Fantasy as Antifantasy: 11 Postmodernist Strategy of Antifantasy -- The Ridiculous in The Last Unicorn continued

The author Peter S. Beagle was cleverly and meticulously working on all sides, to strategically develop the antifantasy front in The Last Unicorn. It is not surprising that Attebery was confounded by the author’s camouflage and misunderstood the full picture of the operation. In order to uncover the ambushed lineup, set up by Beagle, it will be necessary to reexamine each and every part of The Last Unicorn that at first glance may seem like a shallow pleasantry that Attebery seems to have avoided pointing out further.
A good example of how a fantasy that is supposed to tell a dignified and sublime narrative world can depict something close and real, can be seen in the description of the cage of a circus party where the unicorn is captured.

Their [wagons’] draperies were gone, and they were now adorned with sad black banners cut from blankets, and stubby black ribbons that twitched in the breeze.


The author’s descriptive attitude does not try to increase the depth of the story he is creating, instead of trying to construct a profound world picture, he exposes an even more flimsy stage background by thrusting papier-mache; and writing props in front of the audience, and proceeds to describe it in an insatiably cynical manner, as if it were nothing more than an imitation of a failed piece. Readers accustomed to Tolkienian majesty and solemn narrative attitude, who expected fantasy to construct an otherworldly horizon that should depict wonder and the sublime, may harbor infuriating frustration, as in the case of Attebery. Attebery, who could not stand the familiar grapefruit peel that had entered the magical ancient world that was supposed to have transcended any sense of era, must have also rejected oatmeal, which evoked the kitchen routine of the modern world.

Schmendrick’s face had gone the color of oatmeal.


To the warriors who stood up in defense for fantasy literature, these would have been seen as an anti-chivalric act of anachronism that should not be committed. The act of injecting stimulants that dragged a familiar sense of reality into the work, had to be regarded as a taboo in the operation of depicting a world of wonder by the participants of the chivalric defense campaign who craved for martyrdom for the sublime.
Another aspect of this disturbing detached attitude in The Last Unicorn, that irritated Attebery is, something that can be called a “manga” presentation manner. Let us give a description of the term “manga”, as follows. “Manga narrative” introduces as a method of its peculiar description mode, the subject that gives the reader a decisive sense of impossibility into the fantasy domain of impossible wonders, even from the viewpoint of postmodernist re-evaluation of fantasy, keenly aware of varied epistemological phases. (note)

note:
In everyday language, both “fantasy” and “fairytale” seem to have a broad part corresponding to the word “manga” in Japanese, meaning “nonsense” and “rambling dream”. If we juxtapose the concepts of irony and fantasy in Western perspective with the concepts of “Fukyou” (風狂: assumed “madness” or “absurdity”) in Eastern perspective, we will be able to clarify some of the axes of reevaluation of fantasy in this study.


To put it bluntly, The Last Unicorn is a story with a terribly cartoonish aspect to be read as a serious work of literature. What Attebery, who was equally able to tolerate Tolkien and other fantasies, could not admit was this cartoonish part of the literary work. Although it is a passage that Attebery has already pointed out, I will again quote the part in question here, faithfully to the course of the story.

The witch’s stagnant eyes blazed up so savagely bright that a ragged company of luna moths, off to a night’s revel, fluttered straight into them and sizzled into snowy ashes.


Even in the world of magic, fairies, and monsters that follows Tolkienian perspective, the decisively otherworldly component that seems to set it apart, is this flaming eye and a swarm of moths that have jumped into it and burned to ashes. This was a banned spell that should never be practiced in the prestigious world of high fantasy of Tolkien’s. However, the same “manga” drawing practice was carried out immediately after this audaciously.

A few grains of sand rustled down Mommy Fortuna’s cheek as she stared at the unicorn. All witches weep like that.


In arguing Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, C. N. Manlove cited the introduction of the Ent (Fangorn), a kind of spirit in the form of a tree that is Tolkien’s original creation, as an example containing descriptions that make it difficult to accept the world and prevent the reader from forming a concrete image in their mind. (note)

Note:
Ref. C. N. Manlove, Modern Fantasy, pp. 201_2


Cartoonishly ridiculous part cited above must be difficult for Attebery to accept, who was able to fully accept Tolkien. If we rephrase the fictional existence that we have just named “manga” as “the element considered to be the least existentially possible, among various things that are allowed to exist only in the fictional world, even with the logistical support of ‘voluntary suspension of disbelief’ on the part of the reader,” some of the ontological changes of the conditions of fictionality, suffered by the components of its world since the age of uncertainty of meanings, will come into view with clear outlines. In other words, it can be said that the manifestation of the reflexive mental mechanism is the essence of the description mode called “manga”, that is always aware of the fictionality of the world being created, and also the awareness of being its reader as a make-believing self, maintaining a detached attitude that ridicules the non-existence of his own imaginary world that is being accepted and constructed in his own mind. Alternatively, one may be able to transform the coordinates of the field by describing as follows, “the distinguished function of fiction that is aware of its fictionality” gives the impression of “manga” to the recipients of the fictional world, which is a self-referential drawing technique that reflexively convolutes one’s own act of “describing something that should not be possible”. These are characteristic tendencies in postmodernist culture, in which art was liberated from authority and the sublime after the typical modernist era, vulgarity and childishness came to be also recognized as interactive components that should contribute to the creation of active art works. In the 20th-century culture that tolerated Tinker Bell and Andy Warhol, what is inexplicably yet to be properly evaluated is the psychology of the “manga” element in this act of describing the fictional world, and the acceptance of it. And it may be this concept of “manga” that may be able to correctly illuminate the connotation of the term “the fantastic”, which is literally accepted as an essential element in all research of fantasy, but does not necessarily seem to be fully understood. (note)

note:
Eric S. Rabkin discussed the essential element of fantasy by giving the term “the fantastic,” defined as “180 degree reversal of the ground rule” (The Fantastic in Literature, 1976). Although as a normative definition of fantasy literature, his definition of “a 180-degree reversal of the ground rule” has exposed several problems, if it is viewed as a projection that sets an efficient viewpoint for the fundamental problems that seem to encompass all fantasies issues, such as rebelliousness, perversion, and every “anti” tendency, it can be said that the significance of the idea is worthy of much attention.


Both the incorporation of familiar sense of base reality and the out-of-tune anachronism can be regarded as instances of phase transition shown in the gradual hierarchical structure of this “manga” element. Therefore, I will focus on the dynamics of this “manga” element and further examine the actual examples of the manifestation of the antifantasy mechanism in The Last Unicorn.
As Schmendrick is able to perform only tricky magics, he tries to threaten his enemy with his clever words, even hinting at the use of mystical judo holds, instead of demonstrating arts of terrifying magic.

The magician stood erect, menacing the attackers with demons, metamorphoses, paralyzing ailments, and secret judo holds.


The list of threatening words presented here, is also a classic example of an “anticlimactic catalogue.” After various magical arts are mentioned, it is the secret technique of judo relying only on a completely different dimension of phony menace that is referred to, where most powerful spell should be brought up, as if abandoning the lofty superiority of magic. In addition, “The secret Judo hold” serves to evoke the everyday nature of vulgar contemporary America, as an example of anachronism. Karate and Judo, which are commonly used as synonyms for Eastern mysteries, must have been forbidden words in the lofty fantasy world developed on magical perspective, even in the flirtatious modern American culture. It is easy to see that this use of anachronism in The Last Unicorn is an effective cover for the close construction of the “manga” element of the work.
Following part is also a very “manga” like description. This is a depiction of the soldiers guarding the castle of King Haggard, the symbolic villain in this story.

Both men were clad in homemade mail—rings, bottlecaps, and links of chain sewn onto half cured hides—


What we have here is an insipid descriptive attitude, as if revealing the inside of a handmade costume at a school show in a close-up. If we understand the mechanism of accepting fictional works as an act of promoting make-believe on the part of the reader, what is being developed here is nothing but the blatant exposure of the “making-of” part that hinders the “believe” procedure. Without doubt, the author deliberately employs these manga depiction methods. Attebery attributed Beagle’s lack of confidence as a creator to the world he was describing, that led to this behavior of disruptive writing. However, this flimsy sense of reality that permeates the work is actually considered to reflect the characteristic temperament of the postmodernist fantasy, manifested in the act of narrative depiction which is deeply related to the fundamental theme of The Last Unicorn, and seems to illuminate 70’ s American culture and its philosophical situation. (note)

note:
The characteristics of Peter S. Beagle’s peculiar sense of reality are manifested in his short story “Lila the Werewolf”. This werewolf story set in contemporary New York, depicts everyday life occurrences through the eye of the protagonist Farrell, who is a lover of a werewolf girl, and whose talent is acceptance, the ability of ever-detached bystander. Through its surreal and unrealizable chase scenes set in the city at night, this work seems to disclose that reality is nothing more than a volatile additive, studded in the surface of dream, wonder and fantasy.

Fantasy as Antifantasy: 11 Postmodernist Strategy of Antifantasy -- The Ridiculous in The Last Unicorn

The audacious revelation of the author’s own attempt to subvert the construction of fictional reality in the process of presenting it, noticeably revealed as ridiculous backstage pranks in The Last Unicorn, which Brian Attebery could not tolerate and attacked severely, is not limited to the parts that Attebery cited as outrageous examples in The Fantasy Tradition in American Literature: From Irving to Le Guin (1980). This is rather a noteworthy trait that appears throughout The Last Unicorn, assuming various existential aspects of absurdity. The purpose of my study was to explore the possibility of evaluating such presentational devices of revealing fictionality through the process of describing the work, re-examining the ideological characteristics peculiar to fantasy literature and its mode of reality perception. In order to execute this, I have pointed out that the mechanism of correlation between metafiction and deconstruction is functioning targeting the concept and phenomenon of fantasy itself in Peter and Wendy, and is developed as a definite assertion of the existence of antifantasy which is actually the shadow visage of fantasy literature. Let us explore the full extent of the device, which I rather hastily termed “antifantasy” at the beginning of this study, as an attempt to reexamine The Last Unicorn’s postmodernist creative strategy.
An example of the antifantasy tactics that should be noticed at as a starter, is found in the opening passage of The Last Unicorn, which Attebery had cited pointing out the similarity to James Thurber’s The White Deer. This part was introduced by Attebery, using the designation “anticlimactic catalogue”, as “making the subjects depicted in the work both ridiculous and familiar.”

She [unicorn] had killed dragons with it [horn], and healed a king whose poisoned wound would not close, and knocked down ripe chestnut for bear cubs. (note)

note:
Annotated Last Unicorn (Kindaibungei-sha), p. 7
Citations from The Last Unicorn are based on the annotated text of the novel, Annotated Last Unicorn, edited by the author.


“Anticlimax” is a situation in which a description or a scene that is expected to be developed with gradual accumulation of meaning, suddenly stalls at the culmination of it, contrary to the expectations of the reader or the audience, and the initial purpose of the description or depiction is utterly derailed. It is actually one of the classic and traditional rhetoric that results in the use of a sequence or repetition in an ironic manner, disrupting the original intention. Here, as a description of the actions of the mythical unicorn, it is first mentioned that she used her horn to defeat a dragon, a sublime being like her, according to the record of a typological legend. Following this, it is narrated that she used the power of her horn to save the life of a king who was poisoned with a wound that would not be healed, which has become a legendary episode about unicorns to the extent of being normative. And the third mention that is listed as the example that should be expected as the sum of these two attributes, is nothing more than an ordinary and trivial matter, “She knocked down ripe chestnut for bear cubs,” with her horn that is the symbol of unicorns’ existence. This deflating sense was pointed out by Attebery, as the typical example of a series of descriptions leading to “anticlimax.” As Attebery points out, this development certainly makes the subject of the story’s protagonist, the unicorn, “ridiculous and familiar at the same time.” This rhetoric makes a good example of the keynote of a Thurber-style fairy tale, that blends irony and humor dexterously. However, the use of “anticlimax” that is revealed here in The Last Unicorn is actually closely related to the more complex and deep subject matter attempted by this philosophical work, in the deepest layer of its speculative construction. As in the case of Peter and Wendy, Peter S. Beagle’s ambitious fantasy The Last Unicorn cleverly conceals an elaborate magical strategy that stings those who absent-mindedly read fantasy, behind the entire story.

Let’s refocus on the beginning of the story.

The unicorn lived in a lilac wood, and she lived all alone.


The gender of the unicorn, the protagonist of this story, is set as female. This stands in contrast to the image of legendary unicorn, whose horn symbolized the phallus and always carried the image of a male and was considered the guardian of virgins. The unicorn, who consolidates the man principle as the guardian of royal power in orthodox legends, is to be portrayed in this narrative world in a context that advocates the female principle that works for protecting the forest and the earth. The result of this coordinate transformation, renders the act of slaying the dragon as the usurper who endangers the royalty, healing the wounds of a king who is the embodiment of the absolute leadership of the divine bestowal as a protector of his authority and the idyllic behavior of knocking down chestnuts for bear cubs, to be treated as of equivalent value. An ingenious strategic prospect was implied in the rhetorical operation of “anticlimax,” that the patriarchal attributes of unicorns, which had been passed down in conventional myths and legends, would now be reorganized into different value principles in mirror transformation.
It also goes without saying that this view, which is conscious of the subversion of traditional values, daring to overthrow the general typological fantasy perspectives, actually reflects the ideological characteristics of fantasy literature itself, in terms of its thematic aspects. As already pointed out at the beginning of this study, conventional fantasies must be overthrown by their own constant destructive temperament. The casual insertion of the pronoun “she” should be understood as an act of injecting flares to demonstrate a radical self-consciousness of the action of regime subversion contained in fantasy, suggesting the possibility of the emergence of a constantly inverted world picture, centered on the idea of “overturning value systems.” The subversive behavior of irresponsible abandonment of the fictional world in the course of its creation, which Attebery pointed out as examples of the breakdown in the creative strategies of fantasy and science fiction writers, is rather the keynote that encourages the manifestation of self-reflective irony in their works. It eloquently illustrates the subtle significance of the idea of “antifantasy,” which we have established as a keyword for grasping the delicate nature of fantasy.

Fantasy as Antifantasy: 10 Deconstruction in Antifantasy concluded

However, the substance of what is manifested here in the form of ironical discrepancy actually comprise a grave implication. The purpose of this study was to re-examine the significance of such a disruptive element introducing the index of antifantasy, and to defend the kind of presentation of the literary work as corroborated here. The self-destructing aspect of the work, which appears to be an irresponsible prank as examined above, can be understood as a deliberate staging of the process of division and degradation of the primordial beings who created the totalis universe with organic connections, which many of the works of fantasy seem to be unconsciously oriented. This parody of the process of disintegration of the deity is precisely an indication of the caricature of the world image itself, which is based on the model of the process of disintegration and division of the Supreme One, the primordial energy that gave rise to the cosmos from its original “emanation.” This worldview, which captures the various aspects of the phenomenal world as a process of the division of the primordial One, and the conflict between its alter egos,is reminiscent of the vision of William Blake, who depicted the situation of a harsh world by expressing a unique mythological world image using print works and poetry, strongly influenced by and also showing fierce opposition against the mystical thinker Swedenborg. For those of us who are already familiar with the quantum physics picture of the universe, in which the current world is said to have been formed as a result of repeated phase transitions and divisions of the inflationary energy of the universe into various more derivative forces and matter, it can be said that Blake’s vision of the collapse of the Divinity is, in a sense, a schematic diagram for presenting a very familiar solution to the world. Barrie’s variation on this vision brilliantly illuminates the idea of Romanticism, which sees literature and philosophy as psychological attempts to repair the normal relationship between the universe (the whole) and the subject of cognition (the individual), and the psychology of fantasy literature that blossomed from fairy tales under its influence. It is the antifantasy part of Peter and Wendy that is depicted in a particularly humorous way handled by dry irony, as the interplay between the temporary pleasure of alienation and antagonism and the eternal pain that accompanies hostility and hatred. The confrontation between Peter, a barren adventurer who never accumulated experience, and Hook, an exile who bears the curse that any achievement can only be a source of remorse because of his constant self-reflection, is a majestic circular dance between two halves of an omnipotent being that has been cruelly torn apart. The fatal feud between Peter and Hook was nothing less than an arabesque of fruitless “eternal recurrence” (Ewig Wiederkehren), woven by the alter egos of a supposedly omnipotent transcendent Being. However, with the destruction of one of them, the ouroboros-like circle implied by this double star dissolves, and the shadow that has lost its main body flies away into the far reaches of time and space. In the end, the love of the maternal principle, which has the power to save everything, hardens into a predilection that only tolerates the indulgence of children, and the Savior Mother continues to be separated from the author, who is entrusted with the full authority of the convergence of the story world, because of the sterility of her love. The all-too-cruel ending in which Mrs. Darling, the embodiment of Mother Nature, is at odds with the creator author; and Peter, the embodiment of Nature just as it is, ends up delivering the coup de grace to Hook, a stoic seeker of aesthetics and ethics, is the true form of this popular work of fantasy literature.
What is expressed here is a sober awareness that love can only exist in the form of irrational partiality, as well as a declaration of the will to break away from the vulgar romantic illusion of all-encompassing Savior’s love. The antifantasy aspect of Peter and Wendy, which at first glance could be seen as a pointless prank that would be repulsive to serious fantasy readers, was in fact the product of a sincere nihilism that vehemently refused to allow the easy-going reader to escape into the refuge of empty humanism. In other words, here the corrupt Romantic metaphysics was deconstructed with a very dispassionate manner. The metaphysical strategy of fantasy, which sought a cosmological ontology that should govern everything in a single principle, and which sought to construct the possibility of harmony and coordination between all things, was forced to be overthrown on the deadlock of the “paradox of redemption” and the “sterility of predilection” whichever route it may choose.
　To put it another way, in Peter and Wendy, the essential theme of fantasy literature was summarized in a highly deconstructive manner, and the subject of “division and reintegration of the ego,” which used to form the central theme of fantasy literature, was caricatured as a hidden backstory. In this respect, Peter and Wendy can be said to be a parody of fantasy literature, or a bitter criticism of its intrinsic subject. The trigger for leading to what could be called an extremely dry and thorough detachment to the object, which is the opposite to adhesion to the work in the act of creation, that was sometimes pointed out in Faulkner, who was supposed to be a modernist writer; is naturally the exercise of a highly sophisticated irony, and what leads to this irony is nothing less than extremely cold nihilism, the sober acceptance of the rupture between the whole and the individual, between truth and cognition as a matter of strict fact, from the initial state. It is an extremely arrogant stoicism that tries to look at everything coldly without any pretension, acknowledging the present state of affairs as it is; according to it, there is no significance of the creation of the primordial universe, nor the meaning of one’s own birth into this world, there is no purpose to be achieved, both progress and improvement are only infantile illusions, above all, there is no opportunity for awakening, much less for enlightenment or reaching to eternal truths. In other words, “antifantasy” is a dynamic attempt to integrate the two differing elements from the side of the framework of fantasy, by applying a kind of tour de force, a peculiar deviated expression of ironic presentation of fantasy literature.
Antifantasy is a repudiation of the norms of fantasy literature that integrates two seemingly incompatible elements: idealism, which can be seen as an insatiable search for a substitute for faith directed by a spirit that aspires for consolidated values; and nihilism, which can be understood as a declaration of a stubborn determination to reject any attempt for totalitarian unification of faith. (note)

note:
If we were to judge only by focusing on this characteristic, it is possible to say that Peter and Wendy is a literary work with strong postmodernist traits. From the historical point of view, this work should naturally be placed in nothing more than a niche occupied by modernism. But if we assume that the metafictional characteristics of Peter and Wendy are attributed to postmodernism, and that romanticism and fantasy are set as the objects of its ironical criticism, in the scheme obtained so far, then the result of this shift in perspective may lead us to conclude that Romanticism can be understood as a form of “modernism” in a narrow sense. When considering the relationship between fantasy and the ideological qualities of “modernism,” this consequence should not be regarded as the completion of the reductio ad absurdum. On the other hand, if we were to reinterpret the concept of “modernity” in the broadest sense, we may understand that when the ancient people first entertained the sense of an isolated “self” that confronted with the notion of the “reason”, and accepted as an aporia the helpless gap between the world which encompassed him, and at the same time which is also an extension of himself, and the notion of “sublime” embodied by reason; from the moment when he conceived the supernatural existence of god and magic mechanism as an opportunity to overcome this conflict, the era of “modern” must have already begun.
This is why we need to re-examine what kind of thought Romanticism was in the first place, that should have been detected by any index, and what kind of a trend postmodernism was, that should have emerged as an opposing concept to it. It must be considered that this is the problematic nature posed by the phenomenon of the fantasy literature epidemic in the United States in the latter half of the 20th century, which caused Attebery to later recognize the need for establishing reevaluation of fantasy literature. The fact that the search for the possibility of constructing a new world formula as a substitute for faith in fantasy literature developed under the influence of Romanticism was replaced by a negative element of the process of de-illusionization in Peter and Wendy strongly reflected the irony of the early 20th-century ideological trend that had condemned God to death. It is for this reason that we have been forced to adopt the index “antifantasy” opposing to the concept of fantasy, and to reaffirm the implication of fictionality in higher manifold idea space.


That is why “antifantasy” was a very bitter antidote for illusion addicts who expected only to indulge in pleasant dreams, and on the other hand, it was also a very healthy illusion inducing agent with a powerful deillusionizing efficacy for the empty fantasy called “realism,” which is supposed to provide immutable values for everyone. In a sense, it was only natural that the fictional work written by James M. Barrie, the sincerest author who embodies irony and nihilism, had to take the phase of antifantasy.

Fantasy as Antifantasy: 10 Deconstruction in Antifantasy continued

In Ann Radcliffe’s decent gothic romance, it was promised that the heroine would not be threatened of losing her chastity no matter how horrific the danger of being kidnapped by the villains seemed, and in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, it was already a tacit agreement from the beginning of the story that the forces of good would triumph in the end. Tolkien did not want The Lord of the Rings to be read as a so-called allegory with some kind of meaning intended behind it, but the minimum “meaning” that exists in the form of an axiom system, which is indispensable as a condition for the existence of a fictional world in the form of a story, inevitably emerges in the process of the reader’s acceptance of the literary work as a possible world. As Tolkien himself says in “On Fairy Stories,” Tolkien narrated the story of the magnificent historical world of The Lord of the Rings with the main purpose of fulfilling the absolute grace of a happy end. To use Tolkien’s own words, the raison d’etre of a fictional work was to be a place where the bliss of the “eu-catastrophe” could be enjoyed. This is the convention in the reception of literary works, in which the reflection of how actual facts are laid out in the real world should not have been questioned. Rather, it was the firm recognition that the real world in which we live was exactly like this that provided the impetus for the construction of the imaginary worlds. What is there is nothing but a conceptual contract agreed upon between the author and the reader. Realism in literary works should have been nothing more than possible realism, which is the plausibility of the fictional world, and technical realism as a method of presenting the finely constructed fictional world. The interesting thing about creating a story is that it sometimes distorts reality in a peculiar way and tries to experiment with various coordinate transformations in the real world. Some of the qualities of “science fantasy” that Attebery appreciated by giving them the term “speculative romance” were not limited to highly intelligent conceptual novels such as those created by Hawthorne and Poe, but were in fact the qualities of “fictionality” itself. (note)

note:
CF. Attebery, The Fantasy Tradition in American Literature, p. 163
The deeper implication of speculative activities must be considered focused on the function of consciousness, in the perspective of the wholeness of the universe and its guiding signal hypothetically grasped by the notion of “pilot wave.” Particular qualia making function of each subject of consciousness and attained results of fictional description are closely related in the configuration of phenomenality. The teleological issue of the argument on the relationship between consciousness and fictionality is developed in the author’s study “Identity and Individuality of Derivative Fictions: Fictional Archetype and Equivalency of a Movie to the Original Novel”, which is shared on Academia in four sections.

First section:
https://www.academia.edu/114744009/Identity_and_Individuality_of_Derivative_Fictions_Fictional_Archetype_and_Equivalency_of_a_Movie_to_the_Original_Novel_1


Also, as Tolkien pointed out, the very act of creating other worlds that are completely different from the real world should reveal the depth of the author’s perception of reality in the process of his construction of “other worlds,” precisely in the index that it is “different” from the reality in which we live. It is Barrie’s proposed game to bring this mechanism of tacit agreement to the surface of the narrative and to re-alter the terms of the contract in the open arena. Moving away from the description of the children returning to the Darlings family, the narrator dares to focus on Mrs. Darling, who knows nothing about the children’s movements.

If we had returned sooner to look with sorrowful sympathy at her, she would probably have cried, “Don't be silly, what do I matter? Do go back and keep an eye on the children.”


In this way, Barrie promotes his peculiar method not only to describe what happened in one possible fictional world, but also to describe various other possibilities that could have occurred. The result of his description is not a single world that coagulated in the mind of the author, but a bundle of possibilities in the process of being converged into a fixed mode. (note)

note:
The author has discussed on this peculiar function of fictionality, taking up the filmed version Peter Pan, together with several other works that depict the story of Peter Pan, under the title of “Identity and Individuality of Derivative Fictions: Fictional Archetype and Equivalency of a Movie to the Original Novel”. The argument on the identity of fictional existences is supposed to have reasonable significance in the study of fundamental awareness and the function of consciousness that is able to make disrupted discourses definitely deviating from actuality.


Barrie’s descriptive act does not specify the object as a single event, but sometimes allows several possible pathways co-existing. Therefore, such a counterfactual hypothetical in a possible world is also mentioned.

Why on earth should their beds be properly aired, seeing that they left them in such a thankless hurry? Would it not serve them jolly well right if they came back and found their parents were spending the week-end in the country? It would be the moral lesson they have been in need of ever since we met them; but if we contrived things in this way Mrs. Darling would never forgive us.


What is depicted in Peter and Wendy is not a linear story consisting of a chain of causal relationships presented as a fixed events accumulation. The depiction of the narrative world is similar to Feynman’s “historical summation method” employed in the attempt of quantum mechanics to describe the trace the existence of electrons, in that it allows a variety of contradictory possibilities to be described together. Borrowing Attebery’s words, the technique of storytelling of Peter and Wendy is developed with an awareness of “the uncertainty of meaning.” This is another quality that counts as one of the metafictional elements of Peter and Wendy. It is worth noting that the predilection of the author Barrie for Mrs. Darling, a character in the novel, is acting as a parameter for these metafictional effects. Mrs. Darling is the embodiment of the new “Savior” as a loving mother who forgives everything, and who is irreplaceable and special one to the author. The author is fully aware of his role as the “author” of the story, and mentions Mrs. Darling.

One thing I should like to do immensely, and that is to tell her, in the way authors have, that the children are coming back, that indeed they will be here on Thursday week. This would spoil so completely the surprise to which Wendy and John and Michael are looking forward. They have been planning it out on the ship: mother’s rapture, father's shout of joy, Nana's leap through the air to embrace them first, when what they ought to be preparing for is good hiding. How delicious to spoil it all by breaking the news in advance; so that when they enter grandly Mrs. Darling may not even offer Wendy her mouth, and Mr. Darling may exclaim pettishly, “Dash it all, here are those boys again.” However, we should get no thanks even for this. We are beginning to know Mrs. Darling by this time, and may be sure that she would upbraid us for depriving the children of their pleasure.


The author, who is supposed to be omnipotent, presides over the progress of the work world while considering the feelings of Mrs. Darling, who is one of the characters in the work. This is an obvious logical contradiction. The real world, which is the world to which the author and the reader who reads the work together with the author belong, is being interfered by the fictional world that is being narrated. Here we can detect a pair of propositions that deny each other, with a logical structure equivalent to the paradoxes that often arise in conjunction with self-references. What is revealed there is a peculiar sense that is similar to the Zen Koan paradox, which is obtained through the destruction of logic. This is reminiscent of the structure of the nesting boxes, which had previously been described as a mysterious feature of Mrs. Darling’s mind. Does the power of the maternal principle, which is summed up in the existence of Mrs. Darling, imply that it is capable of intervening relations between possible worlds that should have no causal relationship? Such is the author’s predilection for Mrs. Darling. Does the symbol “Mother” function as a miraculous latent force that can determine the cosmological constant of the work world at will and transcend the axiom system that governs the laws of the fictional world? Strangely enough, thanks to Mrs. Darling’s generosity, the children are free from obstacles in the real world, but at the same time they are forced to experience inconveniences in the imaginary world because of their leader, Peter Pan. A strange reversal between reality and the imaginary world is occurring. After enduring the hardships imposed by Peter as a representative of Nature, free from the shackles of society, the children are allowed to return safely to their petty bourgeois home, where a loving mother, Mrs. Darling awaits. It is Mrs. Darling’s love for her children that has the power to acquit them all. Here, Lewis Carroll’s slogan “love saves everything” introduced in Sylvie and Bruno is followed　obliquely. The omnipotence of predilection that overcomes the “paradox of redemption” is forcibly fulfilled here.
However, the author dares to play a false discord with Mrs. Darling.

“But, my dear madam, it is ten days till Thursday week; so that by telling you what’s what, we can save you ten days of unhappiness.”
“Yes, but what a cost! By depriving the children of ten minutes of delight.”
“Oh, if you look at it in that way.”
“What other way is there in which to look at it?”


It is this kind of ludicrous exchange between the author and one of the characters that makes the most of the fictional nature of the story, which reveals the true essence of Barrie’s work. The author falls from the position of the Omnipotent Creator of the universe to the role of a clown among the characters in the work. The narrator is playing the dual roles of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. After some interaction with Mrs. Darling, the narrator turns his words to the reader.

You see the woman had no proper spirit. I had meant to say extraordinary nice things about her; but I despise her, and not one of them will I say.


This way, the author, who wants to repay the rudeness of the cheeky children, cannot overcome Mrs. Darling’s affectionate feelings for the children. Mrs. Darling’s predilection for her children was stronger than anything else, and the author’s predilection for Mrs. Darling had already forced him to relinquish control over the world of his work. In the end, against the author’s will, the children’s sheets are properly aired, Mrs. Darling does not leave the house, and the windows are left open. It seems that the children will be able to return safely to their home after they have done everything they can do as they please. The author has no way of staying in the Darlings’ family house any longer to protest to Mrs. Darling. It seems that he has no choice but to return to the children’s ship together with the reader. However, the author speaks to the reader in a regretful manner.

However, as we are here we may as well stay and look on. That is all we are, lookers-on. Nobody really wants us. So let us watch and say jaggy things, in the hope that some of them will hurt.


At this point, the author is now nothing more than a bystander looking at the work world from outside the stage. The figure is reminiscent of the fallen descendants of an ancient god who has lost his authority as the Creator and now act as an outcast in the world he built. The omnipotent author, who was supposed to be a transcendent being in the universe of his work, has completely lost his authority, and not only has he lost the function to advance the story, but he has also been led to the division and dissolution of the personality of the all-encompassing one. This anticlimactic ending was the contraption often found in German Romantic’s literature. It may have been argued that this tendency was dismissed as a degradation of the ideological game of barren irony. It is a fact that we must sometimes admit that there is an element of repulsion like Attebery has shown in the way he has attacked the manner of Beagle’s way of proceeding the description of his work, which at times reveals this kind of metafictional pranks.

Fantasy as Antifantasy: 10 Deconstruction in Antifantasy continued

Wendy in the fictional story is talking about the future of her fictional self, one stage removed in the fiction. It may sound specifically meaningful, but it is not necessary to bring up the strategic techniques of postmodernism and metafiction, in fact, such a reflexive mechanism itself must have been the intrinsic function of the act of telling a story, that is, constructing a fictional world. It would be enough to ascertain that what Attebery calls “non-imitative traditional modes of expression” is being fully exploited. The essence of literature cannot be discussed under the illusion that concepts such as modernism or realism, let alone postmodernism, exist as safe definitions as if they prescribe a solid object as a definite substance. It would be fine if we could reaffirm the dubiousness of the argument that the rise of realism is the birth of a “novel” that depicts the lives and psychology of human beings living in modern society as they are, as is plausibly debated. (note)

note:
The author perpetrated the corresponding task to this issue, in his responsible lecture “Modern and Novel”, adopting Fantasy as Antifantasy as its main text. This lecture was shared on Twitter and the archived data is accessible on Academia.

Modern and Novel:
https://www.academia.edu/72457067/Modern_and_Novel


It was already implied in the first chapter of this study that the term “fantasy” bares a de-illusionizing function on such a rigid view on literary products. Therefore, this book must prove that antifantasy and fantasy are fundamentally equivalent. If we adopt the terminology “fantasy” as a word to describe the appearance of the two-faced deity in the phase of fictionality, it is rather natural that the expression “antifantasy” must be introduced.
The narrator is not only omniscient, but also omnipotent in the operation of the work world. To narrate is nothing but to create a possible world in which the speaker is the Almighty. In this sense, it can be said that the author, who plays the role of the narrator of Peter and Wendy, Hook, who is the main character behind the scenes, and Peter, who is the shadow of Hook, are all bifurcated aspects of the same person. This is because, in the universe that was created by the materialization of the idea of Genesis, all the creation exists as part of the will of the One Creator. That is why the idea of believing in the existence of the Commander of Principles can also claim that “God is in the details.” And the narrator wields full power over the fundamental constants of the universe in this way. It is a description of the crocodile watch that brought Hook a “heroic” end.

He [Hook] did not know that the crocodile was waiting for him; for we purposely stopped the clock that this knowledge might be spared him; a little mark of respect from us at the end.