El Realismo Mágico: A Bilingual Seminar in the Upper School

In a Socratic seminar, students sit in a loose circle to conduct their own discussion of a central text, focusing on open-ended analysis and interpretation, as faculty and a second group of students observe the exchange to provide feedback, “fishbowl”-style. This model of student-driven learning, free of the typical teacher-directed inquiry and marked by naturally flowing discussion rather than classroom hand-raising, elevates critical thinking, active engagement with ideas, group communication skills, and community collaboration.

Now imagine such a seminar, set in an American high school, but spoken almost entirely in Spanish, with advanced World Language learners analyzing the nuances of one of the definitive works of El realismo mágico, the Latin American literary tradition that powerfully grounds social and political critique in often marginalized communities where fantastic events merge with the everyday, blurring the lines between life and death, dream and reality, and past and present.

Emptied of desks to accommodate concentric rings of chairs, Room 227 in Colorado Academy’s F. Charles Froelicher Upper School is the setting for this unique investigation into Cien años de soledad (100 Years of Solitude), by Nobel Prize-winning Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez. The 1967 novel stands as one of the most significant literary achievements of the 20th century, chronicling the extraordinary events, the flow of history and society, and the revolutionary politics that touch seven generations of the Buendía family in the dreamlike fictional city of Macondo.

“Sr. Slater y yo estamos muy entusiasmados con esta colaboración entre nuestras clases para conversar sobre los temas de Cien años de soledad de García Márquez,” begins Instructor Valerie Maté-Hunt—“Sr. Slater and I are so excited for this collaboration between our classes to discuss the themes in Cien años de soledad.”

Participating in the discussion are the students in the Advanced Studies and Research (ASR) course 20th Century Hispanic Literature, taught by Maté-Hunt, and the Honors seminar Cinema Hispano, led by Instructor Madison Slater. Both courses focus on the themes of the manifestation of memory, choice vs. destiny, and the cyclical nature of history.

Invited as a guest speaker to introduce the topic alongside Maté-Hunt and Slater is English Instructor Dr. Kenneth Usongo, an expert in literary theory and world literature.

“What I would like to do very briefly for you before we begin is to historicize, problematize, and then theorize Magical Realism,” Usongo states at the start of the seminatr. For this “crossover” moment between Upper School English and Spanish Departments, notes Slater, Usongo will set the stage by drawing from his own Honors elective.

 

“Magical Realism is typically attributed to Latin American authors,” explains Usongo, but it actually has its origins in Germany in 1925, when the art critic Franz Roh first coined the term magischer Realismus to refer to a modern style of painting with elements of Surrealism and Expressionism. Latin Americans such as the French-Russian Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier took the concept and refined it throughout the 1940s and 1950s to express “something indigenous, showcasing their own culture and history” and marking a clear separation from the European colonial powers which they rejected.

 

Yet Magical Realism never truly belonged only to Latin American authors such as Márquez, adds Usongo. “What of the Ramayana, the ancient Sanskrit epic which narrates the life of Rama, the seventh avatar of the Hindu deity Vishnu; or the One Thousand and One Nights, a collection of Middle Eastern and South Asian folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age? Aren’t these ‘magical realism’?”

Still, Usongo continues, regardless of time or place, there are common traits that connect all such works: “The attempt to combine the real and the unreal, the material and the immaterial, and, especially, the suspension of disbelief that is required as the reader embraces the narrative from the perspective of the characters themselves.” These clearly distinguish Magical Realism from traditions such as Surrealism, where performative fantasy reigns. “Magical Realism, grounded in the history and culture of a people, subverts empire and domination.”

¿Qué es la soledad? (What is solitude?)

Usongo’s theorizing is the last English spoken in the session, as the room switches to fluent Spanish to delve into Cien años de soledad. “Y ahora continuamos con la discusión en español, ¿no?” Slater prompts the students.

 

Senior Kellen Martin makes the first point: “¿Crees que la llegada de varias personas buenas e importantes a Macondo afecta la dinámica y la soledad del pueblo?”—“Do you think people’s arrival to Macondo affects the town’s dynamics and its solitude?”

Fellow Senior Robert Kenney replies, “Sí, porque los fundadores del pueblo ayudan a la familia principal y a las otras personas que vienen a Macondo”—“Yes, because the founders of the town help the main family and the other people who come to Macondo.”

 

Junior Vivi Rosenquist observes, “Yo creo que los gitanos ayudan a desarrollar Macondo. Los gitanos propagan más conocimiento nuevo, y sin los gitanos Macondo se habría quedado en un ciclo de historia que solo se repite y no cambia”—“I think that it’s the gypsies who help develop Macondo. The gypsies spread new knowledge, and without them Macondo would have remained in a cycle of history that only repeats itself.”

Senior Zack Lapidus picks up on a point emphasized earlier by classmate Hannah Smith, who argued that the repetition of names across generations of the Buendía family symbolizes the cycle of solitude.

“La soledad en Macondo es más interna y forma parte de la cultura del pueblo. No tiene que ver tanto con la conexión al mundo exterior”—“Solitude in Macondo is more internal and is part of the town’s culture. It is not so much related to a lack of connection to the outside world.”

 

Changing direction, Senior Emery Mikula asks, “¿Ustedes creen que Melquíades cambia las dinámicas de la comunidad y la manera en que interactúan con las cosas y con la comunidad fundamental? Es muy importante porque Melquíades trae cosas nuevas a la comunidad, pero también las dinámicas cambian de maneras que son muy diferentes para todas las personas en la familia y en la comunidad de Macondo”—“Do you all think that Melquíades changes the dynamics of the community and the way they interact? His arrival seems important because Melquíades brings new things to the community, but the dynamics also change in ways that are very different for the family and the community of Macondo.”

 

Replies Kenney, “Estoy de acuerdo también porque pienso que Macondo está conectado con los gitanos y con Melquíades, y también con personas de otros pueblos. Pero vemos que los individuos establecen más soledad, como Aureliano y su padre, quienes trabajan mucho en el laboratorio y pasan mucho tiempo aislados, aunque tienen esas conexiones”—“I agree, because I think that Macondo is connected with the gypsies and with Melquíades, and also with people from other towns. But we see that individuals create more solitude, like Aureliano and his father, who work a lot in the laboratory and spend much time isolated.”

Ricardo Rios Rodriguez chimes in, “Cuando vienen otras personas de otros pueblos, comienzan a inventar cosas para el bien de la comunidad y escriben libros. Por ejemplo, José Arcadio Buendía decide construir una máquina de la memoria después de que el pueblo casi pierde todos sus recuerdos durante la peste del insomnio. Eso demuestra su deseo de conservar los maravillosos inventos de los gitanos. … En ese momento empieza a ayudar al pueblo y a sacarlo de la soledad”—“When other people come from other towns, they begin to invent things for the good of the community, and they write books. For example, José Arcadio Buendía decides to build a memory machine after the town almost loses all of its memories during the insomnia plague. That shows his desire to preserve the marvelous inventions of the gypsies. … At that moment, he begins to help the town and pull it out of solitude.”

Martin then asks a decisive question: “¿Piensas que la soledad es algo bueno para Macondo o algo malo?”—“Do you think solitude is something good for Macondo or something bad?”

 

Rosenquist answers, “Yo creo que también es mala para Macondo en general. Por ejemplo, cuando llega Rebeca al pueblo, ella representa personas nuevas. Cuando ella vive con la familia, todos los miembros de Macondo empiezan a recordar su historia y su pasado, y lo que pasó para formar el pueblo. … Creo que eso es un simbolismo del aislamiento, pero también muestra cómo la memoria puede ayudar al pueblo a continuar su historia y mantener su identidad”—“I think that in general, it is bad for Macondo. For example, when Rebeca arrives in the town, she represents new people. But when she lives with the family, all the members of Macondo begin to remember their history and their past, and what happened to form the town. … I think that is a symbol of isolation, but it also shows how memory can help the town continue its history and maintain its identity.”

Las palabras como un deseo (Words as a wish)

If, as the students note throughout their discussion, solitude is the dominant theme of Cien años de soledad, and the town of Macondo and its increasingly solitary and its increasingly solitary yet vulnerable Buendía family represent the waves of generational and historical changes that accompanied the movement of time in Latin America—then the emergence of love and a sense of mutual solidarity in García Márquez’s masterpiece could be his wishful prediction of the end to an old order in the region.

Indeed, accepting the Nobel Prize for his novel, the author said, “I dare to think that it is this outsized reality, and not just its literary expression, that has deserved attention…. A reality not of paper, but one that lives within us and determines each instant of our countless daily deaths, and that nourishes a source of insatiable creativity, full of sorrow and beauty, of which this roving and nostalgic Colombian is but one cipher more, singled out by fortune.”

 

In a World Language classroom in CA’s Upper School, there is another lesson to be found in the book, within its very first paragraph, as García Márquez begins describing the magical town of Macondo:

At that time Macondo was a village of twenty adobe houses, built on the bank of a river of clear water that ran along a bed of polished stones, which were white and enormous, like prehistoric eggs. The world was so recent that many things lacked names, and in order to indicate them it was necessary to point.

For this group of advanced students in Spanish, it is still necessary to speak words aloud to give them their true meaning.