Fantasy Essay Ideas
Rhetorics of Fantasy (intro)
"dependent on the dialect between author and reader for the construction of a sense of wonder, that it is a fiction of consensual construction of belief"
fantasy succeeds when fulfil's reader's expectations
"the completed future" - 'the enclosed world or pocket universe' - elicit more levels of emotional response
Schlobin: "key to the fantastic is how its universes work, which is sometimes where they are, but is always why and how they are"
Attebery: "narrative devices that establish a relationship between the fantasy world and our own while at the same time separating the two"
4 categories
portal-quest
'invited through into the fatastic'
intrusion
'the fantastic enters the fictional world'
liminal
'the magic hovers in the corner of our eye'
immersive
'we are allowed no escape'
Clute - quadripartite template
wrongness --> thinning --> recognition --> healing/return
even tho world can have "always" existed, defined by protagonist's negotiating and learning about new world
Rhetorics (Portal-Quest Fantasy)
Many are quest fantasies - destiny big player
companion-audience
reader depends on protag to decode
portals
this world --> other
youth --> adulthood
the fantasy doesn't leak - where does this leave warrior cats?
TRANSITION and EXPLORATION
quests have full worlds but use structure of portal which assumed protag and reader are naive
mundane --> fantastical
HP and Warrior Cats seem to go from intrusion --> portal (HP in every book bc go home, WC just at start)
if protag understands world then goes to world they don't, it's fantasy
condition of land reflects morality of place (clans/nature)
many allegorical to religion - WC has own religion
'fantasy...relies on a moral universe: it is less an argument with the universe than a sermon on the way things should be, a belief that the universe should yield to moral precepts'
portal-quests structured around 'reward and the straight and narrow path'
deny ideas of "history as argument" - history is "the past", it is set
'recruit cartography to provide a fixed narrative'
quest not only in future ahead but also posited by past behind
Maps
Jones
'substitute for place, and an indication that we have to travel; they also, however, fix the interpretation of a landscape'
'maps are no more geography than chronology and legend are history, but in portal-quest fantasies, they complete the denial of discourse'
defined by two elements - MAP & FIXED PAST
Clute - "full-fantasy"
'the novels presume a thinned world, one in which wrongness already exists'
past tense --> make real (either fantasy or frame world)
Literary Cats (do cats cross the boundary between mundane and fantasy?) (https://muse.jhu.edu/article/369116/pdf)
T. S. Elliot
'the naming of cats;
cats belong to both mundane and extraordinary world
other cats
cat in the fact (intrusion fantasy?)
cheshire cat
Harry Potter - McGonagall and Crookshanks
C kept trying to kill peter
cats both benevolent and evil
'most frequently cats were ascribed mystical and magical powers'
tradition tying together witches and cats
tradition of witches turning into cats (as seen in HP)
how we perceive cats
wander all over 'with no respect for the high and mighty' --> transgress boundaries humans can not
Tom Kitten --> transition childhood --> adulthood
McGonahall and Umbridge BOTH have cat patronus
Filch (half way between magic and not) - connection w cat - look the same
fairytale cats
intelligence and speech assopciated w cats
the king of cats --> suggests cats have a realm of their own
half animals / half divine
puss in boots
helps man get his inheritance from evil brothers
cat but human
kills "ogre" when it is a mouse - using cat skills
'mysterious double nature of the cat'
'a tomcat is expected to be adventurous and mischievous. She-cats are, as earlier mentioned, connected to feminine witchcraft, shape-shifting, mystery, and sexuality;
male trickster cat
'because of their trickster nature, cats can be easily employed as carnival figures, turning order into chaos and interrogating higher authorities'
the Cat in the Hat 'incorporates both the trickster and the magical helper aspect of the folklore cat'
'attack on parental authority'
but has to be reinstated at the end
mimetic and symbolic
'use of cat images [as] metaphoric, symbolic, allegorical'
the last black cat explains holocaust to kids
'cats' alleged connection with evil, their otherness'
Dreamworlds
Cheshire
versus pet cat, Dinah
'in Alice's imagination Dinah is a liminal figure...and a most tangible link between the strange Wonderland and the secure home'
'instead of a Wise Old Woman in feline shape we meet a trickster more suitable for a masculine, patricidal story'
'mythical guide'
both trickster and benevolent guide
the only one in Wonderland who is nice to Alice
'an image of an image', changing depending on setting
removed from the plot - just a guide
Coraline
'haughty black cat' belongs to both worlds - it is NOT reflected double (like Coraline)
'I'm not the other anything. I'm me...You people are spread all over the place. Cats, on the other hand, keep ourselves together"
'We know who we are, so we don't need names'
'in this novel, as in many others, the ability of cats to breach fluctuant boundaries between alternative worlds is masterly exploited'
Helpers and guides
'in modern fairy tales and fantasy, cats are widely featured as magical helpers and bearers of magical powers, especially assisting the hero in transportation between the everyday and magical realm'
Lyra (dark Materials) - Pan often a cat
Confused teenagers
'the captivating mixture of feral-child novel and mystical fantasy by Erin W. Hunter, Warriot Cats
The series can also be read as an allegory, or rather metaphor, following the typical story line of an adolescent gang novel (p. 18)
'to counterbalance the harsh social realism, in Warrior Cats, strong elements of the occult are woven into the story'
blend of genres - 'high fantasy' with 'adolescent gang novel'
'allegorical dimension' means doesn't have to be mimetic
cats means adult themes (pg 264) - including repressed sexuality in domestic space (castration at start)
'using cats as a disguise for human beings'
metatextual liminal boundary
Into the wild
'yet it necessarily alienates the reader by the exterior and life conditions of the characters'
cats are 'the most popular figures in all kinds of stories'
''the reason can be the unquestionable appeal of the felines originating in their mystical nature, their independence and cunning, and the peculiar combination of devotion and treachery'
'the only figure other than Alice who encompasses all the others'
Empson - 'spiritual kinship between Alice and the Cat'
only creature in Wonderland Alice calls her 'friend'
Lennon - Cheshire as Dinah's dream-self
'the Cat only grinned when it saw Alice'
only one to connect madness, Wonderland, and Alice
'the only character in the book who is aware of his own madness;
'total control over his appearance and disappearance'
duality
'and welcomes little fishes in,/ With gently smiling jaws'
'make itself visible or invisible at will...flicker abruptly in or out of sight'
Joins Alice when she asks (reluctantly) - 'beginning at one end or the other'
can't be beheaded - king argues can bc head, executioner says no bc no body (duality)
9 lives cats in folklore (https://www.jstor.org/stable/1259482) [review]
'we all know that it is cats who have nine lives'
cats in folklore and belief - https://academic.oup.com/nq/article/CLXIX/sep21/201/4195168?login=true
'the wtch commonly takes the form of a cat' (Eichler)
'the distribution of beliefs connected with cats is literally universal and that everywhere the cat is associated with rain'
Kipling - the cat that walked by himself
'the wildest of all the wild animals was the Cat. He walked by himself, and all places were alike to him'
cat is half-way between domestic humans and wild woods
says won't follow but does (duality)
goes when no one else does
'I am not a friend, and I am not a servant. I am the Cat who walks by himself, and I wish to come into your cave'
names
'wild lone'
'you are as clever as a man'
domestic by day, wild by night
Symbol of Femininity
cats are symbols both positive and negative - complex
Dick Whittington
Animals in children's lit
Markowsky - https://www.jstor.org/stable/41592646
animals at centre reflects humanity's acceptance of its unity with nature [wild and domestic duality]
Burke & Copenhaver - https://www.jstor.org/stable/41483397
why?
'enable young readers to identify with the animals' --> unifies different children in can all relate
'the flight of fantasy itself'
animals that talk 'let us in on another world which we may not be able to see without their help'
worlds with 'social structures and social behaviour that mimic and express our own'
everyone needs to participate in an occasional flight into fantasy
'microcosm of human trials and tribulation'
'books that use animals as people can add emotional distance for the reader when the story message is powerful or painful'
'The intellectual and emotional distance that the animals' role-playing allows children and their mentoring adults grants space in which to become reflective and critical concerning life problems and life choice'