Well, it appears that I lived up to my promise to finish this project by wednesday. Sans a bit of editing (and a bibliography) the paper is done. I think it is very good.

Here is the first paragraph-

The Reality of Myth

The real and the mythical have always been two clearly defined subjects in the European tradition. Folk stories told by European peasants, fantastic novels and even the myths of antiquity have historically been taken for what they are: pure myths that do not apply to the reality created by Christian doctrine or reason. Latin America, since the colonial age, has stood apart from this tradition in its literature and culture. The strange imposition of the European tradition upon a mythical native culture and rugged land has developed a chaotic reality in Latin America, in which, in the words of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, “we have had to ask but little of imagination, for our crucial problem has been a lack of conventional means to render our lives believable.” (“The Solitude of Latin America”) It is through the device of Magical Realism, the mixture of the mythical and the real with no clear definition for that which is mythical, that Latin American authors convey the realities in which they live – realities that seem so unreal, but are, in essence, accepted as truth. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the premier author of the Magical Realist style, uses Magical Realism to portray a reality that to the eye seems like myth but is truly realist in its effect. His two short stories, “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” and “The Handsomest Drowned Man” are stories in which the real and unreal are blended together through imagery, narration and contrast. By keeping the reader guessing as to the possibilities presented through unreal aspects of the story, which are given as much weight as the real, Marquez draws upon a poignant truth of a reality – reality is never as simple, and can be indeed more baffling in its possibilities than myth.