Tuesday Siesta, By Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Magical Realism is heavily used by Marquez throughout his stories as a fantasy element blending magic with the real world. His stories, although very diverse, portray the beginning of an era of exaggerated reality. In his story “Tuesday Siesta,” Marquez approaches magical realism through a political lens and a personal perspective as he emphasizes the oppression of the lower class by the upper class. Marquez explains the developments in history that led to the exploitation of the “third-class” in the already existent third world country of Columbia. His emphasis on heat, shade and banana and almond trees has an underlying meaning involving his view on the social classes. The alleged thief inhabited an area with many banana plantations just …show more content…
In his story, “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings,” magical realism plays a very prominent role in combining fantasy with everyday life. In the beginning of the story, Marquez instantly creates an unusual and somewhat fairy tale-ish description of rain when he writes that “the world had been sad since Tuesday.” There is a unique combination of the fantastic and common descriptions in the story, such as the great surge of crabs that invade Pelayo and Elisenda’s house as well as the mud coming from the beach where rainy grayness is described as looking “like powdered light.” Marquez illustrates this daydream-like setting through the use of magical descriptions of realistic objects and visual imagery which have the effect of creating a sort of surreal experience in the story. The magical elements are especially evident when the old winged man - dressed in tattered clothing and full of lice - emerges, a true ‘magical’ creation juxtaposed with