Writing Optical Illusions: Using Optical Illusions to Create Magical Realist Narratives

Optical Illusions

Optical illusions create an effect in which the perceiver’s actual view differs from the expected view. It is sort of a visual irony.

Ernst Gombrich (1909–2001). Once a student of Ernst Kris, Gombrich became a professor of art history at the University of London and author of the groundbreaking books The Story of Art (1950) and Art and Illusion (1960). In the latter he explores the psychology of perception and its influence on the interpretation of art. Gombrich was one of the first art historians to apply Gestalt psychology and the cognitive psychology of perception to the understanding of art….

Gombrich brought his ideas on psychology and art together in Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation. In it he describes the brain’s perceptual restructuring of an image as having two parts: projection, which reflects the unconscious, automatic rules that are built into the brain and guide our vision, and inference, or knowledge, which is based in part on inference and may be both conscious and unconscious. Like Kris, Gombrich was impressed by the parallels between the creative process of scientists and the inferential, creative model building undertaken by the artist and the beholder of art…. (Kandel)

Writing Prompt

Begin by choosing one of the above optical illusions as your focus then consider this chosen illusion as two perceptions within a single narrative. You might want to include portions of your reader’s response writing in this new narrative, but this is optional and at your discretion. Follow your gut. See the below writing prompt and example.

Choose any of the above optical illusions on which to base your story. Perhaps you chose “Two Face” as your illusion. In this case, you might identify one perception as “straight on” and the other as “side.” Now, create a character for each perception. You might name the side profile Bob and the straight on Albert. It challenges our perceptions of reality that two men, who look exactly the same, would suffer half a face. Perhaps their upper spines fused in such a way that one must look straight on and the other must always look to the side. This slightly offbeat version of our reality is an excellent example of magic realism. 

EXAMPLE: Albert and Bob attend the same party at a modern art gallery or an Appalachian general store. Albert can only speak with people while starting at them straight on, but he only has half a face. Perhaps he lost half his face in the war or a bombing or maybe Albert was just born that way. Perhaps people are nice to him but there is always an awkwardness, etc.

Albert has never met Bob, and yet, Bob is an identical replica, only he has a condition that makes his head always turned to the side, so he must always stand sideways in order to have a conversation.

You can see how these two characters defy normalcy. They even suggest a sense of paranormal occurrence, and yet, their conditions are not impossible. They are  intriguing individually and as foils for one another. They force the reader to blur perceptions and the “beholder’s share.” Imagine how many settings Albert and Bob might inhabit. How might Albert and Bob interact if they were women? Children? Animals? The possibilities are limitless. Your task is to create a slightly offset experience and collection of characters in a very real setting.

Submit Your Work for Individualized Feedback

Would you like to work with an editor one on one? Submit your manuscript for individualized editorial feedback. 

Contributing Faculty

Rae BryantRae Bryant’s short story collection, The Indefinite State of Imaginary Morals, released from Patasola Press, NY, in June 2011. Her stories and essays have appeared or will soon be appearing in print and online at  The Paris Review, The Missouri Review, Diagram, StoryQuarterly, McSweeney’s, New World Writing, Gargoyle Magazine, and Redivider, among other publications and have been nominated for the Pen/Hemingway, Pen Emerging Writers, &NOW Award and Pushcart Prize. She has won awards in fiction from Whidbey Writers and The Johns Hopkins University as well as fellowships from the VCCA and Hopkins to write, study and teach in Florence, Italy. She earned a Masters in Writing from Hopkins where she continues to teach creative writing and is editor in chief of The Doctor T. J. Eckleburg Review. She has also taught in the International Writing Program at The University of Iowa. Rae is the director of The Eckleburg Workshops. She has a Bachelors in Humanities from Penn State with a concentration in Eduction and English Literature and minors in Art, History and Philosophy. In addition to her Masters in Writing from Johns Hopkins, she completed graduate coursework in Curriculum and Administration at Penn State. She has been teaching and lecturing for over twenty years in campus classrooms and at writing conferences. Rae is a member of VIDA: Women in Literary Arts, AWP, NBCC, CLMP and Johns Hopkins Alumni Association and is represented by Jennifer Carlson of Dunow, Carlson and Lerner.

Sources

Kandel, Eric. The Age of Insight: The Quest to Understand the Unconscious in Art, Mind, and Brain, from Vienna 1900 to the Present . Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Discussing Magic Realism: Where Do You Fall on the Magic Realism Spectrum?

A Very Brief Primer on Realism Vs. Magic Realism, Fabulism & Fantasy in Genre & Style

 

REALISM

Maya Angelou

Raymond Carver

Flannery O’Connor

Ernest Hemingway

John Steinbeck

Edith Pearl

 

MAGIC REALISM

Nikolai Gogol, “The Nose,” 1835.

“The Metamorphosis,” Franz Kafka, c. 1915.

“Magic Realism,” Franz Roh, Art Critic. 1925.

Orlando, Virginia Woolf, 1928.

Gabriel García Márquez

Isabelle Allende

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Toni Morrison

Kurt Vonnegut

Salman Rushdie

Angela Carter

 

FABULISM 

Kelly Link

Jeff VanderMeer

 

FANTASY 

J. R. R. Tolkien

George R. R. Martin 

 

LITERARY

Some critics, editors and readers have determined realism and magic realism to be on the “literary” end of the genre spectrum. This is a designation that comes with a number of valid and problematic issues. For one, The Road by Cormac McCarthy is solidly claimed by the “high literary” community; however, speculative readers and critics validly claim the work as futuristic and fictional in its science. This is an example of how the “literary” and “speculative” categorizations as exclusive can be problematic. 

Most will agree that realism and magic realism value character-focused storytelling and less world-building-focused storytelling. There are more variations than what is listed on this genre and style spectrum, but this gives us a good primer for considering magic realism. 

 

 

 

SPECULATIVE

Some critics, editors and readers have determined fabulism and fantasy to be more on the speculative end of the genre spectrum. This designation comes with a number of valid and problematic issues, too. For one, many speculative writers consider their work to be high literary as well as speculative. An example would be the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Many high literary anthologies, including Norton, will include Tolkien’s work as evidence of high literary fantasy. 

Most will agree that fabulism and fantasy value world-building more so than realist or magical realist stories. Again, there are more variations than what is listed on this genre and style spectrum, but this gives us a good primer for considering magic realism.

WHAT SEPARATES MAGIC REALISM AND FABULIST?

Usually magical realist stories are set primarily in a real and familiar world with elements of magic realism that are fleeting, cyclical, often questionable and perception-based—i.e. is the character really experiencing this magical element or is the character’s experience merely hallucinatory brought on by drug use, alcohol, a bop on the head, etc. Magical realist stories and scenes can usually be read either way, real/hallucinatory and/or magical.

 

FABULISM AND FANTASY?

Fabulism and fantasy clearly identify the parameters of setting as being fantastical, magical and not of this world, including but not limited to character-based fantasy elements such as werewolves, vampires, etc. The werewolves and vampires clearly do not exist in reality, even if their story settings are real. Because these characters encapsulate wholly fantastical elements. These characters make the stories fabulist or fantasy.

 

MORRISON, MCCARTHY AND VONNEGUT?

Writers such as Morrison, McCarthy and Vonnegut have crossed boundaries in exceptional ways with works such as BelovedThe Road and Breakfast of Champions. In Beloved, Morrison brings essentially what is a haunted house narrative into a fully realized cultural and character study. In The Road, McCarthy’s futuristic dystopia defies categorization in its horrific study of a man and his son trying to survive. In Breakfast of Champions, Vonnegut’s Kilgore Trout experiences a metafictional journey, and therefore, is aware as is the reader of the magical structure within a painfully real world. The satirical elements of each narrative furthermore begs the question, can the narratives truly fall into any genre or style? Have their authors created something completely their own? The answer to this question, one might suggest, lies individually within the reader’s “beholder’s share” and is a good argument against commercialized marketing and stereotyping of literary styles.

 

THE ORIGIN MYTH: IS MAGIC REALISM EXCLUSIVE TO SOUTH AMERICAN AUTHORS?

No. With Marquez, Borges, Allende and more, magic realism has certainly enjoyed a Golden Era within some Latin American countries; however, as you can see in the chart above, magic realism has classical foundations in Russia, Germany, England, Italy as well as the United States, too. Russian author, Nikolai Gogol, wrote “The Nose” c. 1835. This predates even Borges. The first mention of the term, “magic realism,” was in 1925 by Franz Roh, a German art critic. Kafka wrote “Metamorphosis” in 1915. In 1927, the notion of magic realism spread through the Latin American writers and connected the magic realism communities already in existence and practice.

Most readers and critics would agree that a magical realist narrative must have a reality based setting, such as in Beloved, and “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings.” Most readers and critics would agree that the magical element must rely upon its reality and mundanity as a magical catalyst—i.e., a baby turns into a spirit that haunts her mother’s house, a fallen angel turns into a mundane and dirty old man. “The Metamorphosis” also falls into this critique. A man turns into an insect like creature, not a spirit or a fallen angel. To some readers, a man turning into a giant bug is as likely and real as a baby turning into a spirit haunting a house or an angel falling and turning into an old man walking the Earth. In this, perhaps, the best critical explanation could be suggested by Eric Kandel’s The Age of Insight and the “beholder’s share.” For “true believers,” their faith would require an unfaltering belief in the afterlife, and therefore, the belief systems that can neither be proven nor discounted any more than the existence of an afterlife would follow suit. In their perspectives, spirits might haunt houses and angels might fall to Earth. For the agnostic or atheist, baby spirits, fallen angels and man-bugs are all equally unrealistic. In this, one might suggest that the primer for magic realism cannot ever truly be determined with any certainty as a genre. The reader’s personal platforms will too strongly influence the reader-response. This might be uncomfortable for some readers and critics to accept, that individual readers must make up their own minds as to the canon specifics of any individual narrative; however, this might be the very aspect of magic realism that makes it so very intriguing and poignant.

It is easy to understand how some readers and critics might be partial to the Latin American magic realism origin myth. Borges and Marquez have put prominent faces on magic realism and created a golden era and global popularity, and so it is easy to fall into this belief, but magic realism is far more diverse in country and style than the Latin American authors. Attributing Latin American authors with the origin of magic realism would be like attributing Rock-n-Roll to The Beatles. The Beatles put an extraordinary face on Rock-n-Roll and progressed the form to new individual styles, but as John Lennon so aptly credits, if there had not been an Elvis Presley, there would not have been The Beatles. (Interestingly enough, The Beatles pay tribute to Little Richard and a meeting in Hamburg, Germany as another important impetus to their music. Franz Roh. Little Richard. It appears that Germany has been a hotspot of global pollination.) Before “Love Me Do,” no one had heard such music, but it was altogether Rock-n-Roll. Even Lennon would not take credit for originating his genre, though, The Beatles certainly developed their own style within it. 

Is it true that Franz Kafka was ahead of his time? Yes. And so was Elvis. Did Borges and Marquez take magic realism to a new individual style? Yes. And so did The Beatles. I would not, however, disregard Kafka and Presley’s contributions to their art forms and how they and their forms influenced later artists. Or perhaps, it’s a question of faith. Is Kafka the agnostic’s MR origin?

We value and pay tribute to the amazing work that has come out of Argentina and other Latin American countries but, we also understand magic realism owes its beginnings to a much more diverse authorship if one is to accept that baby hauntings, fallen angels and man bugs are equally unprovable and potentially fantastical. Who knows? With DNA splicing, the first man-bug may very well become a reality. I’m not so sure baby spirits and angels have DNA. But I’m happy to be proven wrong. 

 

AM I SUPPOSED TO CALL IT MAGIC REALISM OR MAGICAL REALISM OR MAGICAL REALIST?

Editors and readers use both but the way I’ve learned it and what I believe to be the proper designation is below:

Magic Realism (Nominative form)  |  Magical Realist (Adjective form)

 

REALISM

Maya Angelou

Raymond Carver

Flannery O’Connor

Ernest Hemingway

John Steinbeck

Edith Pearl

 

MAGIC REALISM

Gabriel García Márquez

Isabelle Allende

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Toni Morrison

Kurt Vonnegut

Salman Rushdie

Angela Carter

Virginia Woolf

Nikolai Gogol

Franz Kafka

 

FABULISM

Kelly Link

Jeff VanderMeer

 

FANTASY 

J. R. R. Tolkien

George R. R. Martin 

Below, in the Discussion and Comments area, comment on where you feel you fall on the realism to fantasy spectrum now and how you would like to broaden your spectrum. 500 words or less, please. Comment on your fellow course mates’ comments.

Submit Your Work for Individualized Feedback

Would you like to work with an editor one on one? Submit your manuscript for individualized editorial feedback. 

Contributing Faculty

Rae BryantRae Bryant’s short story collection, The Indefinite State of Imaginary Morals, released from Patasola Press, NY, in June 2011. Her stories and essays have appeared or will soon be appearing in print and online at  The Paris Review, The Missouri Review, Diagram, StoryQuarterly, McSweeney’s, New World Writing, Gargoyle Magazine, and Redivider, among other publications and have been nominated for the Pen/Hemingway, Pen Emerging Writers, &NOW Award and Pushcart Prize. She has won awards in fiction from Whidbey Writers and The Johns Hopkins University as well as fellowships from the VCCA and Hopkins to write, study and teach in Florence, Italy. She earned a Masters in Writing from Hopkins where she continues to teach creative writing and is editor in chief of The Doctor T. J. Eckleburg Review. She has also taught in the International Writing Program at The University of Iowa. Rae is the director of The Eckleburg Workshops. She has a Bachelors in Humanities from Penn State with a concentration in Eduction and English Literature and minors in Art, History and Philosophy. In addition to her Masters in Writing from Johns Hopkins, she completed graduate coursework in Curriculum and Administration at Penn State. She has been teaching and lecturing for over twenty years in campus classrooms and at writing conferences. Rae is a member of VIDA: Women in Literary Arts, AWP, NBCC, CLMP and Johns Hopkins Alumni Association and is represented by Jennifer Carlson of Dunow, Carlson and Lerner.