The Girl Who Chased the Moon demonstrates magical realism most effectively because of its relatability, subtlety, setting and atmosphere. Although it has blatant magical situations the primary plotline focuses on realistic narratives with elements of magic, as opposed to magic being the majority of the plot.
The Girl Who Chased the Moon contains characters with ordinary lives who experience normal and genuine emotions and have realistic narratives. For example, Sawyer is an estate agent but he has the ability to detect sweets (cakes, chocolates, etc). This is just apart of who he is, it isn’t addressed as something particularly odd. Even though it is something out of the norm it isn’t further investigated or explained it’s just stated as
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Because the magic is subtle and doesn’t drive the narrative it allows you to relate to the characters in a way you wouldn’t normally be able to. These characters face everyday problems (unlike the ones in Penelope or The Night Circus where their motives are often driven by their surroundings which have heavy magical influences, more so than in the Girl Who Chased the Moon) such as, falling in love with a popular boy, feeling scared of having a relationship, grieving for passed loved ones and feeling out of place in new places that you aren’t used to. Julia and Sawyer go through a lot of things that are relatable to a large audience, they have sex but when a relationship is suggested Sawyer gets scared of change and the judgement of others and backs out. Emily also deals with a lot of things that majority of the world has had to deal with, losing a parent(/a loved one), feeling scared and out of place in a new home and falling in love. These emotions are something that everyone can relate to feeling at least once in their life, making the matter of magic obsolete. It doesn’t matter if you can’t relate to certain aspects of the characters as long as you can relate to parts of them and what emotionally drives them. The unusual is overlooked in favour of the emotions which makes abnormal normal and accepted because of how without question it’s accepted in the …show more content…
The small town setting in which everyone knows everyone makes Emily feel abnormal like she doesn’t belong, even though the town has more abnormal qualities that she does. The feeling of community gives off indifference to the magical happenings because they are their everyday norms and are seen as mundane. They accept a lot of things, the male Coffeys’ glowing; the Mullaby lights; Vance’s height, because it’s simply the way their world works. It makes you feel like you need to accept the magic for what it is, the norm, or move on. The atmosphere of a small town also makes you feel like you’re in the presence of magic. When Emily ran through the forest chasing after something that shouldn’t really be real we were able to suspend are disbelief because the magic didn’t outweigh the realism. She heard footprints and bandages were put on the porch for her, furthering the realistic narrative with hints of magic. Nothing outright magical happened, enabling us to allow this chain of events to astonish us without it being unbelievable. It was further normalised when Julia didn’t dispute the lights, she just scolded Emily for chasing
In the beginning, the audience gets a glimpse of the house belonging to Miss Emily. The exterior of the house was beautiful, but aging. When it was first built in the post-civil war era, it was lovely. However, after revolution and change, Miss Emily’s home was the last standing house on the block. This is vital to the story because it paints a picture for the reader’s mind. The interior of the house was dusty and unclean after the change. This demonstrates how cooped up Miss Emily truly is. She never
characters are in many ways divergent, and it is in fact these traits that reveal the most about
According to Faulkner, “After her father’s death she went out very little; after her sweetheart went away, people hardly saw her at all” (805). Occurrences such as these are private instances that took place within Miss Emily’s life. They are very important instances that undoubtedly caused Miss Emily to shift to an isolated lifestyle. On the other hand, actions displayed by the townspeople provide a viewpoint of Miss Emily’s relationship with the public. “Arguably, the townspeople’s actions serve to protect Miss Emily’s privacy- by preserving her perceived gentility-as much as they effectively destroy it with their intrusive zeal” (Crystal 792). The actions of the townspeople fuel Miss Emily’s desire to remain isolated from everyone else in her
As the famous endorser for magical realism, Like Water for Chocolate is filled with mystical elements camouflaged into the mundane setting. Magical realism has brought this forbidden love to its greatest extent by using lust to explain the reasons behind their thoughts and actions.
Emily was kept confined from all that surrounded her. Her father had given the town folks a large amount of money which caused Emily and her father to feel superior to others. “Grierson’s held themselves a little too high for what they really were” (Faulkner). Emily’s attitude had developed as a stuck-up and stubborn girl and her father was to blame for this attitude. Emily was a normal
In the end, with her death, which is where the story begins, Miss Emily is the talk of the town. Not because people truly mourn her, but because people are curious about the life she had lived in secret, in her big house, for all those years. People pitied her, it was as had been left alone in the world and seemed to have wished it that way.
Just as Miss Emily’s resistance to change is symbolized by the Grierson house so is Miss Emily’s loneliness. The Grierson house is so symbolic because it had once been a hub of activity with china painting lessons and guests. After the death of Emily’s father, the house was shut off from the rest of the world, very much like Miss Emily herself. The narrator tells us that “From that time on her front door remained closed, save for a period of six or seven years, when she was about forty, during which she gave lessons in china painting.” (Faulkner 34). We can tell, and perhaps understand to some degree, that Miss Emily has a very real fear of being left alone. This is first revealed by her denial of her father’s death for several days. “She told them that her father was not dead. She did that for three days” (Faulkner
My ultimate take is that Faulkner portrayed her to have a dark soul. Emily lived in disgust for someone who held themselves to such a higher standard than most people. He portrayed this not only by her actions but also on the description of her home inside and out. The people in the town felt sorry for her quite possibly because she was alone, perhaps this is why they put up with her in the manner they
Emily's father suppressed all of her inner desires. He kept her down to the point that she was not allowed to grow and change with the things around her. When “garages and cotton gins had encroached and obliterated…only Miss Emily's house was left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps” (Rose 217). Even when he died, she was still unable to get accustom to the changes around her. The traditions that her and her father continued to participate in even when others stopped, were also a way that her father kept her under his thumb. The people of the town helped in
When using this approach to define abnormality you would first have to consider what is normal behaviour for that particular culture otherwise a person could be incorrectly diagnosed as abnormal. Cultural differences are also a problem for the 'Failure to Function Adequately' definition of abnormality. This classification of abnormality involves a person who conforms to their 7 characteristics of the abnormal as having ill mental health. Examples of these characteristics are vividness, unconventionality and observer discomfort.
There are many instances where Emily resists change, unable to let go of the Southern, antebellum lifestyle she grew up with. This creates a contrast between Emily and the rest of the town, which is progressing and modernizing as time goes by. Emily’s traditional nature puts an emphasis on her representation of the past. She actively resists modernization, choosing to reply to the mayor’s offer to call with a letter “on paper of an archaic shape, [written with] thin, flowing calligraphy in faded ink” (Faulkner 1). Emily’s actions represent the past and an inability to let go of it. She is stuck in the past, unwilling to accept the change that the future brings. Emily and her house are the last glimpses of the past in her town; as the town progresses, her house stood unmoving, “lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons” (Faulkner 1). The house continues to display the style of the past, despite the decay and progression of style. Emily and her house represent the past, when her house was new and in style. Emily’s resistance to change and longing for the past is appropriate, considering her age and upbringing. She is an older woman, who grew up during the Civil War era in the South. The reason the South fought in the Civil War was to protect their lifestyle at all costs. The South was unwilling to change, stubbornly clinging to the antebellum way of life. This philosophy shaped the
Emily is a character surrounded by mystery, leaving a mark on the influence of others, causing them to create their own scenarios about her life. It happened when she met Homer, when everyone hoped she will marry him, or when she bought poison and everyone thought she would poison herself. Her high wealthy status and respect were emphasized when she kicked out the people who
Emily is very vulnerable mostly because of her appearance. "She tormented herself enough about not looking like the others, there was enough of the unsureness, the having to be conscious of works before you speak, the constant caring-what are they thinking of me? Without having it all magnified by the merciless physical drivers" (Olson 603). Emily is a skinny, fragile, and sick child, and in the outer world, other kids without values would point her out. Emily is always insecure about what she says, or does in front of others. The insecurity of not being able to be her own person is always on her mind.
Emily had depression and was dealing with it in her own way by closing herself off. Looks could be very deceiving and in this case, Emily surprised the town when she died. The townspeople realized that there was more to her than they thought and were quick to judge.
Emily behaves the way she does for numerous reasons. She is born into an aristocratic family. Emily is brought up as a Southern belle by her father and is placed on a pedestal by the townspeople. The Grierson’s are known in town for being extremely wealthy and having the nicest house in Jefferson, Yoknapatawpha County. Due to the fact that her father, Mr. Grierson, keeps her isolated and socially restricted as a child, she behaves abnormally. Emily feels as if she is pressured to live up to her father’s expectations. Because Emily is kept away from everything, she is not yet exposed to the real world.