Marvellous realism and female representation from the Caribbean diaspora  

Oleh:

Alonso, María Alonso

Jenis: Article from Article
Dalam koleksi: The Journal of Commonwealth Literature vol. 47 no. 1 (Mar. 2012), page 59-71.
Topik: Caribbean folklore; diaspora; female representation; marvellous realism; trauma
Fulltext: Marvellous realism and female representation.pdf (576.3KB)

Isi artikel

This paper argues that David Chariandy’s Soucouyant and Edwidge Danticat’s “Nineteen Thirty- Seven” utilize marvellous realism as a literary technique when representing Caribbean folkloric elements from the diaspora. With this in mind, this article will begin by pointing out the differences between the terms magical realism and marvellous realism within the Latin American Boom writing of the 1950s. These two literary concepts should not be considered as being synonymous because of the different artistic motivations that condition these kinds of writing. As will be seen, in the two particular cases of the soucouyant and the lougarou, these magical elements serve to revise and rewrite the history of colonial and postcolonial women that were persecuted and discriminated against in their countries of origin due to gender and class prejudices. Thus, Chariandy and Danticat use the supernatural as an allegory for the haunting memories of a whole community. In these diasporic works, magic will vanish in favour of a rational explanation for those phenomena where a series of familial and historical traumas will manifest accordingly. The transformation of marginal women into supernatural figures assists the authors in reinterpreting and abating violence and trauma. Therefore, it is suggested that marvellous realism helps writers who have had similar experiences of diaspora to find a balance between two cultures and two different systems of belief: one based on faith and the other on rationalism.

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