Characteristics of Magical Realism in If Dinosaurs Were Cats And Dogs :: Dinosaurs Were Cats And Dogs Essays

Characteristics of Magical Realism in If Dinosaurs Were Cats And Dogs      Ã‚  Ã‚   "If Dinosaurs Were Cats And Dogs" is a short story written by Colin McNaughton. "If Dinosaurs were Cats And Dogs" was published in 1981. It is classified under the fantastic sublime. However, based on the analysis of "If Dinosaurs were Cats And Dogs" one would believe that magical realism is a genre of the sublime.    While reading "If Dinosaurs Were Cats And Dogs", one comes upon the illustrations in the book. Through out all of the illustrations, the people are on a smaller scale then the animals. Scale is a sign of a sublime work. It creates a mood of nature being more important than humans or anything else for that matter. Scale, when used in sublime works, sets a universal or macroscopic tone.    I would confidently maintain that nothing contributes so decisively to the grand style as a noble emotion in the right setting, when it forces its way to the surface in a gust of frenzy, and breathes a kind of divine inspiration into the speaker's words (Longinus 109). Longinus is explaining how a moment in a story line becomes clear to the reader out of a turbulent setting. It is considered by Longinus to be a perfect specimen of the sublime. In the short story "If Dinosaurs Were Cats And Dogs", many examples of the emotion force their way to the surface in an uncontrollable frenzy. A good example from "If Dinosaurs Were Cats And Dogs' would be this excerpt: " This snake is over ten miles long, which makes it very hard to steer. When people shout, "Look out! Look Out! Its head's too far away to hear"(McNaughton 21). In the excerpt from the story, when it is explained that even though people are shouting for the snake to watch where it is going, the snake can't hear because the it's head is ten miles away. This is a brilliant examples of sublime literature.    Although "If Dinosaurs Were Cats and Dogs" is classified as fantastic sublime, the story has many examples of magical realism within its pages. The way in which the animals in the story are humungous is one of the many examples of magical realism. A parrot that is twenty-nine feet tall is extraordinary. Even more extraordinary is a snake that is ten miles long.