Friday, October 31, 2008

Surrealism in KAP's writing

After last class's discussion, I decided I would rather go the "theory" route for the critical paper, so I would like to provide a surrealist interpretation of stories such as Pale Horse, Pale Rider
Maria Concepcion, and Magic.

According to Breton, who published "The Surrealist Manifesto" in 1924, and who founded the literary movement, surrealism was a means of reuniting conscious and unconscious realms of experience so completely, that the world of dream and fantasy would be joined to the everyday rational world in "an absolute reality, a surreality." Drawing ld of dream and fantasy would be joined to the everyday rational world in "an absolute reality, a surreality."

Surrealism features elements of surprise, odd juxtapositions, non seqitur, dreams, the fantastic, the irrational. I feel like I could definitely make a case for surrealism in PHPH and Magic, especially since she was writing these pieces at the time of the movement. Maria Concecion, however, predates Breton's manifesto, but it does not predate the dadaism movement from which surrealism stemmed in the early 20th century.

My research thus far has been searching jstore for articles on surrealism, of which I've found many. My next goal is funneling down my reasoning for why I believe KAP chose to include surrealist elements within her stories.

1 comment:

meaganflannery said...

I know that he has written some things on surrealism, I have read them, but I cannot remember where it was. I thought it might be interesting for you to look into because he was one of the biggest and influential surrealist artists at the time. He also mainly associates himself with Mexico (and France).

Wiki article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Bu%C3%B1uel