To Believe or Not to Believe? Locating the Contours of Magical Realism in Divakaruni’s “The Queen of Dreams”

Abstract

The term Magical Realism (also known as Magic Realism) predominates the field of creativity and performing art today. This two-word phrase which apparently seems contradicting is a powerful genre in the world of literature that has persisted throughout history and has been an object of research. South Asian writers, who share some ideological and stylistic characteristics, typify the genre of Magical Realism for an effective portrayal of their own perspectives on diasporic communities in terms of their identity, culture, relation with the past and amongst themselves. The present study aims at locating the contours of Magical Realism in the novel “The Queen of Dreams” by an Indian-American writer Chitra Devakaruni. (1997). The novel has been examined in the light of some of the techniques presented by Hegerfeldt (2002) which corroborate the concept and are further supported with the theories by Maggie Ann Bowers (2001), Stephen Slemon (1995) and Wendy B. Faris (1995). The results reveal that the writer depicts the real world through the magical realist approach with the use of imaginary characters, living people, linguistic instances and the random sequences of time to highlight the social and political injustices which the diaspora can indirectly relate to.