Part Three, Chapter Four
On the Creation of Magical Realist Fiction
Origins
Magical Realism is a literary narrative technique that blends reality with fantasy, presenting a world that is at once realistic and marvelous. This style originated in the early twentieth century and was initially used by the German art critic Franz Roh to describe an artistic approach that fused realism with fantastical elements.
I. Definition
Magical Realism is a narrative literary technique in which the causal relationships within a story often appear to contradict ordinary reality.
Characteristics
1. The Fusion of Reality and Fantasy
In works of magical realism, reality and fantasy are seamlessly integrated. Magical elements are treated as part of everyday life, and characters display no surprise at the appearance of supernatural phenomena.
2. The Use of Myth and Legend
Such works frequently draw upon myths, legends, and folk tales, endowing narratives with profound cultural significance and reflecting the historical and cultural backgrounds of specific regions.
3. The Blurring of Time and Space
The boundaries of time and space are often disrupted. The past, present, and future may intertwine, forming a nonlinear narrative structure.
4. Symbolism and Metaphor
Extensive use is made of symbols and metaphors, conveying abstract concepts through concrete imagery and deepening thematic meaning.
5. Social and Political Critique
Through fantastical narratives, these works critique real societies, exploring issues such as power, oppression, and economic inequality, reflecting the author’s dissatisfaction with and reflection on social reality.
6. Multiple Perspectives and Narrators
Works may adopt multiple viewpoints or unreliable narrators, increasing narrative complexity and depth while inviting readers to interpret meaning independently.
Magical realism is particularly prominent in Latin American literature. Writers such as Gabriel García Márquez and Jorge Luis Borges have produced many classic works using this technique.
II. Narrative Techniques
Magical realist fiction employs distinctive narrative strategies that merge reality and fantasy, allowing surreal elements to appear natural and plausible within the real world. The following is an organized analysis of its major narrative methods:
1. Seamless Integration of Reality and the Magical
Magical elements are not abrupt intrusions but coexist naturally with reality, creating what may be termed “the everydayization of fantasy.” Characters are not astonished by supernatural events. This technique of defamiliarization makes magical phenomena part of reality itself.
Example:
In García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, characters ascend into the sky and ghosts converse with the living, yet such occurrences are accepted as ordinary by those around them.
2. Nonlinear Narration of Time and Space
Magical realist fiction often breaks linear chronology, allowing past, present, and future to interweave. Sometimes cyclical time is employed, creating a sense of recurrence or fate.
Example:
In Juan Rulfo’s Pedro Páramo, the memories of the dead intertwine multiple timelines, producing a blurred perception of time.
3. Multiple Perspectives and Unreliable Narrators
Stories may be told through multiple narrators, enabling readers to interpret events from various angles and increasing interpretive complexity.
Unreliable narrators may be used to cast doubt on the truth of events, enhancing mystery.
Example:
Borges frequently constructs narrators whose accounts blur fiction and reality, forming labyrinthine narrative structures.
4. Intensification of Symbolism and Metaphor
Surreal phenomena are often used to express deeper realities such as social critique, cultural allegory, or historical reflection.
Example:
In One Hundred Years of Solitude, the “yellow butterflies” symbolize love and fate, while the rain lasting four years, eleven months, and two days symbolizes catastrophic transformation.
5. Social and Political Criticism
Many magical realist works use surreal events to metaphorically expose corruption, authoritarianism, violence, and poverty.
Example:
Love in the Time of Cholera uses disease as a metaphor for social confinement and repression, while One Hundred Years of Solitude portrays the cyclical destiny of Latin American history.
6. Poetic and Mythic Language Style
The language is often poetic, rich in symbolism and metaphor. Narrative techniques may draw from folklore, mythology, and religious tales, giving stories a legendary quality.
Example:
In Pedro Páramo, fragmented, brief dialogues create a ghostly atmosphere.
7. Heightened Realism in Detail
Although fantasy elements are present, realistic descriptions remain precise and meticulous, lending credibility to the magical aspects. This “magical realism grounded in realism” allows readers to naturally accept the supernatural.
Example:
The banana plantation massacre in One Hundred Years of Solitude, though exaggerated, is based on historical events, intensifying its emotional impact.
Summary
Through the fusion of reality and fantasy, nonlinear time, multiple perspectives, unreliable narration, symbolism, social critique, poetic language, and precise realism, magical realist fiction constructs a distinctive narrative style. It transcends reality while deeply reflecting it, establishing magical realism as one of the most significant literary movements of the twentieth century.
III. Common Expressive Techniques with Examples
Magical realist fiction merges reality with the supernatural, presenting an ordinary-looking world filled with wonder and the extraordinary. Its unique techniques make strange events appear natural and allow supernatural phenomena to coexist with daily life.
1. Interweaving of Reality and Fantasy
Fantasy and reality are seamlessly linked, often making it difficult to distinguish between them. Ordinary life and miracles unfold within the same time and space.
Example:
In One Hundred Years of Solitude, the residents of Macondo accept supernatural occurrences as normal. Remedios the Beauty is swept into the sky by a gust of wind and ascends to heaven naturally, without narrative rupture.
2. Miracles in Everyday Life
Magical realist works normalize miracles and mysterious events, granting them equal status with ordinary occurrences.
Example:
In Love in the Time of Cholera, Florentino’s enduring love is portrayed through symbolic expressions as a kind of magical force—unrealistic in social reality, yet emotionally real within the characters’ inner worlds.
3. Symbolism and Metaphor
Supernatural elements frequently symbolize deeper social, political, or psychological meanings.
Example:
In Snow Falling Upon Red Flowers, snowfall symbolizes subtle shifts in human emotion, becoming a metaphor for inner psychological states.
4. Nonlinear Structures of Time and Space
Time and space are distorted to emphasize their relativity and cyclical nature.
Example:
One Hundred Years of Solitude employs cyclical time to show recurring destinies and historical repetition.
5. Parallel Existence of Mystery and Reality
Mystical elements coexist with real-world life without explanation.
Example:
In Isabel Allende’s The House of the Spirits, ghosts and spirits live alongside the living as ordinary members of the family.
6. Normalization of Supernatural Characters and Events
Supernatural beings and occurrences are depicted without emotional emphasis, reinforcing their ordinariness.
Example:
In The House of the Spirits, interactions with the dead are treated as everyday experiences rather than sources of fear.
7. Distinctive Use of Language and Tone
Language is poetic, symbolic, and metaphorical, enhancing the vividness of magical phenomena.
Example:
Márquez’s richly lyrical descriptions of Macondo infuse ordinary scenes with mystery and symbolic depth.
Conclusion
Through the seamless blending of reality and fantasy, everyday life with miracles, nonlinear time, parallel realms of mystery and reality, symbolism, and unconventional narrative structures, magical realist fiction constructs a richly layered world. By presenting unexplained magical events as natural, employing metaphor and poetic language, it reveals the complexity and abundance of human experience.
IV. A Narratological Analysis of One Hundred Years of Solitude
One Hundred Years of Solitude is the representative masterpiece of Gabriel García Márquez. It combines techniques of magical realism while profoundly depicting the relationships among family, history, and society. Through an examination of narrative person and perspective, as well as the structural organization of the plot, we can arrive at a more precise understanding of this work.
1. Narrative Person and Perspective
Narrative Person:
One Hundred Years of Solitude adopts a third-person omniscient point of view. The narrator is not a character within the novel but an external observer who can freely enter the inner worlds of every character, revealing their thoughts, emotions, and motivations.
The narration of events is comprehensive and is carried out in a manner that transcends time and space.
Perspective:
Although the novel is narrated in the third person, the perspective becomes highly subjective and introspective in certain sections, especially when portraying the inner lives of members of the Buendía family.
At times, the narrator shifts into the viewpoint of a particular character, exploring that character’s perceptions and mental processes. However, the narrative perspective is not confined to any single consciousness; rather, it functions like a multidimensional camera capable of freely shifting among viewpoints.
For example, readers are able to observe the inner worlds of multiple characters, whose narrative lines intertwine, forming a composite and layered narrative structure.
In some passages, the narrator employs a calm and objective tone, presenting events as if they were factual statements. Yet within these seemingly detached descriptions, there often appears a delicate portrayal of supernatural phenomena, allowing the atmosphere in which fantasy and reality coexist to unfold naturally.
2. Plot Structure
(1) Introduction / Beginning
The story opens with the death of Doctor Urbino, which then leads into the family history of José Arcadio Buendía and his wife Úrsula.
Through a series of compelling details, readers come to understand the destiny of the Buendía family and its relationship with the town of Macondo.
This opening lays the foundation for the fate of the entire family and introduces several central themes, such as solitude, destiny, history, and cyclical repetition.
(2) Development
As José Arcadio Buendía becomes obsessively devoted to scientific experiments and alchemy, the family’s fate gradually begins to follow a mysterious and elusive trajectory.
Each generation of the Buendía family pursues its own desires and suffers its own tragedies. The growth, romances, and conflicts of the family members run throughout the narrative.
The novel unfolds through the stories of different characters—from José Arcadio and Amaranta to Aureliano Buendía—whose destinies intertwine and continually propel the plot forward.
(3) Turning Point
The turning point of the novel may be regarded as the development of the relationship between Amaranta and Aureliano Buendía, particularly Amaranta’s extreme attitudes toward love and solitude, and her decision to sever ties with the family’s historical legacy.
At the same time, the destiny of the Buendía family seems to reach a critical juncture, as if everything were moving toward either an end or a transformation.
(4) Conflict
The conflicts in One Hundred Years of Solitude extend beyond internal family tensions to include struggles between individuals and history, as well as destiny.
Members of the Buendía family not only contend with issues of love, power, and belief, but also confront an inescapable cycle of fate—one in which each generation appears to repeat the errors and tragedies of its predecessors.
This profound historical conflict embodies the central theme of the novel: humanity’s helplessness and resistance in the face of historical forces and predetermined destiny.
(5) Climax
The climax centers on Aureliano Buendía (of the second generation), who undergoes intense internal struggles alongside external conflicts.
Especially as the family’s fate alternates and evolves across different historical periods, the novel reaches emotional and narrative peaks through its surreal treatment of time and space.
During Aureliano’s wars, the family’s past and future intersect. His struggles represent resistance against the family’s destined fate, yet at the same time suggest an inability to escape it.
(6) Suspense
The novel’s suspense primarily arises from the destiny of the Buendía family, which appears doomed to repeat itself in cycles.
With the disappearance of each generation and the arrival of the next, readers continually wonder whether the family can break free from the chains of solitude and fate.
Is there a possibility of altering destiny, or will everything inevitably move toward the same conclusion, just as history has done before?
(7) Resolution
The story reaches its resolution when Aureliano Buendía (the final generation) uncovers the secrets of the family’s history.
Ultimately, he discovers the origins of the family’s fate and the cyclical nature of its history, all of which point toward the destruction of Macondo.
The novel concludes with the end of the Buendía family’s lineage, and with it, the fate of the town itself comes to an end upon the death of the last Buendía.
At the same time, the final written prophecy reveals that everything had already been predetermined—
—the entire story of the family had long been destined to occur.
(8) Twist or Cliffhanger
The ending of the novel is not a traditional resolution that neatly ties up all conflicts, but rather an ultimate revelation of the family’s history.
Although the family’s tragedy comes to an end, the author suggests—through the full disclosure of the family’s past—the irresistible power of fate and its relentless repetition.
The twist lies in the fact that despite exploring countless possibilities, the Buendía family ultimately fails to escape the constraints of destiny.
This conclusion is filled with profound reflection on time, history, and fate.
Summary
Through layered narrative techniques, complex character relationships, and rich symbolism, One Hundred Years of Solitude presents a multidimensional story world.
The novel’s narrative structure is intimately connected to its conception of time, collectively revealing a cyclical vision of history and the ruthless repetition of destiny.
By means of an omniscient third-person perspective, García Márquez successfully fuses fantasy and reality, constructing a world that transcends ordinary time and space, thereby establishing One Hundred Years of Solitude as a classic work of magical realism.
V. Representative Writers and Works
Magical realist fiction emerged as a distinctive literary movement during the boom of Latin American literature in the twentieth century and subsequently influenced world literature. The following are several major representative writers and brief analyses of their classic works:
1. Gabriel García Márquez
Representative Work: One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967)
Story Overview:
The novel recounts the rise and decline of seven generations of the Buendía family in the town of Macondo, filled with magical elements such as ghosts, ascensions into the sky, endless rain, and inescapable curses.
Key Themes:
Fatalism, historical cycles, social transformation in Latin America, solitude, and human nature. The novel portrays colonial history, political violence, and issues of cultural identity in Latin America.
Representative Work: Love in the Time of Cholera (1985)
Story Overview:
The novel depicts a love story between Fermina and Florentino that spans over half a century, unfolding within a reality infused with elements of fantasy.
Key Themes:
Love, destiny, the passage of time, and disease as metaphor. Cholera symbolizes the feverish intensity of love, while the novel explores human obsession and emotional fixation.
2. Juan Rulfo
Representative Work: Pedro Páramo (1955)
Story Overview:
The protagonist Juan Preciado travels to his hometown of Comala in search of his father, Pedro Páramo, only to discover that the town is lifeless. Reality intertwines with the memories of the dead, creating a surreal temporal landscape.
Key Themes:
Death, destiny, authoritarian power, and social desolation. Through ghostly narration, the novel critiques the corruption and violence of Mexico’s feudal society.
3. Jorge Luis Borges
Representative Work: The Garden of Forking Paths (1941)
Story Overview:
The story follows a Chinese-German spy, Yu Tsun, who recalls his grandfather’s unfinished novel during his escape. The novel within the story depicts a universe composed of countless intersecting timelines, revealing the concept of multiple realities.
Key Themes:
Nonlinear time, choice and destiny, and infinite possibilities. The story explores philosophical and mathematical concepts of parallel universes, challenging traditional notions of reality.
Representative Work: The Library of Babel (1941)
Story Overview:
The story describes an infinite library containing all possible books. Most of them are meaningless, plunging humanity into endless searching.
Key Themes:
The infinity of knowledge, cosmic chaos, and the boundaries between reality and fiction. Through symbolism, the story reflects humanity’s quest for meaning and truth.
4. Isabel Allende
Representative Work: The House of the Spirits (1982)
Story Overview:
The novel chronicles the fate of three generations of the Trueba family. Some family members possess supernatural abilities such as foresight and communication with the dead. The narrative spans periods of political turmoil in Chile.
Key Themes:
Feminism, political dictatorship, family destiny, and supernatural phenomena. The novel reveals class struggles in Latin American society and highlights women’s roles within historical upheavals.
5. Miguel Ángel Asturias
Representative Work: Men of Maize (1949)
Story Overview:
Blending Mayan mythology with modern reality, the novel portrays conflicts between indigenous communities and colonial forces. The protagonist Gonzalo is an indigenous leader endowed with mystical powers.
Key Themes:
Indigenous culture, colonial domination, and the opposition between nature and modernity. The novel presents the Mayan worldview while criticizing Western oppression of native cultures.
6. Salman Rushdie
Representative Work: Midnight’s Children (1981)
Story Overview:
The protagonist Saleem is born at the moment of India’s independence and possesses telepathic powers that connect him with a thousand other children born at the same hour. Their destinies intertwine with that of the nation.
Key Themes:
Indian history, national identity, supernatural abilities, and political transformation. Magical elements serve as metaphors for social upheaval.
7. Toni Morrison
Representative Work: Beloved (1987)
Story Overview:
The novel tells the story of Sethe, an enslaved woman who kills her young daughter to prevent her from being returned to slavery. The daughter’s ghost later returns in the form of “Beloved,” haunting Sethe’s conscience.
Key Themes:
Racial trauma, slavery, motherhood, and supernatural retribution. The ghost motif exposes the psychological scars left by America’s history of slavery.
Concluding Summary
The representative writers and works of magical realism intertwine reality with the supernatural to explore themes such as history, politics, destiny, feminism, and racial conflict across diverse cultural contexts.
These works not only achieved major literary innovations but also profoundly influenced later narrative techniques and thematic exploration.
VI. The Profound Influence of Magical Realism on Literature and Film
Magical Realism is a narrative style that combines elements of reality and magic, and it has exerted a profound influence on global literature and cinema.
It breaks through the boundaries of traditional realism, allowing magical phenomena to merge seamlessly with the real world, enabling readers and audiences to experience a sense of the supernatural within familiar environments.
The following analysis examines its influence from multiple perspectives, supported by specific examples.
(I) Influence on Literature
1. Subverting Traditional Narrative Modes and Creating Nonlinear Temporal Structures
Characteristics:
Works of magical realism often abandon linear concepts of time, adopting cyclical narration, temporal leaps, or multiple perspectives, thereby making narrative structures more layered and complex.
Example:
Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude employs a cyclical pattern of family history in which time interweaves across generations, expressing a sense of fate and eternal recurrence.
2. Redefining Reality and Strengthening Symbolism and Allegory
Characteristics:
The real world is endowed with symbolic meaning, and everyday events frequently carry deep cultural metaphors, and even political satire.
Example:
Juan Rulfo’s Pedro Páramo fuses the ghosts of the dead with reality, symbolizing the decay of Mexican society and the sinking of collective memory.
3. Deep Exploration of Identity and National Culture
Characteristics:
Through magical elements, these works portray historical trauma, cultural rupture, and processes of reconstruction among different ethnic groups, emphasizing the uniqueness of national identity.
Example:
Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children uses supernatural abilities as metaphors for social transformations following India’s independence, illustrating the interweaving of national and personal destinies.
4. Advancing Feminist Writing by Granting Women Supernatural Powers
Characteristics:
Many female characters in magical realist novels possess mystical abilities such as foresight and spirit communication, symbolizing women’s awakening and resistance within society.
Example:
In Isabel Allende’s The House of the Spirits, the female protagonist can communicate with the dead, demonstrating women’s strength amid family and political upheaval.
(II) Influence on Film
1. Reshaping Cinematic Narrative by Blurring the Boundary Between Reality and Fantasy
Characteristics:
Influenced by magical realism, filmmakers blur the line between reality and fantasy in visual expression, allowing supernatural phenomena to become part of the characters’ everyday lives rather than sudden external disruptions.
Examples:
2. Symbolization of Visual Language and Intensification of Allegorical Meaning
Characteristics:
Magical realist films frequently employ surreal imagery to metaphorically represent society, history, and individual psychological states.
Examples:
3. Enhancing Regional Cultural Identity and Expanding the Boundaries of World Cinema
Characteristics:
Magical realist films often integrate local cultural contexts, rooting surreal elements in national history and tradition.
Examples:
4. Influencing the Development of Animation and Fantasy Cinema
Characteristics:
Animated films in particular have been deeply influenced by magical realism, with seamless transitions between reality and fantasy becoming a common narrative technique.
Examples:
III. Summary: The Global Impact of Magical Realism
|
Field |
Main Characteristics |
Representative Works |
|
Literature |
Nonlinear time, fusion of reality and magic, strong symbolism and allegory |
One Hundred Years of Solitude, Midnight’s Children, Pedro Páramo |
|
Film Narrative |
Seamless integration of reality and fantasy |
Pan’s Labyrinth, Birdman, Big Fish |
|
Visual Symbolism |
Surreal imagery strengthening social metaphor |
Perfume, Underground |
|
Cultural Expansion |
Integration of regional culture and national identity |
Eat Drink Man Woman, Coco |
|
Animation |
Fusion of reality and fantasy, construction of fantastical worlds |
Spirited Away, Coco |
Magical realism has not only shaped an entirely new narrative mode in literature but has also profoundly influenced cinematic visual expression, enabling global audiences to develop a deeper understanding of the relationship between reality and fantasy.
VII. Magical Realist Novel Writing Project
Title: The Gift of Time
(I) Story Background and Setting
1. Setting
The story takes place in a remote small town surrounded by mountains and forests—Cuiyun Town.
This town is considered isolated from the modern world: outsiders rarely enter, and the residents themselves are reluctant to leave.
Numerous mysterious legends circulate within the town, the most famous being the story of the “Time Box.”
According to legend, this box has the power to distort time, enabling people to return to the past or foresee the future.
However, the box can only be activated by a “fortunate person,” and such individuals often unknowingly alter their destinies.
2. Time and Space
This novel will employ magical realist techniques, blending ordinary life with supernatural phenomena.
Time will function not only as a physical reality within the story but also as a crucial driving force of the plot.
Through the flow, stagnation, and reversal of time, the narrative will present a tableau depicting how the protagonist makes choices at the intersection of past and future and accepts the consequences of those choices.
(II) Main Characters
Li Anna
The protagonist of the novel, approximately twenty-five years old, a young woman from outside the town.
She is deeply curious about the town’s mysterious legends and comes to Cuiyun Town following her mother’s death.
After experiencing her mother’s sudden passing, Li Anna is filled with emptiness and confusion. She hopes to trace the remnants of her mother’s life and uncover the secrets of the Time Box.
Chen Nian
An elderly man in the town, around seventy years old, and a former friend of Li Anna’s mother.
His eyes have lost their brightness, yet he seems to know far more about the Time Box than others.
Chen Nian carries a deep sense of historical weight and serves as the town’s “Guardian of Time,” often immersed in memories of the past.
Anyone who encounters him feels an intense sense of temporal dislocation.
Xiao Liang
A young man Li Anna meets in the town, around thirty years old.
As the town’s postman, he is familiar with every path and alley and is well loved by the residents.
There is a peculiar magnetic aura about him, and he unconsciously drifts through the currents of time.
He feels both fear and longing toward the legend of the Time Box, sensing an unresolved pull within himself.
Ye Xia
Li Anna’s mother, remembered as both mysterious and gentle.
She was a renowned doctor in the town, possessing special abilities to cure difficult and unusual illnesses.
Her death and the diary she leaves behind become the key to Li Anna’s uncovering of the Time Box’s secret.
(III) Plot Structure
1. Introduction / Beginning
The story begins with the death of Li Anna’s mother.
Li Anna inherits the old house of her mother, Ye Xia, in Cuiyun Town and decides to move there to take care of the affairs left behind by her mother.
While sorting through her mother’s belongings, she discovers a diary filled with mysterious records about the “Time Treasure Box” and “choices of destiny.”
Li Anna becomes deeply intrigued by these entries and decides to investigate further into the town’s past and the secret of the treasure box.
2. Development
During her life in the town, Li Anna meets Chen Nian and Xiao Liang.
Chen Nian tells Li Anna that the existence of the Time Treasure Box is closely connected to the town’s history, and that the destinies of many families are intertwined with it.
Xiao Liang, in a casual conversation, mentions that he once unintentionally touched the legendary location of the Time Treasure Box. From that moment on, however, his life began to grow unstable, as if time itself had started to affect him abnormally.
Under Chen Nian’s guidance, Li Anna begins exploring every corner of the town in search of clues about the treasure box.
Accompanied by Xiao Liang, she also visits elderly residents of the town and gradually learns that the people of Cuiyun Town seem trapped in an inescapable phenomenon of “time loops.”
At the same time, Li Anna realizes that her mother’s diary not only records hidden secrets but also suggests a mysterious connection between herself and the treasure box.
3. Turning Point
By chance, Li Anna discovers the treasure box hidden inside an ancient abandoned warehouse outside the town.
After she touches the box, time begins to behave strangely — within a few seconds, she is transported back to the past and encounters her mother in her youth.
Li Anna gradually becomes aware that the power of the treasure box far exceeds her imagination.
Each time she comes into contact with it, time is pulled back to a different moment.
She witnesses her mother’s life at various stages and also sees fragments of her own childhood.
4. Conflict
As Li Anna continues to explore the power of the treasure box, she slowly realizes that it not only alters the flow of time but also reshapes human destiny.
With every use of the box, she makes new choices, yet each choice brings unforeseeable consequences.
She begins to face a painful dilemma — whether to change the past and save her mother from death, or to preserve the present and accept the arrangement of fate.
Meanwhile, Xiao Liang’s life becomes increasingly chaotic.
He starts experiencing frequent temporal dislocations, where the boundaries between past and future grow blurred.
Li Anna gradually senses that Xiao Liang seems to harbor a secret closely connected to the treasure box.
5. Climax
During a major temporal distortion, Li Anna and Xiao Liang are drawn into a violent conflict of time and space.
The power of the treasure box spirals out of control — part of the town is dragged into the past, while another part is hurled into the future.
Li Anna must make a difficult decision:
whether to destroy the treasure box to stop its impact on the townspeople and her own life, or to continue using it in order to alter her destiny.
6. Resolution
In the end, Li Anna chooses to destroy the treasure box in order to prevent further temporal chaos.
However, at the moment of its destruction, she realizes that she can no longer return to the past, and that her mother’s death has become an irreversible reality.
She comes to understand that the meaning of life lies not in retracing the past, but in living in the present and cherishing every moment before her.
7. Twist or Cliffhanger
At the conclusion of the story, Li Anna returns to her original home in Cuiyun Town and stands in the place where her mother once lived.
She discovers that her mother had foreseen everything long ago and left behind a final sentence in her diary:
“Time belongs to no one — it belongs to everyone.”
In the final scene, Li Anna realizes that although she has destroyed the treasure box, unknown temporal secrets still linger within the town, and that other unsolved mysteries may yet await her discovery.
(IV) Writing Style and Techniques
1. Fusion of Magical and Realistic Elements
The story intertwines everyday reality with supernatural phenomena through detailed and sensitive descriptions.
Temporal dislocations and emotional transformations of the characters become the novel’s core driving forces.
2. Multiple Perspectives
The narrative unfolds through the viewpoints of Li Anna, Xiao Liang, and Chen Nian, revealing each character’s inner conflicts and personal growth.
3. Symbolism and Metaphor
The “Time Treasure Box” and the town’s history function as symbols of the cruelty of time and the inescapability of fate, while metaphorically suggesting humanity’s tendency to repeat its mistakes throughout history.
4. Temporal Structure
The story adopts a non-linear narrative structure, employing flashbacks and foreshadowing to portray the flow of time and humanity’s desire to control it.
