Magical realism and its relation to the metamorphosis of female identity in Ana Castillo’s so far from God

Abstract

The study examines the impact of magical realism as the ultimate means of metamorphoses in the lives of the female characters in So Far From God by Ana Castillo. The thesis discusses the changes occurring in the outlook of five Chicano women, a mother and her four daughters, living in a small town in the USA, and their struggles, goals, and subsequent end. The thesis hypothesized that the female characters of So Far From God experience metamorphosis common to lives of women with Latino ethnic origins, an act firmly connected to their spiritual, traditional, and cultural beliefs even when they are not in their native environments. This act then transforms their ordinary lives into something miraculous, touching most aspects of their lives including spirituality, medicinal cures, food, and other supernatural events that support the idea of ethnicity as a means to identity. Through these metamorphoses, Castillo‘s characters‘identities reflect their ethnicity as well as the core of their conflict that leads them to attain release of some sort. The study concludes that the Chicano women achieve independence from a traditional patriarchal society inherent in the control of their grandfathers, husbands, brothers or sons. The study further concludes that Castillo‘s novel as a representative of Hispanic- American literature attempts to describe the situation of the Latino woman and her struggle to define her identity in a hybrid culture. The element of magical realism is underlined as an important means to the achievement of this end. It also justifies the miraculous or other inexplicable events that are used to define the metamorphoses in the lives of all the female characters in particular.