Analysis: Gabriel Garcia Marquez is best known for the novels “One Hundred Years of Solitude” and “Love in a Time of Cholera,” where he introduced the world to magical realism. Magical realism is a literary genre in which magic or fantastical creatures appear in an otherwise realistic setting.
I’ve never been a fan of magical realism, but there is no arguing that Marquez is a masterful writer. His ability to paint pictures and create rich characters with an economy of words makes him worthy of his 1982 Nobel Prize for Literature.
His short story “One of These Days” isn’t magical realism. In fact, its brutal realism – the short – very short, in fact – story of the consequences of political corruption that lead to a massacre.
The story opens on a warm and rainless Monday morning. Aurelio Escovar, a dentist with no formal education, arrives at work and begins his mediocre tasks for the day. His tranquility is interrupted by the arrival of the village mayor. A light exchange with his son follows with a threat of violence if Escovar doesn’t see the mayor, who wants a decayed tooth pulled. The readers experience this exchange: