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Cultural Transformation in US Magical Realist Fiction. (2008)

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Cultural Transformation in US Magical Realist Fiction. (2008) BRO, LISA WENGER, Ph.D. Strange Changes: Cultural Transformation in U.S. Magical Realist Fiction. (2008) Directed by Dr. Scott Romine. 274 pp. The focus of my dissertation is recent U.S. magical realism, more precisely, the cultural-ideological role the magic plays as a technique or effect fiction writers use to describe particular transformations characters undergo. Since critics have repeatedly identified the magic within the broader zone of postmodern and postcolonial writing, a first step will involve reexamining the complex relationships of magical realism with the postmodern and the postcolonial in American and international context. Coming to terms with the dynamic of the three terms and related literary-cultural practices will help understanding why and how American writers of the past decades have been using magical realism to suggest how human beings go through a restructuring process wherein beliefs they hold are reassessed and reformed, that is, how the magic acts as a cultural agent. Indeed, as my project will show, not only does the magic open up new possibilities and worlds for the characters; it also allows for the reformation of longstanding beliefs. Through this process, we see characters wrestle with and adopt new ideologies, often gaining strength as a result. STRANGE CHANGES: CULTURAL TRANSFORMATION IN U.S. MAGICAL REALIST FICTION by Lisa Wenger Bro A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of The Graduate School at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy Greensboro 2008 Approved by ___________________________________ Committee Chair © 2008 by Lisa Wenger Bro To my wonderful husband, Jeremy Bro, who spent endless hours listening to me talk about my dissertation, letting me bounce ideas off him, listening to all my dissertation woes, and pouring me copious amounts of wine when things just weren’t going my way. Hopefully, the years of stress, meltdowns, and breakdowns have paid off! ii APPROVAL PAGE This dissertation has been approved by the following committee of the Faculty of The Graduate School at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Committee Chair __________________________________________________ Committee Members ________________________________________________ _______________________________________________ ____________________________ Date of Acceptance by Committee ____________________________ Date of Final Oral Examination iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION . 1 II . WHITE VOODOO? MAGIC, RELIGION, AND RACE IN ALEJO CARPENTIER, LEWIS NORDAN, AND SEAN STEWART . 30 Alejo Carpentier’s The Kingdom of This World . .42 Nordan: White Horror . .50 Stewart and Class-Based Hybridity . 62 III. THE MAGIC OF GENDER: BODY STEREOTYPE AND METAMORPHOSIS IN PHILIP ROTH, ANGELA CARTER, AND DOUG RICE. .75 Enacting Masculinity and Femininity. .79 Historicity and Power . .95 Gender Identity . .122 IV. THE SUPERNATURAL AND CULTURAL AGENCY. .132 Navigating Oppression and Rejection . 139 Unraveling Inheritance. 159 V . WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE BODY’S GONE? DISSOLUTION, DEATH, AND THE UNKNOWN IN KATHERINE VAZ AND STEVEN MILLHAUSER . .183 Harmonizing Imagination and Logic . 202 The Effects of Ego and Repression . .211 VI. CONCLUSION . 229 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 240 NOTES . 255 iv 1 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION By and large, magical realist theory and criticism are “stuck.” At least, this seems to be the case within American literature scholarship. For the most part, magical realism has been associated with—and thus discussions thereof have been restricted to—non- U.S., postcolonial literatures. As my dissertation argues throughout, it is time that we turn to American magical realism, locate its whole if still fluid canon, and, as we do so, expand and complicate the predominantly stylistic notion of magical realism with a cultural understanding and correspondingly cultural analysis of the phenomenon. Specifically, I will focus on the cultural-ideological role the magical plays in such texts. More to the point, I will deal with characters undergoing a complex restructuring process wherein their beliefs are reassessed and reformed as a result of the magical situations they face. In this way, the magical acts, I maintain, as a cultural agent, not only opening up new possibilities and worlds for the characters, but also allowing for the reformation of longstanding notions. As a result of this process, characters wrestle with, and also adopt, new ideologies, often gaining strength and a new understanding of life. The cultural- ideological comes into play at this point, as the magical, traditionally viewed by critics as a matter of formal device, bears on representations of culture and cultural behavior broadly. 2 First, we must examine the roles of both magical realism and the magical. Broadly, magical realism is a literary genre, where there is a seamless blending of magical occurrences within a realistic setting (we will examine this more in-depth later). More specifically, in many U.S. works, magical realism is a literary device, wherein authorial choices embed these magical episodes in the text as a way of defamiliarizing readers and characters, allowing them to approach a particular subject with “fresh” eyes—the magical permits characters and readers to see common subjects and issues in a new light, revealing new truths about those subjects. Thus, in the U.S. works I will analyze, it is the magical ensuing from magical realism (the narrative device) that provides this defamiliarization. What I’m referring to when I say magical, then, is an extraordinary occurrence or event that is outside the realm of natural or scientific laws— something for which there is not rational explanation. This is not to say that the magical is always authorally instated, for the magical in some works is actually found in the particular culture’s beliefs and traditions, which the author then draws upon in his or her text. However, this does bring us to an important distinction between U.S. and Postcolonial magical realism. In the U.S. texts I address, the magical functions as a cultural agent on individual characters. This differs from most postcolonial works, as we will discuss later. In most postcolonial texts, the magical works at a national level and delves into broader political, social, and economic issues that a particular country faces. At this level, magical realism frequently draws on magical beliefs of multiple cultures, cultures that are not necessarily the author’s own, in order to move the text toward a more 3 nationalistic outlook. For instance, in One Hundred Years of Solitude , Gabriel García Márquez not only draws from the cultural beliefs and traditions of his own Spanish descended peoples, but also from regional (stories he heard growing up in coastal Columbia), indigenous, and Caribbean-African. In drawing from so many different cultural traditions, ones that are not inherently the author’s own, many postcolonial magical realist texts, including One Hundred Years of Solitude , exoticize these cultures— their traditions, beliefs, and the magical surrounding them. The cultures become something magical and mystical in and of themselves, and the end result is that, frequently, no clear sense of the actual culture is imparted through the text to the reader. Functioning at an individual level, though, U.S. authors are more likely draw their magical realism from their own particular culture’s traditions and beliefs magical. Since this is a culture with which they are exceedingly familiar, the same, exoticizing tendency does not appear. The cultural traditions, beliefs, and the magical that appears alongside these aspects simply are, and they are written about in a matter-of-fact way. U.S. authors feel no need to explain any traditions and no need to define terminology and vernacular specific to the culture. Thus, it is left for the reader to investigate that with which they are unfamiliar. What we see in U.S. magical realism; therefore, is each, individual character’s subjective encounter with the magical, which helps them explore more specific cultural issues such as race, gender, and history, rather than the national issues of its postcolonial counterpart. Since this is a subjective encounter, and since no two character’s backgrounds are the same, the way each character wrestles with the issues the magical highlights varies widely across the texts. While these are subjective experiences, 4 the outcomes, in a general sense, are quite similar—characters are empowered, develop a new sense of self, and adopt a more positive worldview. The chapters will analyze these aforementioned cultural aspects in detail. First, however, I will examine current criticism, and show why we need to reevaluate magical realism and magical realist theory; here, I will also touch on magical realism’s relation to postcolonialism. Second, the introduction will examine the complex relationships between postmodernism and U.S. magical realist fiction. Third, it will discuss how the style functions as a cultural tool in this fiction; how, as a result, a germane, cultural approach is in order; and what such an approach would set out to do. And fourth, the introduction will also provide a chapter-by-chapter outline of the whole project. What I offer below, I might add, is a series of broad distinctions and observations that the chapters will further substantiate and qualify. Very simply stated, magical realism is the blending of nonrealistic —fantastic, supernatural,
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