The Function of Fantasy as a Subversive Genre in Literature

Res. Asst. Hatice Eşberk

Middle East Technical University, hesberk @metu.edu.tr

Abstract

Literary genres and their sub-categories may not have clear cut lines from each other
although it may seem so. That is to say, inter-relations between different genres can be
often seen within a literary work which makes that work difficult to be categorized as a
particular genre or mode. Fantasy, as a literary genre, has such an argumentative
position in literature. The fantastic as a style has often been utilized throughout the
history of literature within different literary works that are not categorized as fantasy.
Apart from the historical and theoretical considerations of fantasy, the urge behind the
creation of this genre is worth to be discussed. In general, fantasy is used to subvert
accepted notions and believes within society. This paper aims to summarize historical
and theoretical assumptions on fantasy in order to emphasize the subversive function of
the genre.
Keywords: literary genres, fantasy, subversion, theory of the fantastic in literature

Introduction

Fantasy has an argumentative position in literature. Its origins, functions and aims have long
been discussed and no definite categorization on its being whether a genre, a mode or a
formula can be provided for it. According to some critics fantasy has been in the roots of
many different kinds and therefore, it is not possible to divide it into definite sub-categories.
While some others believe that the “fantastic” as a literary genre has its origins in the ancient
literature and throughout history, by means of interactions and interrelations of its forms, it
has developed as a distinguished genre. Although these two considerations reveal different
poles of fantasy, they reach a consensus on the fact that fantasy aims at subverting, re-
writing and re-evaluating what has already been written. Therefore, in this paper different
views on fantasy will be presented along with the historical development of the genre.

Historical Assumptions

In order to deal with the theoretical assumptions on fantasy it would be better to begin with
the historical background of it. The critic David Pringle analyzes fantasy in its historical
process and and begins his analysis by stating that “fictions of the fantastic are named for
their subject-matter, or for the emotions they arouse” (8). Thus, his historical analysis
provides types of fantasy which make their progress in different periods. Science fiction
deals with the knowledge which makes it a fiction of ideas, “rooted in empiricism and the
modern scientific world-view.” Another fiction of fantasy, horror stories, “are intended to
evoke the feeling they are named for- horror...terror, revulsion and, at times, a sense of the
fearful ‘sublime’”. Also, magic realist fiction “is what the phrase implies, a form of realism

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with its eye mainly on the actual daily world around us, but lightly dusted with the magical-
those hints of the inexplicable which may heighten our sense of the real” (qtd. in Pringle 8).
However, ‘pure fantasy’ is something different from what these forms represent. As Pringle
refers to John Clute’s description of fantasy, “full fantasy seems to deal in the fulfilment of
desire- not in the simple carnal sense...but in the sense of the yearning of the human heart for
a kinder world, a better self, a wholer experience, a sense of truly belonging” (qtd. in Pringle
8).

Pringle clarifies the fantastic as being the “fulfilment of heart’s desire” by means of referring
to the two earliest forms of fantasy; fairy tale and heroic epic. The critic argues that these two
forms of the fantastic reveal “sharply different aspects of the workings of the Heart’s Desire”.
In fairy tales, “every boy is a potential prince, every girl is a potential princess and every
ending is a happily-ever-after” (8). In heroic epics which derives from the songs of the
hunters and warriors “we see the movements of human desires of the more violent and
selfish sort” Pringle declares that these two kinds of fantasy of desire intermingle since fairy
tales often contain violence, and epic usually has the “romance of sexual love as well as
manly action”. Therefore, the desire of both forms is channelled “towards a kind of social
fulfilment, where love and pride and a cluster of other positive emotions combine to create
the best of all possible worlds”. As a result of the influences of the kinds of desire reflected to
society, “the waste land is healed” (8).

Moreover, the critic mentions the ancient religious elements of the fantasy. According to
Pringle, mankind’s need for a sense of larger belonging in the universe as a whole results in
the sense of worship. Therefore, all socieities “have their shared belief-structures, and stories
which embody widespread beliefs are called ‘myths’” (8). Taking this idea into consideration
Pringle underlines that modern fantasy is foregrounded on the principal mythologies
including those of the ancient Greek, the pantheon which comprises the gods Zeus, Hera,
Apollo, Aphrodite, Dionysus, Athene, Poseidon and many others, as well as the demi-gods
or half-human heroes such as Heracles and Perseus; “those of the Celtic, and particularly
Irish, cultures, including the tales of Cuchulain and Fin Mac Cool; those of the Germanic,
Old Norse and Icelandic peoples, comprising the stories of the gods Odin, Thor” (8). Thus,
the critic emphasizes the fact that fantasy, throughout the history of world literature, has
developed in a multi-layered way originating from religious mythology, folk wonder-tale
and heroic song(9).

Works of fantasy also diclosed themselves in the medieval period ranging from animal fables
to Dante’s Divine Comedy (1321) which is the masterpiece of the Christian afterlife. Pringle
states that the other Italian writers created more secular fantasies during the Renaissance
period including Orlando Furioso (1532) of Ludovico Ariosto which “has been praised
memorably by C.S. Lewis in his book The Allegory of Love (1936) and was considered
sufficiently close to modern generic fantasy” (11). Moreover, the critic emphasizes that the
fantastic tales in prose form in the 16th century (Chivalric Romances) are the direct ancestors
of the modern fantasy novel (11). However, in the Age of Reason which is the period of the
growth of modern science the medieval fashion of fantasy passed away and “the utopian
tradition of proto-science fiction” developed. Despite the tendency towards realism in the
18th and 19th centuries, other forms of fantasy flourished in these centuries;

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The literary fairy tale, whose vogue was initiated in France by Madame
d’Aulnoy and Charles Perrault and much strengthened by the German
researchers of the Brothers Grimm; the exotic “Eastern” fantasy, inspired by
Antoine Galland’s translation of The Arabian Nights (1704-17), which
produced many examples, the American pseudo-folk tales of Washington
Irving, most famously Rip Van Winkle (1819), and the fantastic moralities of
Charles Dickens, the children’s fairy tales of Anderson, Charles Kingsley,
George McDonald, Lewis Carroll” (Pringle 11).

As a result of the interactions of these different individuals’ fantastic writings, “karmic

romances” and fantastic thrillers, which often include “serial reincarnation, revived Egyptian
mummies or bizarre villains bent on world domination” have taken the stage towards the
end of the Victorian period and the beginning of the 20th century, (Pringle 11).

In addition to the historical development process of fantasy, Pringle presents the types of
fantasy. He states that the fantasy fiction can be divided into categories as many as it is
wanted. However, the critic claims that “as a critical term “fantasy” has been applied to any
literature which does not give priority to realistic representation: myths, legends, folk and
fairy tales, utopian allegories, dream visions, surrealist texts, science fiction and horror
stories” (19). Then he states that fairy tales, animal fantasies, Arthuriana, Arabian Night
Tales, Chinoiserie, Lost-Race Fantasies, humorous fantasies, sword and sorcery, heroic or
“high” fantasy are the sub-types of the genre (19).

Theoretical Assumptions

The above mentioned historical analysis of the fantastic openly reveals that “fantasy” as a
term and its categorization in literature is a problematic and a versatile issue. Therefore,
various theoretical assumptions of the genre are going to be presented in order for a deeper
analysis of the genre. Rosemary Jackson, in her book called Fantasy: The Literature of
Subversion, claims that “literary fantasies have appeared to be ‘free’ from many of the
conventions and restraints of more realistic texts” (1). In elaborating on this detachment of
fantasy from the conventional realistic texts, the critic emphasizes the refusal of fantasy to
observe unities of time, space and character, “doing away with chronology, three-
dimensionality and with rigid distinctions between animate and inanimate objects, self and
other, life and death” (1). Therefore, Jackson argues that it would be a self-defeating attempt
to provide a ‘schematic’ and ‘theoretical’ crittical study of fantasy when its resistance to rigid
categorization and definition is taken into consideration (1).

If it is not possible to categorize fantasy, what can be considered as fantastic? According to

Jackson, “[l]iterature of the fantastic has been claimed as ‘transcending’ reality, ‘escaping’ the
human condition and constructing superior alternate, ‘secondary’ worlds” (2). In addition to
this, the social context in which the fantasy is written has an influnce on it. That is why, the
critic admits, “the forms taken by any particular fantastic text are determined by a number of

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forces which intersect and interact in different ways in each individual work” (3). As a result
of these interactions the fantastic is transformed according to the authors’ diverse historical
positions “although surviving as a perennial mode and present in works by authors as
different as Petronius, Poe and Pynchon” (3).

Moreover, the transformation of fantasy has displayed itself differently in different periods
according to the changing concepts of what exactly constitutes ‘reality’. That is why, Jackson
argues, the ‘unreal’ introduction of the literary fantasy “is set against the category of the
‘real’- a category which the fantastic interrogates by its difference (4). Considering this kind
of changing process Jackson claims that modern fantasy is rooted in ancient myth,
mysticism, folklore, fairy tale and romance (4).

Having such a background a fantasy is considered as “a story based on and controlled by an

overt violation of what is generally accepted as possibility, the narrative result of
transforming the condition contrary to fact into ‘fact’ itself” (Jackson 14). Therefore, the
dominant realistic normative assumptions are violated in fantasy. Jackson defines the
ultimate aim of this violation as subverting (overturn, upset, undermine) rules and
conventions taken to be normative. However, she claims that this is not in itself a “socially
subversive activity: it would be naive to equate fantasy with either anarchic or revolutionary
politics. It does, however, disturb ‘rules’ of artistic representation and literature’s
reproduction of the ‘real’” (Jackson 14). Nevertheless, the provocative nature of the fantasy
displays itself in its dissolving of “[s]patial, temporal, and philosophical ordering systems”,
its break with the unified notions of character, and its incoherent language and syntax. This
‘misrule’ enables fantasy to ask ‘ultimate questions’ about social order, or metaphysical
riddles as to life’s purpose” (qtd. in Jackson 15).

Jackson also refers to Sartre’s definiton of fantasy in order to elaborate on the secular
understanding of the genre (fantasy). Sartre claims that “in a secular culture, fantasy has a
different function. It does not invent supernatural regions, but presents a natural world
inverted into something strange, something ‘other’ (qtd in Jackson 17). As a result of this,
fantasy becomes “domesticated, humanized, turning from transcendental explorations to
transcriptions of a human condition”. In this sense, Sartre claims, fantasy assumes its proper
function: to transform this world. The fantastic, in becoming humanized, approaches the
ideal purity of its essence, becomes what it had been” (qtd. in Jackson 17). In the light of
these investigations, Jackson concludes that “[f]antasy re-combines and inverts the real, but it
does not escape it: it exists in a parasitical or symbiotic relation to the real. The fantastic
cannot exist independently of that ‘real’ world” (20).

Another critic who enriches and enlightens fantasy in its position in literature is Todorov.
His analysis of fantasy is presented in his The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary
Genre. The initial claim of the scholar is that “’the fantastic’ is a name given to a literary
genre” (3). Thus, he elaborates on the subject in order to reveal the structure of fantasy as
belonging to the category of genre. According to Todorov the fantastic requires the
fulfillment of three conditions:

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First, the text must oblige the reader to consider the world of the characters as
a world of living persons and to hesitate between a natural and supernatural
explanation of the events described. Second, this hesitation may also be
experienced by a character; thus the reader’s role is so to speak entrusted to a
character, and at the same time the hesitation is represented, it becomes one of
the themes of the work- in case of naive reading, the actual reader identifies
himself with the character. Third, the reader must adopt a certain attitude
with regard to the text: he will reject allegorical as well as “poetic”
interpretations. These three requirements do not have an equal value. The first
and the third actually constitute the genre; the second may not be fulfilled.
Nonetheless, most examples satisfy all three conditions (33).

Todorov further explains these conditions: the first condition deals with the verbal aspect of
the text, the second refers to the ‘reactions’ as opposed to ‘actions’ which constitute the
argument of the narrative and also the theme of perception and reception is being analyzed
(that is why the condition deals with both syntactic and semantic aspect), and the third
condition “has a more general nature and transcends the division into aspects: here we are
concerned with a choice between several modes (and levels) of reading” (34). These
conditions of fantasy may be taken into consideration in dealing with it as a genre since it
supplies the distinguishing qualities of fantasy both in structural and thematic ways.
Moreover, the relation between the fantastic text and its reader is also provided in these
reqirements which dwell upon the “hesitation” of the reader. The fantastic also demands an
identification of the reader with the character without leaving the “hesitation” s/he develops.

In addition to this presentation of the requirements of fantasy, Todorov states that “[fantastic
narratives] assert that what they are telling is real-relying upon all the conventions of
realistic fiction to do so-and then they proceed to break that assumption of realism” by
means of introducing that what is manifested as unreal (qtd in Jackson 34). Thus, the reader
is drawn to the ‘security’ and the familiarity of the known and s/he is exposed to the world
of the ‘strange’, to “the world whose improbabilities are closer to the realm normally
associated with the marvellous”. Todorov claims that this ‘instability’ of the narrative stands
at the center of the fantastic as a literary genre (qtd in Jackson 34).

The instability that is emphasized by Todorov makes the fantastic one of the questioning
genres. It makes the reader feel insecure in order for him to feel the need to search, resist,
think and criticize. As Egoff claims “fantasy has been a vehicle used by writers to express
their dissatisfaction with society, to comment on human nature” (1). This dissatisfaction
reflected by the author and received and shared by the reader leads the theories of fantasy,
extending from theories of games to theories of desire, to emerge more recently by
concentrating on the political implications (Hunter 40).

Conclusion

As it can be understood from the different analyses of fantasy, the rebellious nature behind
the fantastic is the most emphasized feature of it. When the rigid categorization of any kind

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is considered to be an out-of-date convention, the consideration of fantasy under a certain

category loses its significance. Therefore, the important issue becomes the interrelations and
interactions of different points serving a common goal. This quality is best seen in fantasy as
having various ingredients and roots. Not only the historical development of it but also its
being undertaken in modern times reveals its subversive nature. As a result, fantasy
literature forms cohesive patterns and is best understood as a genre in its own right despite
all its contradictions and complexities (Egoff 1).

Works Cited

Egoff, Sheila A. Worlds Within: Children’s Fantasy from the Middle Ages to Today. Chicago:
American Library Assoc. Press, 1988.

Hunter, Lynette. Modern Allegory and Fantasy: Rhetorical Stances of Contemporary Writing.
London: MacMillan Press, 1989.

Jackson, Rosemary. Fantasy: The Literature of Subversion. London: Routledge, 1988.

Pringle, David (ed). The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Fantasy. New York: Carlton Books Ltd., 1998.

Todorov, Tzvetan. The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre. New York: Cornell
UP, 1975.

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