百年孤独英文论文.doc

Neophilologus (2006) 90:249–269 Springer 2006 DOI 10.1007/s11061-005-1027-5 LATIN AMERICA AND MAGICAL REALISM: THE INSOMNIA PLAGUE IN CIEN AN?OS DE SOLEDAD LORNA ROBINSON Wellington College, Crowthorne, Berkshire, RG45 7PU, UK, E-mail: LSR@wellingtoncollege.org.uk Abstract Communities of people have di?erent ways of explaining the world around them and events that occur to them, and these codes for interpreting reality can clash when brought into contact with each other. Latin American writers and scholars have often said that such a clash produces the atmosphere we have come to label magical realist in literature; construing the theory in quite territorial terms, they have claimed that the specific circumstances of Latin America have produced magical realism.1In this essay, I explore the use of magical realism in a famous episode from Garc?′a Ma′r-quez’s Cien an?os de soledad. The instance of the insomnia plague has fascinated readers and has attracted various interpretations from academics; these have usually been centred around cultural readings. I explore the passage from three distinct perspectives, cultural, historical and literary. Garc?′a Ma′rquez’s Cien an?os de soledad is a work rich in historical and literary sources, and in order to help determine the impact of political and cultural happenings upon his work, I have also referred extensively also to Garc?′a Ma′rquez’s recently published memoirs, which have enabled me to make reasoned judgments about the di?erent spheres of influence upon Garc?′a Ma′rquez’s work. 1. Sleepless in Macondo In the third chapter of Cien an?os de soledad, an extraordinary thing happens. It first surfaces when an Indian woman and her brother ar-rive in Macondo. They are described as being huyendo de una peste de insomnio que flagelaba a su tribu desde hac?′a varios an?os (126). This sounds like a very peculiar form of virus: generally insomnia is re-garded as a symptom of something else, and certainly not something which is tra