pain, and expresses his desire to be the leader of the nation
again. On the other hand, Homero and Lazara find themselves in a miserable
condition appending their children savings.
The
providential magic turn of luck is also found in the story “Maria dos Prazers”.
In the story Maria, a seventy six years old whore, finds a partner when she
completely devotes herself to the preparation of death. When she meets the man,
little more than an adolescent, it is raining as a sign of renewal of life.
Marquez in these two stories portray two positive magical events with the color
of magical description.
But
human beings also find themselves in awkward situations that resemble unreal
mishaps. In “I only came to use the phone” Maria de la Luz Cervantes is trapped
in such a situation that seems to be possible only I a nightmare. She wants to
use a phone so that she can inform her husband of the mishap on her way home.
She gets on a ramshackle bus full of mentally ill old woman. She reaches the
asylum only to have her as a mental patient. The doctors and matrony are as
hard as the “stone walk and frozen stairways” of the mental hospital. They
don’t try to understand Maria, rather treat her as a mental patient. Herculina,
one of the matrons, even abuses her sexually. Her husband Saturno translates
his dream of Maria in a “ragged wedding dress spaltered with blood” into the
sign of Maria’s betrayal. When he meets her at last, he accepts Maria as a mental
patient. Maria has at last, he accepts Maria as a mental patient. Maria has to
surrender to this painful situation finding no other way.
In
trial of your blood in the Snow, we find a lovely couple Nena Daconte and Billy
Sanchez on their way to Paris
from Cartagena
de Indias
as a honeymoon trip. When they reach Madrid,
their country’s diplomatic mission welcomes them in the official reception
room. The ambassador, who is also the doctor that delivered Nena Daconte,
receives Nena with a bouquet; she pricks her finger on a thorn. She does not
pay any heed to his mishap at first, but the bleeding continues and worries
both her husband and herself. When they enter Paris, it is a “typical” Tuesday in an
overcast filthy Parisian January, with a persistent rain that never solidifies
into snow. Through this ordinary image the writer effectively alludes to the
continuous bleeding of Nena Daconte that never congeals. This simple mishap
leads to her death while Billy himself trapped in the mystery of foreign
culture. That their accidental separation turns into a perpetual break reflects
the uncertainty and mystery of this world.
In
“Miss Forbes’s Summer of Happiness” the violent death of Miss Forbes and the
way she accepts the death intensifies human loneliness in an uncertain world.
The day before her death finds her in a floral mood who has already decided “I
do not exist.” The crucifying “moray eel” a creature of mythical importance is
used as a foreboding sign. The above mentioned examples stir our imagination to
magical reality of life.
Besides
these two categories, there are other examples in the book which represent
life’s incongruities in confusing magical happenings. In “ I sell my Dreams” Fraw
Frieda earns her living by dreaming. She can tell in advance with the help of
her dreams. She foretells the death of her younger brother, warns the narrator
of the possible danger, dreams of Pablo Nervda while he is dreaming of her.
Though this magical power charms us we find that Fraw Frieda cannot save
herself from an accident. The serpent-shaped good ring indicates the mystery of
her magical power and leaves us in surprise.
In
“The Ghosts of August” the narrator experiences the thrill of horror film in a
setting where the fire play with its cold ashes and stone-like final log, the
portrait of melancholy Ludovico, the dusty curtains, and the sheets soaked with
still warm blood add to the feelings. In the “Saint” Margarito Duarte upholds
himself as a saint while carrying the miraculously undecomposed body of his
daughter. He overcomes human instincts in a way that sets him on par with his
daughter. In these ways, magical happenings can share our life to embrace
magical realism.
Mr.
President or Maria dos Prazers highlights the magical joyous turn of human
life. On the other hand, Neha Daconte and Billy Sanchez Maria can be thrilling
as the narrator himself feels or surprising as we find in Margarito Duarte or
Frau Frieda. Marquez has explored various magical happenings with exquisitely
charming details in Strange Pilgrims.
Garcia
Marquez emerges as a master of the style that became the hallmark of the “born
generation”: magical realism. Based on the notion that there is no inherent
driven between the natural and supernatural, magical realism juxtaposes
detailed descriptions of mundane events with fantastical occurrences.
