Amiee Bender Magic Realism

There is a lot of short stories between the real and magic. Amiee Bender is one of those authors that incorporate magic realism in her work. For example, in her story “The Rememberer” which involves the narrator’s lover that is experiencing reverse evolution. She explains in an interview that a story has to be real just as it is unreal, so it can at least be relatable. Especially for herself, as she was going through a break up and dying grandmother at the time, and she explains that her mother saw it as re-watching someone go back into infancy. As for Pablo Neruda, he is an author of poetry. He has a book called “Twenty poems of love and despair” that was originally published in 1942. The poem that will be discussed is number XX. In the short

In the short story, Bender uses magic realism with Ben going though reverse evolution. The particular creatures (ape, sea turtle, baboon and salamander) are all important because as he changes he becomes more disconnected, as well as boring. Just as Annie describes “He said he hated talking and just wanted to look into my eyes and tell me things that way.” (Paragraph 13) Which goes hand in hand as their first encounter as Ben as an ape; “Even before I saw the eyes, I knew it was him. And once we were face to face, he gave me his same sad look…” (paragraph 14). While Annie saw Ben in reverse evolution, the speaker in Neruda’s poem talks about the starry night “…The night is starry and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance’” (Line 2 & 3) and then goes onto describe this women “Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.” (line 26). Which shows how the speaker sees the stars is the way he sees the women. With all these symbolic quotes goes

The speaker in Neruda’s poem has a sort of epiphany “To hear the immense night, still immense without her.” (line 13) that the night is still great and beautiful without her. Which leads to the ending verse “Through this be the last pain she makes me suffer/and these the last verses that I write for her.” (line 31-32) that finalizes where he is letting go. For Annie in Benders story, she reaches her limits of not “bear[ing] to look down into the water and not be able to find him at all” (paragraph 20) and so then she takes action. Annie then releases the salamander that is Ben into the ocean and waves. Showing the audience that Annie has let go as well, but still has hope of Ben returning. All in all, the speaker and narrator in in both works of literature are going through similar situations, and use similar literary devices to make the meaning behind the text meaningful and relatable to readers. At first it was a difficult connection to make, until you go passed the border line meaning of concentrating on why he Is going through reverse evolution but the feeling of it and how Annie is watching it all happen. Same goes for Neruda, getting passed the speaker just writing lyrics to express a break up but how he is getting through this situation by writing to express his feelings and letting it out, by putting meaning in a different