Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez (6th March 1927-17th April 2014) was a Columbian novelist,

short story writer and a journalist. Considered as one of the most significant writers of the 20th Century,
Marquez was awarded the 1972 Neustadt International Prize for Literature and the 1982 Nobel Prize in
Literature. His works have achieved significant critical acclaim and widespread commercial success, most
notably for popularizing a literary style known as magic realism, which uses magical elements and events in
otherwise ordinary and realistic situations.
Magic Realism is a form of literature where authors blend fantastic and realistic elements together, thereby
making readers fail to recognize what’s real and what is fantasy. The novel could also be called as a metafiction
– because of the scope of elements that are evident in the text of the story. Unlike fantasy, magic realism takes
place in the normal, modern world with real descriptions of humans and society.

“Magischer Realismus” (Chamberline, 7) or magical realism was coined in Germany in 1920s in regard to the
painting of Weimar Republic that attempted to capture the mystery of life behind surface reality. Within the
literary aspect, genre was first employed in the fiction by Franz Roh who applied it to the art world in his book
NachExpressionisums: MagischerRealismus, Probleme der neuesteneuropaischenMalerei published in 1952.

In magical realism, improbable, impossible or extraordinary occurrences are frequent. Some characters fly,
levitate and communicate with the dead. Other characters are blessed with extra ordinary perception just like the
ability to work out through objects or through other mediums or to predict future. the concept of the resolution
of the contradiction between the real and the supernatural in magical realist texts appear to be not only most
frequently cited characteristic of magical realism, it also, the foremost distinguishing feature. In magical
realism, the descriptions detail a robust presence of the exceptional world. The reader may experience some
unsettling doubts within the effort to reconcile two contradictory understandings of events. The narrative too
merges different realms and eventually, genre disturbs received ideas about time, space and identity. Magical
realism is a crucial tool within the author’s store of literary elements that facilitate the appliance of fairy tales
like diction underlining scenes or dialogues. Magical realism plays an important role because it enables the
author to bring certain concepts and themes of the written material using bizarre also as extraordinary elements
thereby preserving a high level of believability.

One of Marquez’s best known novel, Chronicle of a Death Foretold was first published in 1981. The fictional
world of Chronicle of a Death Foretold is pungent and memorable. The novel is devoted to exploring a
controversy of human ignorance and indifference towards one another as well as the issues within the society.
In Marquez’s world, reality constitutes both real and magical and it's a fragile concept created by humans. Most
of Marquez’s work portrays themes like political violence, solitude, and human’s nature of time, however, he
uses magical realism in the majority of his works. Within the novel, magical realism is employed to indicate
how the characters interpret a distinct reality to stop from feeling guilty, and using subjectivity to disassociate
themselves from reality of Santiago Nasar’s death. The novel affirms the very nature of magical realism. It
shows that in magical realism, “the supernatural isn't an easy or obvious matter, but an ordinary matter, and
everyday occurrence – admitted, accepted and integrated into the rationality” (Zamora, 47). As an example,
within the most ordinary looking incident Pursima Del Carmen tells her daughters that if they comb their hair at
night, they're going to abate sea fares. And when the widower, Xius told the mayor that “he’d seen a
phosphorescent bird fluttering over his former home and thought it had been the soul of his dead wife”
(Marquez,84)

Incidents also depict the mentality of the characters within the novel towards superstitions. The protagonist has
inherited his sixth sense from his mother, Placida Linero. The statement within the novel, “[n]or did Santiago
Nasar recognize the Omen” (2), not only does this reveal his superstition but also the common faith put in
superstition. Marquez uses dreams and visions as a tool of magical realism. Dreams become breaking points at
which the fantastical bubble up out of normal existence and seek to attach with other characters. Not only must
magic take off of dreams because they're personal but also because they're unconscious. In the novel, Santiago
dreamed that “he was going through a grove of timber trees where a gentle drizzle was falling and for an instant
he was happy in his dream, but when he awoke he felt completely spattered with bird shit” (1). Santiago tells
about his dreams to his mother but she remembers she paid attention only to the part about the birds, which
usually implies good health. Throughout the novel, the characters refer to visions they had, that are associated
with Santiago’s impending death. Clotilde Armenta Claims that, years after the murder of Santiago “[h]e
already looked like a ghost” (13) when she saw him at dawn.

Foreshadowing or adumbrating is a literary device accustomed to express the magical in the real. In Chronicle
of a Death Foretold, Marquez avoids typical way of foreshadowing but he tells exactly what's going to happen.
The whole story builds on the foretelling of Santiago’s murder. The twins don't hide their plot; they tell
everyone they meet about their plans. Each village person who hears about the scheme tells the subsequent
person. The atmosphere of the day when Santiago is murdered foreshadows the arrival of misfortunes. Most of
the people agreed that “the weather was funeral, with a cloudy, low sky and also the thick smell of waters,
which at the instant of misfortune a thin drizzle just like the Santiago Nasar had seen in his dream grove was
falling” (3). The narrator’s sister, Margot feels that “an angel pass[es] by” (17) her as she listens to Santiago’s
plans for his wedding. The entire mood of the characters on the day which Santiago is murdered and Santiago’s
dream of soppy rain foreshadows the tragic fate of his life.

Fragmented time line and fragmented style is a crucial aspect of magical realism. The novel, Chronicle of a
Death Foretold doesn't follow the formula of a linear plot. it's told in a very fragmented, non-chronological and
repetitive manner which looks at the death from one vantage at a time. the most plot is played out five times,
once in each of the five chapters. And this information is given to a distinct individual within the community
(Gonzalez 114). This permits the story to portray the concept of fragmentation, thus bringing within the idea of
reality and fantasy

Hybridity is one in every of the numerous techniques and a primary feature that the magical realists use.
Specifically, magical realism is illustrated within the harmonious arenas of such opposites as urban and rural
and western and indigenous. Within the novel, Marquez mixes the Arab Santiago with the Christian society.
“From his father he learned at a really early age the manipulation of firearms, his love for horses and therefore
the mastery of high-flying birds of prey” (6). The author uses the Arabic culture of the society that he belongs to
merge completely in Santiago’s character. The story takes place in an exceedingly small occupant river village
of the coast of Caribbean islands. Once it had been a busy center for shipping and ocean going ships. Here the
river itself may be a symbol of hybridity.

Magical realism contains an “implicit criticism of the society, particularly the elite” (Foster, 194). When
Bayardo bewitched Angela Vicario’s family along with his charm, “her parents and her older sisters with their
husbands, gathered together within the parlor and imposed on her an obligation to marry a person whom she
had barely seen.” She only “dared hint at the inconvenience at the dearth of affection, but her mother
demolished it with one phrase: ‘Love is often learned too’” (34). Marquez mocks at the character of the
common type women who are able to give their daughters to a wealthy handsome man without understanding
their daughter’s heart. Another example of the identical would be how everyone within the village knew about
Santiago’s death and a few even warned him about the identical but did not deliver the suitable information to
negate his inevitable death.

Marquez distils the mixture of his imaginations, experiences and creativity together and presents it through a
mesmerizing language. Like every realistic works Chronicle of a Death Foretold also conveys a way of
mystery. Marquez in an exceedingly new way bypasses the standard inadequate approaches through occupant
politics, history and magical realism, that he portrays within the novel. He adorns the novel with an intelligent
placing of all the weather of magical realism in proportion.