Svitlana Kobets

The World of Magic Realism

Summer 2019

LIFE INSTITUTE, Ryerson University

Instructor: Svitlana Kobets, PhD

Study questions

Class 1

July 23, 2019

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

A VERY OLD MAN WITH ENORMOS WINGS

1. When and in what setting do the story’s events take place? How does the setting contribute to the story’s overall meaning?

2. How do Pelayo, Elisandra, and other characters explain the old man’s appearance and his wings? What do people think about him?

3. We have encountered angels in a number of literary and cinematic works. In which way(s) is Marquez’ angel different? What purpose does Marquez pursue when he creates his idiosyncratic portrayal? What questions does this image invite the reader to contemplate?

4. How do people react to the angel? How do they treat him?

5. Does Father Gonzaga’s approach enable him to communicate with the angel? What does his encounter with the angel show to the reader?

6. What miraculous, unrealistic images and events do we find in this story? How do Natural and Supernatural coexist in the story?

7. How does the portrayal of the Spider-Woman compare to that of the Angel? What is the difference between these two images? What is the difference between people’s reactions to them?

8. What role do people’s attempts to understand and interpret play in the story?

9. What does this story say about the humanity?

10. Why does the author state that his story is ‘for children’?

11. What would you say is this story about? What are its major themes?

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

THE HANDSOMEST DROWNED MAN IN THE WORLD

1. How do the villagers discover the Drowned Man?

2. How do women, children and men react to the Handsomest Drowned Man? What do their reactions reveal about them?

3. What virtues do the villagers see in the most beautiful drowned man? What, if any, are his flaws?

4. What does the Handsomest Drowned Man represent for the villagers?

5. How does the description of the Drowned Man change during the course of the story?

6. What do you think flowers symbolize in this story?

7. What changes do the villages decide to make to honor Esteban? Can we say that he transforms the village?

8. How does the villagers’ treatment of the drowned man in the short story “The Most Beautiful Drowned Man in the world” compare to the villagers’ treatment of the old man in the short story “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings”?

9. What makes this story great?

Class 2

July 30, 2019

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

BLACAMБN THE GOOD, VENDOR OF MIRACLES

1. What do we know about the narrator of this story? Is it a first-person narrator or an omniscient third-person one?

2. Who is Blacamбn? How does his image change throughout the story?

3. Find in this story 2-3 (or more) examples of hyperbole. What end does this device serve in the story?

4. Mark and share with the class 2, 3 or more arresting, strange, original expressions, images or concepts which captured your attention, made you laugh or inspired you to think beyond the text.

5. How does this story comment on the interactions between peoples and races in the Caribbean?

6. What are the main thematic concerns in the short story, “Blacamбn the Good, Vendor of Miracles”?

7. What are the differences between Blacamбn the Good and Blacamбn the Bad?

8. What stylistic devices in your opinion contribute to the greatness and originality of this story?

Class 3

August 6, 2019

Jorge Luis Borges

THE CIRCULAR RUINS, 1940

1. What if anything is miraculous about the man’s arrival to the circular ruins?

2. What can we say about the reality in which the man exists? Who is he?

3. How does the story embody the concept of creation?

4. How does the epigraph add to our understanding of the text?

5. What questions does the author prompt?

6. What challenges does the protagonist have in the story?

7. Circular Ruins is one of Borges’ most famous and often-anthologized short stories. In your opinion, is this popularity justified?

Jorge Luis Borges

THE SECRET MIRACLE, 1943

1. Why is a three-act drama entitled “The Enemies” important to the protagonist, Jaromir Hladik?

2. What is miraculous in this short story? What is recognizable as a historical reality?

3. Is one year’s respite, which is granted to the protagonist, Jaromir Hladik, believable?

4. What role do dreams and altered states play in this short story?

5. How do you account for the title of the short story, The Secret Miracle?

Jorge Luis Borges

THE IMMORTAL, 1947

1. Who is the narrator in this short story? Is it a reliable narrator?

2. How does Borges represent immortality? What does it mean to be immortal? What are values and pursuits of the immortals? Do you agree with this representation?

3. How does being immortal differ from being mortal?

4. Does immortality facilitate humanity? What is Borges’s take on the dynamic between these two concepts?

5. What consequences for personal identity does an immortal existence involve?

6. How do we deduce that Homer, Rufus and Cartaphilus all form one and the same person? Why do you think these three characters are central to this short story?

7. Bookish and intellectual topics aside, what benefits can this short story offer to us as readers, human beings and seekers of truth?

Class 4

August 13

Jorge Luis Borges

THREE VERSIONS OF JUDAS, 1944

1. What are Nils Runeberg’s most salient characteristics?

2. How does the narrator define the genre of this piece? Do you agree?

3. What role do the author’s extensive references to intellectual intolerances and heretical thinking play in this story?

4. What are, according to Nils Runeberg, three possible explanations of Juda’s deed?

5. What questions and dilemmas, religious and otherwise, does this short story ponder?

6. Does Nils Runeberg succeed in exonerating Judas?

Jorge Luis Borges

THE THEME OF THE TRAITOR AND THE HERO, 1944

1. What is this story’s central paradox?

2. Why in your opinion Borges labelled this piece “Theme” rather than “Story”?

Jorge Luis Borges

THE LIBRARY OF BABEL, 1941

1. In which way does the library of Babel represent the Universe as we, the readers, know it?

Is the Library of Babel beneficial or harmful for the humanity?

2. The Library of Babel is one of Borges’ best-known, loved and influential pieces. How would you explain its lasting popularity?

3. What identifiably Borgesian themes, images, arguments and literary techniques do we find in The Library of Babel?

Jorge Luis Borges

THE LOTTERY IN BABYLON, 1941

1. What do we learn from this story about the narrator? Do we agree with his conclusions?

2. What questions does this narrative bring up?

3. What questions, speculations and doubts does the Lottery Company evoke? What can this ubiquitous, yet elusive and ambiguous institution stand for?

Jorge Luis Borges

ALEF, 1945

1. What kind of person and what kind of author is Carlos Argentino Daneri?

2. In which way is Carlos Argentino Daneri related to ‘Borges,’ the narrator and the character?

3. Why did Carlos Argentino Daneri decide to share with Borges Alef?

4. What is Alef? Is it real? How does ‘Borges’ describe the circumstances of his experience of Alef? Againt what backdrop and in what context is the latter presented?

5. Why did Borges choose to deny his experience and the very existence of Alef?

Class 5

August 20

Julio Cortazar

NIGHT FACE UP, 1967

1. What sensations and/or symptoms does the protagonist (both as the motocyclist and the moteca Indian) experience throughout the story?

2. What is the relation in this narrative between the dreams and reality? Who is dreaming? Who is real?

3. How do the dream and material world realities compare in this short story? Which, if any, has more significance? more substance?

4. How does the structure of this narrative accommodate the development of the story?

5. Does the epigraph relate to both planes of the story or only to the dream part?

6. What is this story about?

Julio Cortazar

AXOLOTL, 1964

1. Why is the narrator obsessed with axolotls?

2. What facilitates the narrator’s transformation?

3. What do you, as a reader, experience while reading Cortбzar’s “Axolotl”?

4. What is the order of events in this story? What follows what?

Julio Cortazar

BLOW-UP, 1958

1.Who is the narrator? Why does the perspective constantly change from “I” to “he”?

2. What questions does the narrator ask himself in this story? What troubles him?

3. Why did Michel decide to take a picture of the scene he had witnessed while walking on the Ile-Saint-Louis?

4. Why did he become fascinated by this shot?

5. Do you find his interpretation of the scene convincing?

6. Julio Cortбzar repeats several times that the enigma at the core of his story “will never be known.” What does he mean?

7. The story’s original title, “Las babas del Diablo” (drooling of the Devil), was translated into English as “Blow Up.” What in your opinion are pros and contras of this translation?

8. Why does the narrator constantly return to the clouds?

Nikolai Gogol

NOSE, 1836

Who is this story’s protagonist?

What kind of person is Major Kovaliov?

Why is Major Kovaliov concerned about the disappearance of his nose?

What are the identifiably Magic Realist themes in this short story?

Franz Kafka

THE METAMORPHOSIS, 1915

What does the transformation of Gregor into an insect say about the universe he lives in?

How do Gregor, his family and other characters react to his metamorphosis?

Apart from Gregor’s metamorphosis, what other instances of change and transformation take place in this story?

What Magic Realist themes do we find in this short story?

William Faulkner

THE OLD PEOPLE, 1942

1. What role does Sam Fathers play in the story?

2. What does the title refer to? Who are the old people?

3. Why is Faulkner using in this story an omniscient narrator? What does the omniscient point of view allow him to achieve?

4. How do you interpret McCaslin’s words, "Look at the seed, the acorns, at what happens even to carrion when you try to bury it: it refuses too, seethes and struggles too until it reaches light and air again, hunting the sun still"? Why is he chosen to pronounce them?

5. Could the story be told from McCaslin’s point of view?

Class 6

August 27

Mikhail Bulgakov

THE HEART OF THE DOG, 1925

1. Who are the narrators? How do they see the world? What are their concerns? How do their points of view compare?

2. Sharikov represents the new (Soviet) man. What kind of man is it?

3. In which way is Professor Preobrazhensky’s creation a failure?

4. Why does Bulgakov satirize Professor Preobrazhensky’s specialty, rejuvenation?

5. What human types does this novella describe? How do their interactions comment on humanity’s eternal questions (about happiness, selfhood, justice, freedom)?

6. Why do you think was this work banned in the Soviet Union from the time of its creation till the collapse of the Soviet Empire?