A Marvelous Journey of Return in The Kingdom of This World...

A Marvelous Journey of Return The Kingdom of This World by Alejo Carpentier is the author’s journey of return to his Latin American root. He tries to decipher the myths and complexity of African identity and achieves it by opening up a new realm of interpretation and representation through literature work. In the novel, there are elements that can only come as a result of his experience of observing, questioning and criticizing, among which I think several are very noteworthy. First is Carpentier’s reflection of his own identity search in the novel, second is his application of magic realism in the writing that shows the juxtaposition between fiction and history and lastly, his depiction of a repeating cycle of the Haitian history in†¦show more content†¦Carpentier himself is a very representative individual to illustrate his perspective of being part of the culture but not the entirety of it due to his mixed background. Carpentier’s literature represents a type of root-seeking nature of his race. By exploring the blended culture of Latin America on the Haitian island, Carpentier does not deny the legacy of some Western civilization, but more importantly, he defines how the native culture coexists with exotic cultures on the island based on a multiculturalism view. The reality in his novel demonstrates a special relationship between Black people’s culture and the French culture. The two cultures coexist, collide and oppose each other at times and they become a cultural juxtaposition in an atemporal state. Overall, I think Carpentier really initiated a unique way of returning and finding authentic identity of the people on his homeland in the form of literature work. His good control of the pace and timing of the travel can be seen as a counterbalance to the disorder of time and space embedded in the story. While deliberately displacing and altering between historical facts and fictional plots, I think Carpentier takes control of the display of his ideas in a very subtle way. There exists a parallel relationship between the developments of the story in the novel to the actual history. Instead of creating randomShow MoreRelatedThe Theory, History, and Development of Magical Realism Essay examples3188 Words   |  13 Pagespre-colonial past and the post-industrial present. It is characterized by two conflicting perspectives. While accepting the rational view of reality, it also considers the supernatural as a part of reality. The setting in a magical realist text is a normal world with authentic human characters. It is not at all fantastic or unreal; it is a mode of narration that discovers the natural in the supernatural and supernatural in the natural. It is a mode in which the real and the fantastic and the natural and the