Magical Realism in Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife

The life of the time traveler in the novel written by Audrey Niffenegger is interesting to be discussed because the story of his life during his journey through different points of the time makes everyone can not deal with it. Since the journey of the time traveler is regarded as the illogical events, it can be categorized as the part of magical realism. This study aims to explore the five elements of magical realism which are portrayed in the novel The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger in order to find out whether the novel can be categorized as magical realist or not. The writer chooses this novel to be analyzed because the novel won the Exclusive Books Boeke Prize and a British Book Award and it has been adapted into a film.
This study applies a descriptive qualitative research because the data which is described and analyzed are in the form of words. The data of this study are characters’ utterances and author narration which contain five elements of magical realism. The data is collected by applying the intensive reading and highlighting the data. This study uses magical realism theory, especially five elements of magical realism proposed by Wendy B. Faris.
The result of the study shows that The Time Traveler’s Wife contains five elements of Magical Realism. Those are Irreducible Element, Phenomenal World, Unsettling Doubt, Merging Realms, and Disruption of Identity. The other result of this study is the Cultural History of Chicago where the time traveler lives.