Magical realism and man's search for meaning Magical realism is the way a person sees the world through a type of art. Magical realism deals with emotions and also discovers what is mysterious and significant in life. According to Franz Roh, painting is the way a person sees the world through art (18, 20). Magical Realism has many characteristics that include many other ideas. Magical realism can also be observed in other thematic fields, such as in Victor Frankl's logotherapy. Simpkins stated that “real life” is the “real magic” (152). He also said that realism is enhanced by magic (148-152). However, Leal believed that Magical Realism focused on the marvelous in the real (122). Amaryll Chanady believes that magical realism focuses more on reality (131). In Victor Frankl's novel Man's Search for Meaning, Frankl discusses how to find this magic in life in what he calls the will to meaning. Frankl, a twentieth-century psychiatrist, states that "life ultimately means taking responsibility for finding the right answer to one's problems and for fulfilling the tasks that it constantly assigns to each individual" (122). This concept is what he called the will to meaning. Some forms of will to meaning are hunger, humiliation, fear and deep anger at injustice (8). A certain importance of the will to meaning is that it had to find a sense of responsibility in its existence (9). One of the characteristics of the will for meaning was finding responsibility. In the story Like Water for Chocolate, a magical and realistic story, a girl named Tita found her circumstances so dire that she found meaning in her cooking and took responsibility for life. She was always heartbroken because she loved a man named Pedro and couldn't be with him. Therefore, he learned to have the responsibility of cooking. She could have rebelled and left, but she knew she had a responsibility to cook for her family and the man she loved. Tita found magic in her circumstances and saw the mundane as beautiful, helping her to live successfully in these dire circumstances. Magical realism can also be observed in other thematic fields, such as in Victor Frankl's logotherapy. Finding examples in other "real world" fields of study helps to understand magical realism as a worldview and its relevance to our daily lives. Just as Tita found magic and responsibility in what may have seemed mundane and not worth experiencing, so we can find it in our circumstances. Works Cited Esquivel, Laura. Like water fir chocolate. New York: Doubleday, 1989. Frankl, Victor E. Man's Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy. Boston, Mass.: Beacon Press, 1992. Roh, Franz. "Magical Realism: Post-Expressionism." Magical realism: theory, history, community. Ed. Lois Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B. Faris. Durkham, NC: Duke UP, 1995. 18, 20.