Elements of Magical Realism and Fantasy in The Donkey Prince

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Elements of Magical Realism and Fantasy in The Donkey Prince

"The Donkey Prince" is a short story written by Angela Carter in 1970. Carter is an English novelist. Her story is a mixture of fantasy, myth, and magical realism. I do believe that fantastical literature and magical realism are related in a lot of ways. As I read through the magical realism and fantastical novels, I noticed more similarities than differences.

Briefly, the story I read was about a young prince being transformed into a donkey. It was one of the witchcraft stories where the young boy/girl had to retrieve a certain thing to be transformed back into his/her normal self. A role of magical realism was played as well as fantastical literature. "Bring out the apple," said Terror. "I would give my name, my rank, and my reputation, as a warrior to possess even a quarter of your magic"(32). Magical Realism and fantastical literature are brought together by the fantasy of a young boy being transformed and the magic that would make that transformation happen.

The main character in this story is a donkey named Bruno. He played a magical role by being able to be a prince donkey. What was magical about the whole story was the people and creatures look at each other in different ways. As on earth, here in real life, people do not get the real magical idea of life.

This story gives a perfect example of what Faris says about John Updike's statement ,"Magical realism combines realism and the fantastic in such a way that magical elements grow organically out of elements portrayed"(Faris 163). Some of the elements are the donkey prince, Wild Men mountain, birds that sang, and a magic apple. A person could get a realization of magical realism and fantastical literature even by reading a children's story. Doing so takes an imagination in the adult life as well as the childs'. I think if a person does not involve the fantastic and the magical realism, the story is not as good.

The material that I read about fantastical literature stated that fantastic is portrayed as the indistinguishability between the real and the unreal. It has a preoccupation with style and an interest in transforming "the common and everyday into the awesome and the unreal"(Flores 114). This statement, to me, is a good comparison coming from two different views.

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