Representation of love and loss through magical realism in Leslye Walton's The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender

This research focuses on how love and loss are represented in a magical realist novel The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender penned by Leslye Walton. This research applies Wendy B. Faris’ characteristic of magical realism in order to uncover the magical realism within the novel and further modeled the representation of love and loss with John Alan Lee’s Colour Wheel of Love and Louise Hay-David Kessler’s typology of loss respectively. This research applies descriptive qualitative method. The result of this research confirms that this novel is truly a magical realist work of literature. All of the five characteristics of magical realism are found in the novel. They are: Ava’s wings, Viviane and Emilienne’s magical talents as the irreducible elements, their normal life as the phenomenal world, the doubts on Ava’s wings and Emilienne’s strangeness or the unsettling doubt, transformation and apparition in the merging realms, odd plant and seasons as the disruptions of time, space, and identity. The result also shows that the chosen main female characters are all experiencing love and loss that are all endowed and or represented by magical elements and events.