Death's Culinary Blessing Magical Realism

In order to compare and contrast the use of magical realism elements in short stories, we asked ChatGPT to write a story of its own. Magical realism is a genre popular in Latin American literature that blends fantastical elements and real life by depicting magic as if it was ordinary. The prompt ‘write a magical realism short story about a chef whose meals are controlled by death’ generated a story about a chef named Isabella who owns a small but popular restaurant. Her secret to good food is that the Grim Reaper himself blesses each meal. However, even an AI author has its limitations. “Death’s Culinary Blessing” reveals that ChatGPT fails to absorb the reader into the created world, resulting in a story more fantastical than magical realist.

Similarly, in the short story “Two Words” by Isabel Allende included in her novel The Stories of Eva Luna, the protagonist Bella Crepusculario has a mind full of words that she sells to her customers. Isabella’s food is special because she is gifted with help from the dead. Even after an honest conversation with the critics, the influx of both new and old customers to Isabella’s restaurant didn’t diminish because “even though they knew the truth about the Grim Reaper, they didn't care” (OpenAI). Isabella’s customers are loyal to her restaurant because her food “seemed to touch their souls” and that feeling could not be replicated by anybody else in the world. In this case, Isabella is similar to the protagonist of “Two Words” because both Isabella’s food and Belisa’s words are unforgettable. In “Two Words,” the colonel’s behavior after his meeting with Belisa was so concerning that El Mulato tracked her down in order to force her to undo the curse. The impact of the two words Belisa gifted to the colonel was so impressive because “a spell whispered into his ear had done what years of battle had not been able to do” (Allende 12). It was surprising that a man so battle-worn and feared would lose himself so drastically to a woman he met once. Like Isabella’s food, Belisa’s knowledge and

On the other hand, in “Feather Pillow” by Horacio Quiroga, the moral is ambiguous and is open to interpretation. The customers in “Death’s Culinary Blessing” love the meals so much that even despite the secret Isabella revealed, “they were grateful to be able to experience it” (OpenAI). Isabella’s food left such an impression on their palettes and even souls that they will value the experience for the rest of their lives. Throughout the story, the AI places a lot of emphasis on the magic these meals create and how that magic is still appreciated when the truth is alarming. The last paragraph of “Death’s Culinary Blessing” reveals the lesson of the story to be about gratitude and recognition. However, the moral in “Feather Pillow” is not revealed in the last paragraph. Instead, Quiroga describes the parasite, listing characteristics of the creature. “Human blood is something they particularly favour, and it is not unusual to find them in a feather pillow.” This quote shows that the moral of this short story is ambiguous because typically the moral can be determined based on the last few sentences of the story. Here, the moral is unclear because Quiroga chooses to allow the readers to determine the lesson of the story for themselves. Where ChatGPT uses word choice and emotions to communicate the thematic argument, Quiroga uses