Magical Realism: Revealing The Unspoken

When you hear the term magical realism, your brain might zone in on the magic part and think immediately of genres like fantasy, sci-fi, or even horror. And you’re not far off—there are indeed elements of magic that are present in the genre. But how exactly is it different from fantasy? Where does the realism part come in? In this blog post, we’ll examine the meaning of magical realism, prominent examples, and ways you can incorporate it into your own writing to maximize its unique qualities.

Magical realism refers to works of fiction where magical things occur in a realistic world, often without explanation and blurring the line between fantasy and reality. Matthew C. Stretcher, a professor at Sophia University, describes the genre as “what happens when a highly detailed, realistic setting is invaded by something too strange to believe.” A famous example of this is Toni Morrison’s Beloved, an Afro-surrealist novel in which Sethe, a former slave, is tormented by the ghost of her baby, named Beloved, who Sethe killed to protect from a potential life of enslavement.

While the premise makes this sound more like a horror novel, the presence of this ghost is completely accepted as normal, albeit a little scary, by the characters in this book, whereas in a horror novel, you might expect the characters to treat the ghost as a terrifying and completely otherworldly phenomenon they may either try to extinguish or find the source of. In Beloved, Sethe and the rest of her family are afraid of the ghost, but the biggest impact it actually has is creating tension within the family dynamic. As the novel progresses, it becomes clear that the ghost of Beloved is really a manifestation of all the trauma and grief Sethe experiences from killing her, rather than an actual supernatural figure.

This example draws a clear distinction between magical realism and other forms of speculative fiction—while horror, fantasy, and sci-fi emphasize elements that are otherworldly and separate from reality, magical realism grounds its magical elements in the real world and uses them to express something otherwise unspoken about reality. Beloved’s manifestation as a ghost, for example, emphasizes the extent of Sethe’s trauma and the ways in which she is still, literally, haunted by her past actions, and how this “ghost” is driving a wedge between her and her family members. 

Now that all the dense explanation is over, let’s talk about how you can employ this genre to maximize the effects of its unique qualities. Contemporary works of magical realism often comment on the experiences of marginalized identities, frequently intersecting with postcolonial and queer literature (One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Orlando by Virginia Woolf). While there are many reasons this might be the case, one could be that the complexities of generational trauma and exploring your identity in a world that isn’t built for you require a lot of nuance to tackle. 

Think about things in your life that are so strange that they feel like magic. Things that feel intangible from your everyday motions of life, that can only be summed up in ways that feel otherworldly and fantastical. In Love Lies Bleeding (2024), when the two protagonists defeat the main villain and escape the tyranny holding them down, they appear as giants running joyfully amidst the clouds, an unexplained break from what is otherwise an entirely realist movie. Their depiction as giants serves as a metaphor for how powerful their freedom is, how they feel and are literally larger than life in this moment. A simpler way to look at magical realism is to view concepts as an extended metaphor; in Joe Kapitan’s “The Gun Trees,” he expresses his dissatisfaction with America’s gun policy by portraying a world in which guns literally grow on trees, depicting a morbid, unreal, and ultimately dystopian landscape not too different than how many view the real world.

Ultimately, the distinguishing component of magical realism is the fact that magic is used to bring out elements of real life that may be difficult to express otherwise. For writers that have always wanted to describe a particular experience or emotion, but are too afraid to cross the boundary of realism, utilizing this genre might be a good way to expand the possibilities of expression, to help reveal what might otherwise be unspoken.

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About the author: Dan Lu (she/they) is a rising junior at Wellesley College studying Comparative Literature and Cinema and Media Studies. In her free time, you can find them petting cats, watching horror gameplays, and trying new recipes they found on TikTok. They are passionate about magical realism, game design, and critical media theory.