Analysis Of Magical Realism In Gabrielle Zevin's Elsewhere

Improved Essays
The fictional story of Liz’s life and death deserves a place in the magical realism genre. Written by Gabrielle Zevin in her novel “Elsewhere”. The story fulfils all five points of magical realism: lyrical/fantastic writing, an examination of human existence, criticism of society, cultural hybridity, and authorial reticence. Done in two-hundred and seventy-five pages though the viewpoint of Elizabeth Hall. It starts with an examination of human existence early on. Through the mind of their family dog, she says, “Is a person just a pile of junk?” (Zevin, 4). In that quote the author presents a thought for readers to examine. What human leave behind has been a challenge throughout history. Kings and queens of the past have made sure to leave …show more content…
The author explains how the media capitalizes on those events. Examples such as “(Dead Girl by Liz Hall) and a TV movie (Determined to Live: The Elizabeth M. Hall Story) and an appearance on Oprah to promote both” (Zevin 43). Believers of the afterlife are baited by these stories as they search for conformation in their beliefs. As they look for connections, they begin to paying money and time to the ones who take advantage of them. Time passes after Liz’s death “the mentions become fewer and fewer” (Zevin 94). Returning to the discussion of human’s parting gifts, as time passes people think about Liz less and less. For time wins in the end. The poem “Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley implicates that concept. The lines “Nothing beside remains…boundless and bare the lone and level sands stretch far away” say that time has covered the once great works of Ozymandias. There are also uses of metaphors in this novel that fit with magical realism. Lucy presents one “a dog isn’t meant to outlive her human!”. Substituting dog with parent and human with son/daughter and the reader comes to the worst event in a parent’s life. For humans do not expect to outlive their children in modern times. While the concept of death is widely accepted as part of life the deaths of one’s son or daughter are the …show more content…
Not an endless amount of wealth and material items as normally expected. The author makes the reader believe the need to work for money (eternim). Easy for readers to accept because the idea mimics life on earth. Zevin also adds a way for the dead to view the living. The thought of the observation decks as pay-per view glimpses of earth. Zevin makes the transition easier by fabricating binoculars as sights into earth, so readers could have an item of relation rather then having an ability to see from nothing. She also creates the Well as an explanation to ghosts and hearing the dead. She adds factors human are used to into her creation of the Well. Having it underwater makes the dead hard to understand. The communication though water makes it understandable and pushes the reader to agree and

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    A Tale of Two Cities is a historical novel that portrays the concept of duality as a significant component. The story interchanges settings between eighteenth-century London and Paris in the course of the French Revolution. One of the most important examples of duality occurs between the characters Lucie and Madame Defarge. In A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens uses Lucie and Madame Defarge to represent the idea that love and hate are both strong forces through their link to mythology, their motivation to help or hurt, and their love for family.…

    • 732 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    It takes a moment in your life to have a self realization that will impact you for the rest of your life. In the text, “ Chasing Fairy Tales” by Lauren Fulmore she portrays the narrator as a little girl who goes through a moment in her childhood that changed her whole outlook on life. She recounts a series of adventures from her younger days to the accidental discovery of a “magical” truth. The author uses detailed examples to explain her main idea of the story.…

    • 1024 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    “My Son, My Executioner” Analysis “My Son, My Executioner” is a poem written by Donald Hall. It has a very distinctive theme of new life and impending death. As the poem unfolds, piece by piece, it becomes obvious how the author adores his newborn son, but also feels as though he is a sign of growing older. The author exhibits a number of different literary elements throughout the poem to help explain his intended message and meaning.…

    • 835 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    It presents the nature of life and death through reality. She proves that the impact of discoveries can lead to unique renewed perceptions and new understandings of their world. “time's long-promised land.”, a religious allusion implied here symbolises the time for the father’s life is to an end. Further in the poem, the use of imagery and rhetorical question is applied, “Who can be what you were?” where the matured child questions the character of her father knowing that no one can be like him.…

    • 762 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    With the passing of time, memory can magnify and distort what is important to an individual's life. In Gwen Harwood’s poetry, Harwood portrays these aspects through her poem, ‘The Violets’ and ‘Father and Child.’ The poems both represent time and memory in different ways which gives the audience an impression that everyone is different and memories all differ from person to person. It also shows that the lessons we learn from the past differ and are sometimes false memories. As time passes an individual’s memories becomes distorted and sooner or later an individual will only remember what was significant about the memory.…

    • 678 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “Loudon Wainright: A Tale of Human Nature” On March 13, 1964, 38 people watched, 38 people looked away, 38 people did not do anything, only 1 person suffered. That's what happened in "The Dying Girl that No One Helped," an editorial by Loudon Wainright. In the editorial Wainright tells about Kitty Genovese and how she was murdered in front of at least 38 witnesses. After the murder nobody wanted to fess up and explain what happened that night, they did not even want to call the police.…

    • 678 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Burnt Stick Analysis

    • 820 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Based on the real story, Anthony Hill wrote “The Burnt Stick” to represent the bad aspect of history - “The Stolen Generation” in 1960s. Being represented to one of the stolen kids, John Jagamarra never lost his identity and belonging. Opposite with the changing background, conditions outside, he still tries to figure out the differences of Pear Bay and his home to never forget. Also, his mom is the big supporter to make him remember about his own language and traditions of his own place. Therefore, by trying through the whole long time, he still keeps his own identity and belongings.…

    • 820 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Witch Of Edmonton

    • 1834 Words
    • 8 Pages

    People begin tying misfortune to Elizabeth, and Elizabeth, in her disillusioned states, begins to believe them; she begins to actually believe that she possesses magical abilities. However, when Anne Ratcliffe commits suicide, Elizabeth is yet again blamed for the apparent “sorcery” that has occurred. Her own construct of Dog, however, is her true downfall. “Elizabeth Sawyer, for example, cannot be contained within the usual categories of witch because she is not Hecate or some earth spirit. She is a real woman, whose story the playwrights take from Henry Goodcole’s pamphlet relating her trial and execution.”…

    • 1834 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    It is impossible to write anything new. Everything has already been done, already been said, but writers take inspiration where they can get it, read what other people have written, and this encourages them to write something of their own. They add to the ongoing conversation. Sometimes, experimentation with writing happens as writers feel the need to, maybe not say something completely new, but to say it in an innovative way. This is how new genres, such as American fabulism, are born, coming out of comparable stories like “The Man in the Woods” by Shirley Jackson and “The Summer People” by Kelly Link.…

    • 1228 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    In the nineteenth century, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s texts present varying circumstances of inexplicable terrors situated in Gothic tradition to explore the political and social ideals fundamentally inherent in the Victorian age, particularly surrounding imperialism and sexuality. However, Le Fanu’s method of exploring and critiquing Victorian ideology of imperialism and sexuality are cleverly concealed under the prevalent supernatural elements present in his works. This is a concept that is interwoven seamlessly into the narrative structure of Le Fanu’s Carmilla. By analyzing the unique qualities of Carmilla’s character, this paper will argue that Carmilla’s attacks on Laura’s body and virtue renders Laura incapable of living because it functions as a systematic attack on her core Victorian ideals of English superiority and female sexuality. In Le Fanu’s short story, Carmilla’s various attempts to feed…

    • 1976 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The setting, time and place, can have a significant effect on the characters of a novel. Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold is a novel that takes place in a small Colombian coastal town in 1950s. The story examines the murder of the protagonist Santiago Nasar, and the events leading up to it. Colombian culture has a heavy impact on the behaviours, character traits as well as the values of the characters in Chronicle of a Death Foretold. If the text had been written at the present time and if the setting had been a modern city in another place, the murder would not have occurred, and actions of certain characters of the novel would not make sense for certain reasons.…

    • 815 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Throughout our lives we are faced with people, object, scenery, and events that we neglect. It is only when these ignored things are bought to our attention that we stop and reflect upon them. In the novel, “If Nobody Speaks or Remarkable Things”, the tragic event that is the main pivot point in the novel takes place on the same day that another, significant yet never mentioned, event occurs. This neglect of mentioning this figure highlights to the reader a significant theme weaved throughout this novel, the notion of human ignorance. This theme makes the reader recollect with the idea that for one to cherish something ones attention must be brought to it.…

    • 1662 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “Because I could not stop for Death” “Because I could not stop for Death-He kindly stopped for me-” the first two opening lines of Emily Dickinson’s poem “Because I could not stop for Death”. Just like many of Dickinson’s other poems this one focuses on the aspect of death and what happens to us after we die. The poem starts out with death driving a carriage who stops to pick up the author. They then begin to drive along a road very leisurely and the author recalls all these different images she saw along the way. They passed by a school where children were outside playing in a circle and as they continues on they would pass by fields of gazing grain then they would finally pass the setting sun.…

    • 1484 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The use of fantastic elements in an acceptable and believable setting is reminiscent of other texts that have been categorized as magical realism. Investigating the use of magical realism within ethnic writings of non-Latin American origin, Roland Walter notes that "magic is an integral part of reality in that the natural and supernatural categories of reality are harmoniously intertwined" (2). This mingling of the natural world with the supernatural is a key component in The Hundred Secret Senses. Tan incorporates contemporary culture with history and magical realism to enhance and draw attention to multiple levels of existence and reality while describing the journey of a single individual learning to "explore the deeper dimensions" (Zhang 15) of both herself and of her surroundings. Tan starts The Hundred Secret Senses novel with the narration of Olivia Bishop, daughter of an immigrant Chinese man and a woman who loves to be called as "American mixed grill, a bit of everything white, fatty, and fried" (HSS, 3).…

    • 1170 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “A Boat Beneath a Sunny Sky” In the poem “A Boat Beneath a Sunny Sky,” Lewis Carroll talked about the boat ride that he went on with his friend, Alice, and her sisters (Popova). On this boat ride, he told the children about the story of Wonderland, which later inspired his book called Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Popova). This poem reflected the loss of Carroll 's loved one. As Alice grew up, she is not naïve and optimistic like she used to be when was a little girl.…

    • 1473 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays