La Noche Boca Arriba Analysis

Discuss and analyze how and to what ends fantasy and reality are intertwined in stories you have studied.

In this essay, we will discuss how magical realism uses elements of real and of magic to create the literary style. At first, we will try to give a background of what magic realism, where it comes from, and how a story can be labelled as such. Alejo Carpentier’s “Viaje a la semilla” and Julio Cortazar’s “La noche boca arriba” will be our focus. The analysis of the two stories will attempt to generalize what elements of real and fantastic are in most, if not all of “lo real maravilloso.”
Before we analyse how magical and real elements are used in short stories, we first need to point out the definition of this literary style. Magical realism was first coined by German Franz Roh in 1925 to refer to a style of painting. Later, Alejo Carpentier took the term and expanded on it thanks to his early influences of surrealism. Carpentier was in fact was not satisfied by his poor contribution to surrealism, so he took ideas from the literary approach. The South American termed the new literary style as “lo real maravilloso.”
Even up to now, there is still no agreement on a clear definition of what exactly defines a story as magical realism. However, there is common agreement on the distinction between it and purely fictional styles such as fairy tales and fables. Unlike them, magical realism has mythical or dreamlike elements injected in realistic stories. Just