Magical Realism in Ben Okri. A Critical Reading of "Laughter Beneath the Bridge" and "What the Tapster Saw" (PDF)

Essay aus dem Jahr 2012 im Fachbereich Literaturwissenschaft - Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft, Note: 1, Universität Wien, Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: The major part of my essay will focus on two short stories by Okri: "Laughter Beneath the Bridge" and "What the Tapster Saw". After giving a brief survey of the literary and critical context of "Stars of the New Curfew" and "Incidents at the Shrine", the short story collections within which the stories were published, I am going to analyze the texts in terms of style, main ideas and narrative structure. On this occasion I will mainly concentrate on the narrative voice and the characters of the stories, particularly examining the way the author constructs his stories through his protagonists, as well as the elements of magical realism that can be found in the texts and their function.

The following questions are going to lead me troughout the whole essay: What is so specific about Okri's writing? How are his characters depicted, and to what extent is the narrative point of view important for the reader's perception of the story? In what way is Okri's work represantative of Magical Realism, and what is the function of magical events in his work?