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.