Structural Configuration of Magic Realism in the Works of Gabriel García Márquez, Leslie Marmon Silko, Charles Johnson, and Julie Dash

Abstract This article raises the question of how contemporary multicultural authors and film directors build upon the magic-realist convention, with its specific narra-tive-discourse configurations (the way the story is told) to allow their audience access to foreign, often bizarre worlds. The first section of the analysis deals with understanding the precise structural configurations that make a text work as magic realism and explores variations that complicate the schemata. The second section relies on the first section's discussion of magic-realist codes to look closely at Julie Dash's film Daughters of the Dust , a text type that utilizes its visual and auditory tracks to work as magic realism. (Magic Realism; Visual and Literary Theory; Multicultural Images)