Jorge Luis Borges, the Argentine story writer, and Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, the master

of magical realism, can come up with interesting stories and use simple rhetorical devices.
Through The Two Kings and the Two Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges and Blacaman the
Good, Vendor of Miracles by Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, the authors use the rhetoric devices of
irony and magical realism to create a surreal effect on the stories tone.
Jorge Luis Borges conveys the theme of his story The Two Kings and the Two
Labyrinths by introducing the rhetorical device of irony into the story. The story starts off with
the king of Babylonia bidding his architects and priests to build him a labyrinth so confused and
so subtle that the most prudent men would not venture to enter it. When the architects finish
the baffling maze, the king of Babylonia orders the king of Arabs into the labyrinth to mock the
simplicity of his guest (Borges 105). Irony is being established here because when someone is
in a very complicated labyrinth, people are seeing if the person inside is capable of completing
it. When the king of Arabs finally got out, his lips offered no complaint (Borges 105). What he
did offer was the mentioning of another labyrinth (105) that was located in his land. As the
petulant king that he is, he returns to Babylonia and wreaks havoc upon the kingdom of
Babylonia. Not only did he wreak havoc, he also took the king of Babylonia himself captive
(105). The irony here is that the Arab king did not complain when he left the labyrinth but later
he brings down the kingdom of Babylonia and takes the king captive. After the king of Arabs
took the king of Babylonia on a three day trip in the desert, they stopped in the middle of
nowhere and the king of Arabs abandoned him in the middle of the desert, where he died of
hunger and thirst (Borges 105). The irony within this quote is that the king of Babylonia was
not able to get out of the desert, even when it had no obstacles such as walls. Borges uses
irony to send out a message saying that there is nothing more breathtaking than the work of
God.
Gabriel Garcia-Marquez also applies the same rhetorical device of irony to give the
reader a message saying that names can deceive people when they do not know their

background. The story follows a man known by the name Blacaman the Bad and his young
apprentice Blacaman the Good as they travel around the world trying to make a living out of
their products. Blacaman the Bad is your average street vendor who deludes people into
buying his product. We first see him when he is going demonstrate an antidote to his audience.
When he takes the antidote he had begun to puff up with the air of death and was twice as fat
as hed been before (Marquez 273). The irony within this quote is that the antidote starts to
almost kill him. We also see irony when Blacaman the Bad tortures his apprentice for bringing
bad luck to their business. The irony in this part of the story is that he is torturing a person that is
a lot more powerful than him and his products. Towards the end of the story we see more irony
when the apprentice calls himself Blacaman the Good. He gives himself this name because he
obtains healing powers and he has "gone through the world drawing the fever out of malaria
victims" (Marquez 279) and many other miracles. However when it comes to Blacaman the
Bad's death, Blacaman the Good keeps torturing him and it is not something that a good person
would do.
Magical realism is another rhetorical device that Jorge Luis Borges uses in The Two
Kings and the Two Labyrinths. The magical realism that Borges uses is with the king of
Babylonias labyrinth. The labyrinth was so huge, confusing, and subtle that most prudent men
would not venture to enter it (Borges 105). Jorge Luis Borges exhibits magical realism within
the labyrinth because it is a very big labyrinth that challenges most men and even God.
Gabriel Garcia- Marquez does the same with magical realism within Blacaman the
Good, Vendor of Miracles. Marquez expresses magical realism throughout the whole story. He
uses it when a commander of a cruiser had been changed into a glob of admiral jelly
( Marquez 276) by the antidote that Blacaman the Bad had created. Marquez creates a
magical feeling within the story by turning a man into jelly with an antidote.
Both authors use the rhetoric devices of irony and magical realism to produce a surreal
effect within the stories tone. The magical realism plays an important role in the surreal effect of

the story because realistics events or objects, such as Blacaman the Bad's antidotes, are given
fantasy elements that seem like normal events in the real world.
As a result of the two rhetorical devices giving the stories a surreal effect on the tone,
both stories can connect to each other. These two stories connect because the tone is a surreal
one. If one of the stories had different tone such as a horror tone then they could not connect.
The story with the horror tone might not have a surreal effect. Rhetorical devices create tones in
stories because they all have different purposes that they are used for. Irony can create different
tones by being ironic in different situations.
The use of irony and magical realism in the same text, is a very interesting combination
that makes it possible for the author to create a surreal effect. With the irony that the authors
use, it also gives them the ability to have an unpredictable outcomes.

Hugo,

You final draft is much improved from that original rough draft. Thanks for working hard
on this.
The area where you could improve the most is in clearly explaining why your quotes are
examples of irony, magical realism, etc. Also, make sure that you know the format for quotes.
There should NOT be a space between a quotation mark and the word.
GRADE: 43/50

Hugo Estrada
Mr. Cook
Honors ELA
11 November 2014

Marquez-Garca, Gabriel. "Blacaman the Good, Vendor of Miracles". United

States: Harper and Row, 1955. Print.

Borges- Luis, Jorge. "The Two Kings and the Two Labyrinths". Argentina: El
Hogar, 1939. Print.