Passed on traditions: Reclaiming ethnic heritage through magical realism

Abstract

My thesis examines how the literary technique of magical realism serves as a conduit to transmit culturally specific traditions--the belief in ghosts, spiritualism, and magic--to the reader. By focusing on the growing field of American ethnic literature, I examine how ghosts, magic, and spiritualism convey knowledge of, and endorse reintroduction to, these formerly widespread practices. Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude is examined as the novel which originated the genre. Three texts by hyphenated (African-, Native-, or Mexican-) American authors demonstrate the technique's use in the evolving ethnic canon: Toni Morrison's Beloved, Louise Erdrich's Love Medicine, and Rudolfo Anaya's Bless Me, Ultima. Employing an interdisciplinary approach which combines both a literary and an anthropological perspective, my thesis emphasizes the incorporation of folk traditions and culture into magically real texts as a device which clarifies and reiterates the importance of transmitting the previously suppressed beliefs in each of the "marginalized" societies.