It’s
All Fantasy to Me
By:
Elijah Jimenez
Fantasy: an escape from the norm of everyday life
into something new and enchanting. This fantastical literature has been sorted
into two different classes: high and low fantasy. The pillar difference between
the two lies in the story’s reference to the real or actual world. In
high fantasy the story is set in such a way that fantasy completely replaces
the real world. For example C.S. Lewis’s novel Till We have Faces is set in Glom, a city in a pre-Christian world
that Lewis’s himself creates. On the other hand low fantasy’s aim is to bridge
the two worlds of fantasy and reality. This mix is perfectly exemplified by the
dual orientated world of Neal Gaiman’s Neverwhere.
His story is set in the underground of present day London, London Below. Here
normality and fantasy mix in the interaction of London Above and London Above.
Though high and low fantasy have been classified by
primarily their setting, is there more than that? Is there any more distinction
between the function of the story? Well, I say that that the setting is really
the only distinction between the two. I think that uniformity is especially
true when considering the concept of the Hero’s Journey, specifically the
hero’s “Call to Adventure”.
One of the most important pieces of any story, let
alone a fantasy story, is the main character or our hero. The Hero’s Journey in
many ways represents the whole of the story and how it will function as a piece
of literature. The consistency of this literary property between the high
fantasy and low fantasy stories becomes most evident in the comparison of the
two. This can be done using Till We Have
Faces and Neverwhere.
I would say that our hero, Orual, has several
different “Call to Action” moments, but
the one that brings her into her fantastical quest is when she realizes that
Psyche is not kidding about the grand house of the God that has given Psyche
refuge in her sacrifice. In their conversation they say,
“Where is the palace?
How far have we to go to reach it?” She gave one loud cry. Then, with white
face, staring hard into my eyes, she said, “But this is it, Orual! It is here! You are standing on the stairs of
the great gate.”
Right here is the moment in which Orual
is pulled into the incredible world of the gods. This is the call that sends
her spiraling into the quest that Orual dies recounting in her diary.
With this we have to remember that this
is a high fantasy world. This world is one that completely replaces the world
of the norm. Orual’s call to action occurs when something goes wrong or happens
out of the “ordinary” in her world.
In this story our hero, Richard, unlike
Orual, had one very definite call to action. This took place when he came upon
a girl, hurt, in the middle of the sidewalk and takes her home.
The girl’s face was crusted with dirt, and her cloths were wet with blood. “She’s hurt,” he said, simply. There was an expression on his face that Jessica hadn’t seen before…. Suddenly the girl’s eyes opened, white and wide in a face that was little more than a smudge of dust and blood. “Not a hospital, please. They’ll find me. Take me somewhere safe. Please.”
This is the moment in which Richard
Mayhew was tossed into the world and happenings of London Below. While reading
this quote it is also important to remember, as it was when observing Lewis’s
novel, that this is low fantasy.
In both of novels the call of action
comes in the same form. It happens when something out of the ordinary happens. This is extremely
important considering that high and low fantasies, as a result of the setting,
have very different definitions of what ordinary
is. Even in high fantasy when the setting is not at all related to reality the
story is set in a way so that the created world becomes a new norm. In doing
this the hero’s call to action stands out against the norm. Consequently the high and low fantasy Call to Action moments are essentially the
same structurally in that they stand out from the norm, however it is defined.
As a result high and low fantasy become virtually indistinguishable when
it comes to the core structure and function.
I like how you've chosen to focus on the relativity of the "ordinary" helps distinguish these sub-genres. It's too easy to dismiss the distinction between the two as "one has roots in reality, and the other doesn't," because "reality" is a construct in fiction no matter how realistic a text may seem. Gatsby and Tom and Nick live in the worlds of East and West Egg in _The Great Gatsby_, but these places are just representations of social class and identity, no more "real" than Glome or London Below. But all these relative realities serve the purpose of grounding the reader in a particular KIND of story.
ReplyDelete