Deconstructing the Boundaries of Material Reality:
The Significance of Touchstone Characters
in Theoretical Approaches to Magical Realism
Student Researcher:
Sarah Kerrn, Candidate for Master of Arts in English
Faculty Mentor:
Dr. Danielle Glassmeyer, Associate Professor of English
Thesis
Magical Realist novels (pictured above) counter
problems with cultural accessibility by employing a
touchstone character. These characters each reside in
marginalized spaces, manifest the struggle between
the material reality and magic in their
transformations, and ultimately provide a means for
readers to grasp the realistic backdrop, magical
intervention, and unique critique of the storyworld
at hand that informs the broader, magical realist
deconstruction and subversion of reality.
What Is Magical Realism?
•  Commonly critiqued as ambiguous and culturally unfamiliar
and therefore ineffective at . . .
•  Distinguishing real from magical
•  Reconciling the seen and unseen
•  Fostering critical consciousness
•  Current dedicated scholars work to “remystify” the genre by
•  Removing definitions that constrain
•  Preserving mystery and flexibility
•  These open-minded scholars concede that the genre usually…
1.  Integrates an “irreducible element” of magic (Ordinary
Enchantments 7)
2.  Disturbs time, space, and identity
3.  Merges material and magical realms
4.  Invokes doubts in the reader in "the effort to reconcile
two understandings of events” (Ordinary Enchantments 7)
5.  Is “conscious of the delusory capacities of
realism” (Takolander 195)
6.  Deconstructs black and white truths/powers through
chaos
7.  Reorients discussions of ethics and identity in light of the
unseen
8.  Ends with the realist storyworld of the novel “permeated
by magic” (Hart and Ouyang 4)
Research Question
How can Magical Realism fulfill its goal of using “magical”
elements to subvert power in material reality if the storyworld is
unfamiliar and unrelatable to the reader; that is, what if the reader
cannot tell the “magical” from the culturally unfamiliar?
Solution:
A touchstone character who mediates between the reader and
storyworld by . . .
•  Responding to both the initial and transformed reality in an accessible way
•  Standing between the worlds of magic and material
•  To make “the real as we know it . . . seem amazing or even
ridiculous” (Ordinary Enchantments 11)
•  To “defamiliarize…underline…or critique…extraordinary aspects of
the real” (Ordinary Enchantments 13)
•  Exploring “the possibility of healing the split between concrete and imaginary, or
science-based and spirit-oriented worlds” (Ordinary Enchantments 87)
Danny Glover as Paul D
in Beloved (1998)
A Case Study in Touchstone Characters:
Paul D in Toni Morrison’s Beloved
Paul D, as a culturally-marginalized individual, bridges the gap for readers foreign
to magical events and African-American culture.
He normalizes Sethe’s use of symbolism as a typical device in African-American
realism:
•  “Schoolteacher made one open up my back, and when it closed it
made a tree. It grows there still” (20).
•  Paul D responds to the tree as a living scar, a testament to pain
His reactions help readers understand that Beloved is beyond the “real” even for
the ex-slave experience:
•  When gnawing on cane, “Denver laughed, Sethe smiled, and Paul
D said it made him sick to his stomach” (66)
•  Comments about Beloved: “Something funny ‘bout that gal” (67)
•  Leaves rather than continue a sexual relationship with Beloved
•  Paul D reenters Sethe’s home after Beloved’s departure: “Something
is missing . . . but it seems, for a moment, that just beyond his
knowing is the glare of an outside thing that embraces while it
accuses” (319)
Conclusions and Implications
•  The intersection between magic and reality is unfamiliar and
off-putting, but deeply human and liberating.
•  Beloved is a foreign entity that represents the slave collective’s
chaos, pain, suffering.
•  Beloved pushes characters toward reconciliation and love that
transcends failure and overpowers the scars of slavery; to do so
she must foil the constraint of material reality.
•  Paul D, alongside the reader, develops a critical consciousness
that embraces and accuses pre-slavery and post-slavery reality.
•  Paul D’s interactions with African-American culture and magical
events pave the way for Morrison’s writing to openly discuss
slavery, family, and the balance between the material and
immaterial.
How Is This Relevant?
Field of English Literature:
•  Approaching the unfamiliar as a scholar, not a skeptic
•  Genres do not need to be constrained or overly defined
•  Bridging the gap between the magical and unexplainable
with material reality in literature and understanding
•  Communication does not only rely on the material, but can
use a “magical” touchstone to connect different people
Popular Culture and Life:
•  Modeling an ethical responsibility and obligation to
embrace unknown people and uncomfortable, grey-scale
issues
•  Interacting with different cultures through touchstones
•  Awareness for the unseen parts of life and personhood
that do not dominate, but intertwine with material reality
•  Identity is not formed or judged by material reality
•  Critical consciousness of dangerous ideologies that
construct a false reality about peoples, cultures, and issues
Works Cited
Bowers, Maggie Ann. Magic(al) Realism. Routledge, 2004.
Díaz, Junot. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Riverhead Books, 2007.
Faris, Wendy B. Ordinary Enchantments: Magical Realism and the Remystification of Narrative. Vanderbilt University Press
2004.
Faris, Wendy B. "Scheherazade’s Children: Magical Realism and Postmodern Fiction." in Magical Realism: Theory,
History, Community, edited by Zamora and Faris. Duke University Press, 1995, 163-190.
Hart, Stephen M. "Introduction to Part I: Genealogies, Myths, Archives." A Companion to Magical Realism, edited by
Stephen M. Hart and Wen-chin Ouyang. Tamesis, 2010, 25-27.
Hart, Stephen M and Wen-chin Ouyang. "Introduction." A Companion to Magical Realism, edited by Stephen M.
Hart and Wen-chin Ouyang. Tamesis, 2010, 1-22.
Márquez, Gabriel García. One Hundred Years of Solitude. HarperCollins, 2003.
Morrison, Toni. Beloved. Vintage International, 2004.
Naylor, Gloria. Mama Day. Vintage Contemporaries, 1993.
Roh, Franz. "Magic Realism: Post-Expressionism (1925)." Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community, edited by
Zamora and Faris. Duke University Press, 1995, 15-32.
Takolander, Maria. Catching Butterflies: Bringing Magical Realism to Ground. Peter Lang AG, 2007.
Zamora, Lois Parkinson and Wendy B. Faris. "Introduction." Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community, edited by
Zamora and Faris. Duke University Press, 1995, 1-11.