FANTASY LITERATURE By the same author Novels SILKEN LINES AND SILVER HOOKS ADONIS' GARDEN Criticism THOMAS MANN: The Devil's Advocate VIRGINIA WOOLF: A Study of her Novels FANTASY LITERATURE An Approach to Reality T.E. APTER © T.E. Apter 1982 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1982 978-0-333-26803-2 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission First published 1982 by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD London and Basingstoke Companies and representatives throughout the world ISBN 978-1-349-04712-3 ISBN 978-1-349-04710-9 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-04710-9 To my father Contents Acknowledgements Vlll 1 INTRODUCTION: Fantasy and Psychoanlysis 1 2 FANTASY AS MORALITY: Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness' 12 and Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter 3 THE UNCANNY: Freud, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Edgar Allan Poe 32 4 THE DOUBLE: Stevenson's DrJ ekyll and Mr Hyde, 48 Hoffmann's The Devil's Elixirs, Dostoevsky's The Double 5 FANTASTIC OBJECTIVITY: Franz Kafka 67 6 THE FANTASY OF ORDER: Vladimir Nabokov 93 7 LOGICAL FANTASY: Jorge Luis Borges 111 8 PSYCHOANALYSIS AS FANTASY 130 Notes 152 Index 159 Acknowledgements The author and publishers wish to thank the following who have kindly given permission for the use of copyright material: Sigmund Freud Copyrights Ltd, the Institute of Psycho-Analysis, and the Hogarth Press Ltd, for permission to quote from The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, translated and edited by James Strachey. Martin Seeker & W arburg Ltd for permission to quote from In the Penal Settlement by Franz Kafka, translated by Willa and Edwin Muir. Schocken Books Inc for permission to reprint from The Penal Colony by Franz Kafka, copyright © 1948 by Schocken Books Inc. Copyright renewed © 1965 by Schocken Books Inc. Penguin Books Ltd for permission to quote from Nikolai Gogol's Diary of a Madman and Other Stories by Nikolai Gogol, translated by Ronald Wilks. Calder and Boyars Ltd for permission to quote from E.T.A. Hoffmann's The Devil's Elixirs, translated by Ronald Taylor. The author gives special thanks to Dr Nathaniel S. Apter for his comments, criticism and encouragement. 1 Introduction: Fantasy and Psychoanalysis The aim and purpose of fantasy in literature are not necessarily different from those of the most exacting realism. What is called 'truth' in fiction is often hypothetical: if a character has certain traits, then one is likely to find, or enlightened by finding in him, other, related traits; also, if a character has certain traits then his actions and responses are already to some extent circumscribed. Yet hypotheses in fiction, however 'realistic', must be imaginative as well as plausible. At each state in the work the artist is faced with choices and decisions that may not have been foreseen at a previous stage. The 'truth' of fiction is attributable not only to the integration of character traits, the balance of motives, the consequences of actions and the development of events, but also to the ways in which new plausibilities are spotted, and the ways in which the artist's decisions create possibilities which throw light on various characters, their motives, or their conditions. Truth in fiction is not a study of probabilities but a utilisation and discovery of both possibilities and plausibilities to make points about what is probably our world. As practised readers of fiction we can gauge the point and legitimacy of conclusions drawn from fantastic as well as from realistic premises. For example, when Gregor Samsa wakes to find himself transformed into a gigantic insect, then his and his family's subsequent behaviour reveals a great deal about Gregor's pre-insectile state and thus justifies Kafka's use of the implausible premise. The fantastic circumstances can be viewed as an economical and effective means of revealing characters' interests and emotions which would be disguised or modified in surroundings well ordered by comfort or custom; in this way they would be seen to have the same purpose as the realist's plot. Alternatively, though not exclusively, the fantastic tale may be read as an allegory, with the literal story seen as a hieroglyph recording a previously established truth. The fantastic occurrences, setting, or characters will not tax the reader's credulity for they will be treated as 1 2 FANTASY LITERATURE- AN APPROACH TO REALITY systematic representations, with the particular quality of their strangeness commenting in various ways upon the ideas represented. These suggestive readings make fantasy respectable and manageable, but they are obviously inadequate. If fantasy is a story proceeding logically from a fantastic premise, then the bizarre expectations it arouses and its peculiar brand of reasoned confusion are ignored. If the mental acrobatics of the fantasist are treated as allegories, then their revolutionary constructions are ignored. In either case fantasy becomes inessential to the work's themes and ideas, however appropriate it may be to their present ation. My aim in this book is to discuss the methods and achievements of fantasy in the modern novel and story, from Nathaniel Hawthorne to Jorge Luis Borges, and to show how and why fantasy is essential to the authors' various purposes, which must be understood not as an escape from reality but as an investigation of it. The works discussed here are different from the fairy tale, myth or saga which are either enacted in a world separated from ours spatially or temporally (in a 'Never-never land' or 'Once upon a time'), or which are imaginative, emblematic histories. The respective metamorphoses of Jove and the Beast are very different from Gregor Samsa's because, however wonderful, they occur within the laws of their mythic or enchanted settings. Gregor Samsa's trans formation obviously breaks natural laws: if the tale is not understood as occuring within our world it loses its point. However, at the same time that Gregor's transformation defies nature and logic, it reveals an unexpected order which indubitably belongs to our world. Recognition is puzzling not only because it is disturbing but also because of the strangely literal language fantasy employs and the difficulty in marking out that area of thought, response and perception which is thereby realistically decribed. At the heart of fantasy in modern fiction is the uncertainty as to which world the tale belongs-to this one, or to a very different one? The central query is unlike Hamlet's uncertainty as to the status of the ghost - an illusion, a demon, an angel, his dead father? - and unlike, too, the query in The Turn of the Screw - are the ghosts hallucinated or are they spectres which could, in principle, be seen by others? The problematic fantasies in Hawthorne, Conrad, Hoffmann, Kafka, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Nabokov and Borges cannot be isolated within a generally stable world, nor can answers as to the status of the fantasies solve the questions they raise. Even if Gogol's madman or Dostoevsky's Golyadkin or Hoffmann's Nathanael have got things wrong, their beliefs, expectations and perceptions persist in commenting upon this world. The impact of fantasy rests upon the fact that the world presented seems to be