Magical Realism in Four Different Novels

Magical Realism Essay

The term Magical Realism derived from what one Fritz Roh coined “Magischer Realismus” in 1925 or as we know it today, Magical Realism. Magical Realism is a very interesting genre in the literary world it looks at the world with fresh new eyes, it celebrates the mundane, and in stories that are apart of this genre for example “Eva Is Inside Her Cat” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez everything has a much deeper meaning than what just appears on the surface.

Other stories like “The Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka, “No Exit” by Jean Paul Sartre, and even the mythology used in Albert Camus’ “Myth of Sisyphus” are similar in many different ways to Marquez’s work “Eva Is Inside Her Cat.”

To begin, Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” and Marquez’s “Eva Is Inside Her Cat” are very similar being that they were written in two different parts of globe from two completely different people. In Kafka’s work the main character, Gregor transforms into a bug overnight.

Get quality help now

Marrie pro writer

Verified writer

Proficient in: Realism

5 (204)

“ She followed all my directions. It was really easy to contact her and respond very fast as well. ”

+84 relevant experts are online

Hire writer

Gregor’s favorite drink when he was human was milk. In order to make her brother feel human again Gregor’s little sister, Grete brings him some milk. Since Gregor turned into a bug he lost his taste for milk. In Marquez’s the main character Eva is dead all she is, is a soul and in the story she wants to turn into a cat for she desires. Eva has a craving for a orange and since she is a spirit she can not eat anything.

Eva frets that once she turns into the cat she will immediately forget about wanting the orange and give into her cat nature and not wanting but milk and catching mice.

Secondly, there's a sense a of mythology in Marquez’s story “Eva Is Inside Her Cat” and as well in Albert Camus’ work “The Myth of Sisyphus”. In “Eva Is Inside Her Cat” we can relate this story to the myth of Tantalus and how he was punished in hell with fruit tree just out of his reach and his body was submerged in water that he could not drink because the water level would lower when he went for a sip. Eva has this sudden thirst for an orange that she will never be able to quench which is how “Eva Is Inside Her Cat” is connected to mythology. Camus’ work, “The Myth of Sisyphus” it does not draw from a particular mythological story but nonetheless it does use elements of mythological story because in “The Myth of Sisyphus” a man who is doomed to hell is put up to a task by the gods where he has to keep on pushing a rock up a hill and when he gets to the summit and it rolls down the other side of the hill that is his break and he has to continue that for eternity. This how both stories cultivate a sense of mythology in thier respective plots.

Finally, Jean-Paul Sartre’s infamous work “No Exit” and Marquez’s “Eva Is Inside Her Cat” are even related and somewhat similar. In “No Exit” our three characters Garcin, Ines, and Estelle are all trapped in hell. Whilst in “Eva Is Inside Her Cat” Eva comes to the realization that she has been dead for a very long period of time plus the element of her craving this orange gives the feeling that she is in some sort of purgatory or hell even just like our main characters in Sartre’s “No Exit”. Both Eva and the main characters of “No Exit” both also have had options to leave this hell too. In “Eva Is Inside Her Cat” she could leave her hell by posseing the cat and eating the orange in the cat's body but there was also a risk that she would give into her cat instinct and forget about the orange. In “No Exit” the door to the room they're in literally opens but no one leaves because of their ignorance. You know what they say “Ignorance is bliss.”

To conclude, this is how “Eva Is Inside Her Cat” by Marquez is connected and is similar to “No Exit” by Sartre, “The Myth of Sisyphus” by Camus, and “The Metamorphosis” by Kafka. “Eva Is Inside Her Cat” is similar to “The Metamorphosis” and “No Exit” by Sartre. “Eva Is Inside Her Cat” shares the very same mechanics as used in “The Myth of Sisyphus”.