Project: The Kingdom of This World

Here is my paper on my collage:
What is magical realism? It can be defined as “an artistic genre in which magical elements or illogical scenarios appear in an otherwise realistic or even ‘normal’ setting.” Magical realism was used in art, literature, and film. This genre is used to describe Latin American literature in the 1960s. Popular magical realists include Alejo Carpentier (El reino de este mundo), Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Cien anos de la solidad), and Juan Rulfo (Pedro Paramo).
Alejo Carpentier coined the term “lo real maravilloso” in the prologue to his book, The Kingdom of This World, which was first published in Spanish in 1949. This novel is a historical novel about the Haitian Revolution. The characters and the events in the novel are the same as in the history books, but time is not logical in the novel. The four parts in the novel are not chronologically in order. Carpentier creates this novel with a discontinuous sense of time to juxtapose the past with the present. Bringing the past history of Haiti reminds the natives as well as the reader that the past is part of who you, as a human being, are. The Haitian Revolution and the courage that these slaves had is part of who my parents and I are. In addition, Carpentier makes magic seem real. Magic is integrated into the daily lives of the slaves, including the main character Ti Noël. Typical of Carpentier, the novel is filled with technical terms. “His literary style is a wonderful combination of dazzling images and a rich language, full of the technical jargon of whatever subject he touches on - be it music, architecture, painting...” When reading the book, I had to search for several places, people, and events to understand their significance in the history of the country. I was unfamiliar with terms such as Damballah and Sans Souci.
The book was split into four parts: Part I (Macandal), Part II (Boukman + Slave Revolt), Part III (rise + fall of Henri Christophe), and Part IV (epilogue). Part I was about a slave named Macandal who is a longtime friend of Ti Noël, who is a slave on M. Lenormand de Mézy’s plantation. After arm amputation, he becomes less useful and flees from the plantation to caves in the mountains. However, he still keeps in contact with the other slaves on the plantation and poisons and kills all the livestock. Macandal turned into a houngan, a voodoo priest and was getting his revenge on the white race. He can turn into any creature and supposedly turns into an insect to escape his execution. Part II was about Boukman and the slave revolt that led to the Haitian Revolution. Boukman was a Jamaican slave and houngan who organized a voodoo ceremony in Northern Haiti. This voodoo ceremony took place in Bois Caïman and is said to have started the Haitian Revolution with the voodoo ceremony. During that ceremony, the god of war Ogoun was called and soon afterwards, the slave revolt occurred. The second part switches gears and focuses on Pauline Bonaparte, the younger sister of Napoleon I of France. She was accompanying her husband General Charles Leclerc to Haiti. General Leclerc was a French general who was sent by Napoleon I to overthrow Toussaint L’Ouverture, who led the Haitian slaves in the Haitian Revolution. Pauline Bonaparte is a very flirtatious woman and has affairs with the officers that are under General Leclerc. Her husband gets sick with yellow fever and dies; she, Pauline, stays by her husband’s side and participates in rituals in order to heal her husband. After General Leclerc dies, Pauline left the island. Part III of the novel is very historical and discusses the story about the rise and fall of King Henri-Christophe. Henri-Christophe became King of Haiti after Jean-Jacques Dessalines was assassinated. Jean-Jacques was the first ruler of the independent Haiti and named himself “Emperor of Haiti” in 1805. Former cook at a restaurant, Henri-Christophe rose to power. He had slaves build a palace, Sans-Souci for himself. He also had slaves build a fortress called La Citadelle Laferrière in order to protect the country from a French invasion. Ti Noël returns back to Haiti from Cuba a free man. While observing the work of Sans Souci, he is quickly taken in as a slave and begins to work on building Sans Souci. After working for a while on Sans Souci and La Citadelle Laferrière, Ti Noël escapes and returns back to the city he left, Le Cap. When King Henri-Christophe was in Mass of Assumption, he felt the hostility from the people around him. Feeling loneliness, he commits suicide. After his death, things fall apart; his army leaves, his top advisors are killed, and his corpse was sunken into mortar. Part IV, the epilogue, concludes the story. Pauline’s masseur, Soliman is in Haiti and becomes extremely popular in the local towns by pretending to be the nephew of Henri Christophe. Ti Noël leads the destroying of Sans Souci and becomes the unofficial leader of the town. Soon, foreigners come and take over Le Cap and once again, Ti Noël is forced to be a slave again. The novel ends with Ti Noël realizing that not everyone is equal and he had a “supremely lucid moment” and understood that he was destined to be like Macandal and lead the slaves to freedom (178). He declared war against the masters and supposedly changed shape to a vulture.
This collage shows the historical context of the novel and the magical realism that Alejo Carpentier portrays throughout the novel. There are several pictures on this collage. There is a picture of a child sleeping on a sofa in the skies. This picture depicts the magical realism in the novel. Magical realism makes the unreal seem real and in this picture, the child sleeping in the skies seems so natural, although this event is unrealistic. There is also a purple picture full of shapes. The color purple is symbolic of mystery, creativity, and magic. This picture depicts creativity and mystery. There is no one shape, person, place, or event in this picture, but rather an array of shapes. I chose this picture because the novel has a warped sense of time and logic. The time in which the events of the novel occur do not correspond with the actual events of the Haitian Revolution. Also, as a magical realist novel, the unreal are illogical to the reader. Voodoo ceremonies and humans changing into insects and birds are illogical to the reader. The saint is Saint Patrick who is placed next to a god named Damballah. Damballah is the most important loa (spirit) in Haitian Voodoo who is depicted as a serpent and is often associated with snakes. Catholicism is connected to voodooism in Haiti and Damballah is equivalent to Saint Patrick. There are two depictions of a voodoo ceremony, similar to the one that Boukman started in Bois Caïman that provoked the Haitian Revolution. There are two photos of Ogoun, the god of war, a full-body image and a facial image. Ogoun is a loa who controls fire, iron, hunting, politics, and war and gives strength through magic. A picture of a loa was placed next to Damballah as a comparison to the father of all gods. A houngan summons the gods and a picture of a typical voodoo priest is shown. Boukman was a voodoo priest and there is a picture of him summoning the spirit of freedom. There are also several historical photos in the collage. For example, there are three photos of La Citadelle Laferrière and in one photo, the cannons that would have been used to fight off the French can be seen. There are also three photos of Sans Souci and one can see the elegance of the palace. Unfortunately, the palace was destroyed and one picture depicts the ruins of the once beautiful palace. Two pictures of Henri-Christophe are also placed in the collage. The final picture is contains a monkey reading a passage from Alejo Carpentier’s other book, The Lost Steps. This picture depicted to me Alejo Carpentier’s writing style and technique. The magical and the marvelous are real. To me, Alejo Carpentier wrote about this particular subject to depict that magic could be real and to break away from the Surrealism that he was accustomed to in Europe. By his breaking away from the norm, he created another style of writing that would influence several young Latin American writer for years to come.

Discussion of 100 Years of Solitude-Chapter 10

In Chapter 10, there are quite a few repetitious events and characters. For example, the twins, Jose Arcadio Segundo and Aureliano Segundo are a repeat of Jose Arcadio who mysteriously committed suicide and Colonel Aureliano Buendia. The twins are similar to the first generation. Aureliano Segundo was a solitary character, just like the Colonel in his youth. I think also that Aureliano was interested in Melquiades' old manuscripts and the lab in which J.A.B. did his experiments, just like the Colonel had been in his youth. However, I think that the twins are more different from Jose Arcadio and Colonel Aureliano Buendia. Jose Arcadio Segundo was the one who showed initial interest in war, while it was Colonel Aureliano Buendia was the one who had the passion for war. Jose Arcadio Segundo's interest dissipated when he saw that the victims being shot were buried alive. Obviously, Jose Arcadio Segundo did not have the same fate that Jose Arcadio. Although Colonel Aureliano's first woman was his wife Remedios, Aureliano Segundo's first woman was Petra Cotes who he stayed with for the rest of his life. Another repeat seems to be Petra Cotes/Remedios. Before Remedios died, she was a healthy influence in the Buendia household. I think that Remedios made the house happier and more cheery. Petra Cotes is described as someone who "had a generous heart and a magnificent vocation for love" (188). Remedios the Beauty reminds me of Remedios because both have this weird sense of calm and control; Remedios takes her marriage with Colonel Aureliano Buendia with a calm grace and Remedios the Beauty rejects her suitor calmly. These similarities and differences tells us that the novel as a whole revolves in circles. With the repetition of characters and events with slight differences tells the readers that the entire novel is in circles. Time is unclear and runs in circles; Melquiades' manuscripts are called encyclicals; Aureliano's poetry has no beginning and no end; the characters and events repeat themselves.