Literary realism, of course, focuses on the everyday cultural experience of everyday people who may, within their banal experience, do extraordinary things. The Postmodern movement, as a reaction to a number of 20th century trends, tends to be anti-establishment and looks for meanings hidden in the text, those meanings needing to be exposed and reflected through deconstructing that text (Perkins & Perkins, 2008).But what of the authors who tend to combine both genres -- those who are slightly anti-establishment, allow for deep contextual symbolism, but also find wonder in the everyday? Fortunately, that genre, and the combination of realism and postmodernism, has blossomed globally into a genre called magical realism. For the contemporary reader, magical realism is a genre in which magical, or some would say illogical, scenarios and events appear in a normal setting. The power of this genre seems to be the juxtaposition of the two elements -- magic and realism -- in that in an everyday, somewhat banal, setting; one does not really expect magic, the unexpected, the delightful, to happen without a logical explanation (Bowers, 2004). Contrary to many critical explanations, the basic idea of this juxtaposition is not simply to entertain, but as a genre to provide a greater insight into the possibilities of both the human and divine -- of the belief that not everything that happens can, or should, be explained rationally and that as advanced a being as we are, there are still things to learn about the universe. Witness a famous Arthur C. Clarke's "Third Law" -- "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" (thinkexist.com). In Woolf's essays, the idea of mystery and magical realism are rife in small details about the characters: the various ways in which Jan Austen, the Bronte sisters, and even George Eliot used their gender to magically call forth literary themes that only they could write, but untold; in the lecture entitled "The Four Mary's" clearly alluding to the manner in which women writers existed in a kind of primal magical existence in which even the grace of a poem was an anomaly. However, it is most apparent in the guise of the fictional character, Judith Shakespeare, sister of William, that her...
Room for Debate: Russia and the Liberal Ideal The Liberal Ideal of the West, which grew out of the Romantic/Enlightenment era where men like Voltaire and Rousseau espoused the qualities of naturalism, freedom, and equality, is now being challenged by Russian President Vladimir Putin. He in turn is raising questions and rebuttals from those who oppose his regime's initiatives. Three articles from The New York Times show different perspectives on this
She gives an open invitation to ponder, a food for thought to her readers by questioning them: "Why did men drink wine and women water? Why was one sex so prosperous and the other so poor? What effect has poverty on fiction? What conditions are necessary for the creation of works of art?" These lines could be termed as the jist of her essay, plainly put, they cover her scrutiny,
Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf is based upon lectures that the author has given in 1928 at a women's college at Cambridge University. Woolf here gives her thoughts on the question of women and fiction. The work is approached from the point-of-view of a first-person female narrator who researches the history of women and the things that they have written. In this way the unique position of women in
Ken Kesey's novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest offers an ironic portrayal of mental health and mental illness. The story of Randle McMurphy, told through the eyes and ears of Chief Bromden, shows how restrictive social norms and behavioral constraints are what cause mental illness. Mental illness and deviance are socially constructed. The men in the institution have been labeled as deviants, many of them as criminals too. Yet
Poverty is one of them. Throughout the essay, Woolf discusses how inequitably women writers have been treated all through history, and how they have been made to feel unwelcome in those places that could be the most comforting. For example, she creates a character "who regretted in a low voice as he waved me back that ladies are only admitted to the library if accompanied by a Fellow of the
In conjunction with these car ads, car insurance companies took advantage of this by advertising their services as well. Car insurance companies that I noticed advertising through billboards were Safeco, Progressive, and All State. Progressive provided a catchy and positive note to its ad by having the slogan, "Happy drivers make good drivers." From what I can recall in the All State ad, it mentioned something about safe driving, again
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