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The Storyteller Who Started a Movement

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Submitted By madrod
Words 1254
Pages 6
Marianne Angeli Diaz
Professor Jan Lombardi
English 221
21 May 2015
The Storyteller Who Started a Movement As I sat through another session in class, I did not think I would become so immersed about the wonders of magical realism. But as the Magical Realism group presented the historical significance of this movement, I found myself nodding at everything they said. I was intrigued by the ways this movement influenced Latin America, portraying enchanting events in realistic tones. As they moved on further about the people who started it all, the person that grabbed my attention became the key of discovering stories that truly captured magical experiences in the real world: Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Throughout his life, not only did Marquez brought Latin America stories that incorporated magic to real life, but he was also the one who started the most recognized movement in Europe: the power and influence of magical realism. Being from Latin America himself, Marquez was inspired by the place where he was born and the avid experiences he remembered with his maternal grandparents in Aracataca, Colombia. His grandmother, Tranquilina Iguaran Cortes, was the one who “gave Marquez a deep reservoir of folkloric knowledge about omens, premonitions, dead ancestors, and ghosts” (EGS). Since people pay closer attention to stories that paint pictures in their mind, we can say these tactics work well in literature, where describing the events illustrate a better portrait rather than just telling it. This is exactly how children get so enamored by storytelling and how parents use this to teach moral lessons. It was these kinds of stories where Marquez fell in love with storytelling which started to influence his life. His grandfather, Ricardo Marquez Mejia, “was a retired colonel who had strong left leaning political views” (EGS). Because of Mejia’s conservative ways, he did

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