Summarize briefly the conceptual schemes for the understanding of fan= tasy narratives offered by Hume and Jackson. Does one seem more useful than the other in analyzing narratives that challenge the limits of realism? Give reasons for your response, illustrating important points by referring to tw= o of the major texts.

There is a wonderful phrase in Japanese that literally transla= tes as ‘rice eaten sideways’ or horizontally. ‘Yoko meshi’= is used to describe the stress of speaking in another language. For critics of fantasy narratives like Kathryn Hume and Rosemary Jackson, this is a famili= ar feeling and so they have tried through different conceptual schemes to crea= te a new language for talking about Fantasy. Both Hume and Jackson begin by exploring the opposition between mimesis and fantasy as literary impulses. = The presence of mimesis in western literary theory found its most powerful prop= hets in the work of Plato. His philosophy was such that he believed that representation of any kind should be little removed the object it represent= s. Fantasy of course must be an even more unnecessary presence in Plato’s republ= ic, and so it is in his legacy of western critical thought. From this point Hume and Jackson diverge. In two different books Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter and William Gibson’s Neuromancer, both conceptual schem= es, though perhaps Jackson’s in particular, are clearly applicable and useful in discussion of Fantasy.<= /span>

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It is the mark of a good theory that its birth is in criticism= of Plato and Aristotle. Hume’s book Fantasy and Mimesis: Responses to Reality in Western Literature challenges mime= sis as the superior literary foundation. She recognizes the need to develop a n= ew critical language with which to analyse fantasy that is not bound by the as= sumption that the “essential impulse of literature is mimetic”; which ef= fectively delegates fantasy to the position of peripheral phenomena (39). She balks against the work of theorists that create exclusive definitions and therefo= re the appearance that fantasy is a static genre, and aims instead to create a sch= eme that can highlight “the larger problem of departures from consensus reality: their nature, their aims, their effects” (39). To do this Hu= me suggests that there must be a common standard by which this new fantasy language derives its meaning. This is where drawings come in handy. In Hume’s formula there exists a five part configuration (Figure 2, 40) = that shows the dialectical relationship between different components in the crea= tion of a fantasy work. The first relationship is between World-1 and the Author= . The latter of these has an obvious function in the fantasy narrative while the first is the Author’s reality, everything that forms his ideology and conception of what is real and what is fantasy. It is a dialectic relations= hip, like all of those in the scheme; World-1 defines the forms with which the Author works and the Author in turn manipulates World-1 by selecting materi= al and distorting it (40). The second stage in the scheme is the relationship = between the Author and the Work. The Author creates the Work with material from Wor= ld-1 and the Work influences the Author with the “demands of the genreR= 30; [and] gratifies [the] author as [an] outlet for fantasies” (Figure 2, 40). The third reciprocal relationship exists between the Work and the Audience; the Work affects the Audience by challenging their ideas of what reality is and should be and the Audience sees the Work in terms of their defining experiences from World-2. World-2 is individual to every member of= the Audience and like World-1 is composed of each reader’s own standards = of morality and ideas about reality. The effect of this configuration is that = the Worlds of both Author and Audience interact in the Work; the level of dispa= rity between the two groups creates the scope of their shared experiences or to borrow a most beloved phrase their “consensus reality”. This consensus reality is not a static entity but will change in each instance o= f interface between the Author and Audience within the work. It is this interaction of forces that forms the crux of Hume’s argument and leaves an even more= lasting impact on the critical student than the beautiful image of blind men descri= bing an elephant (44). Like all fun theorists Hume demolishes the schemes posed = by other critics by comparing their conceptual flow-charts to her own invention before she arrives at an inclusive formulation of her very own in order to oppose the power of mimesis;

Fantas= y is any departure from consensus reality, an impulse native to literature and manifested in innumerable variations, from monster to metaphor. (44)

For Hume fantasy exists as an active and fluid force in litera= ture and human nature, not only a means of communication between different people but as an impulse in culture that is in constant dialogue with the mimetic impulse, a dialogue inherent in the structure of every literary narrative.<= /span>

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While Jackson’s diagrams are less spectacular than Hume’s her concept of Fantasy surp= asses that of her counterpart. Like Hume, Jackson references Todorov as a catalyst for many of her ideas in her book Fantasy the Literature of Subversion <= /i>and borrows from him three conditions that must be present in a work of Fantasy. The first is that the text obliges the reader to hesitate between a natural= and supernatural explanation of the events described in the narrative. The seco= nd condition, and it is not obligatory, is that hesitation be experienced by a character, so becoming a theme of the work. Todorov’s third condition= is that the reader rejects allegorical and poetic interpretation of the text. Jackson embraces these conditions as the foundations of Fantasy but also extends her definition to consider Fantasy as one of a triad of competing forces. Fanta= sy is the middle child of a family of narrative modes that form literature. It lies between the mimetic narrative where natural forces operate and explain= “uncanny” (48) events and the marvelous narrative that has supernatural explanations = of events. Fantasy narratives rely on the “negative rationality” of unnatural explanations, so attacking old modes of “bourgeois realism” (49). By walking this fine line between the natural and the supernatural, Fantasy undermines both by borrowing their conventions then thwarting their assumptions. With Todorov’s hesitancy Fantasy becomes unstable but nevertheless can move toward a fictional autonomy (54) where t= he tension between the natural and the supernatural will never be resolved, creating a tool of subversion that will unsettle any reader. Though Hume= 217;s conceptual scheme is useful in many ways, it is impossible to make the gene= ral critical assumptions necessary if it is to be applied as a standard measure= of Fantasy. World-1 and World-2 are unknowable to any critic and will always be unknown quantities that block any real understanding of Fantasy as genre ra= ther than individual level. Her terminology, particularly “consensus reality”, is very useful as a marker for Fantasy narratives but Jackson utilizes h= er conceptual scheme to understand not only what Fantasy is, but what it does.=

Angela Carter’s = Nights at the Circus manifests in its themes an exploration of the nature of t= he Fantastic narrative. Throughout the novel different components of the mise = en scene demonstrate the tension between the natural and the supernatural that= Jackson describes = as being the key to subversion. The fi= rst icon of this tension is Fevvers, the walking (or flying) hyperbole; half wo= man, half mythic beast (“‘Is she fact or is she fiction?’̶= 1; Carter 7) she at once occupies the position of traditional Fantastic avatar (Hume 38) and the stereotypical busty blonde. The skill of the text is not = in this incongruent image however, it is that the text never resolves the tens= ion but keeps the reader in a permanent state of hesitancy. When Fevvers describes her first attempt at flight s= he demonstrates the effect of Fantasy upon a reader;

…= ;for just the smallest instant no longer that the briefest flutter of a butterfly… I’d hovered. Yes. Hovered. Only for so short a while= I could almost have thought I’d imagined it, for it was the sensation w= hat comes to us, sometimes, on the edge of sleep… (31)<= /p>
Reading the Fantastic means that we become the high-wire aeria= lists navigating narrative paths. Magic Realism in such a form poses a particularly interest= ing puzzle for Hume’s criteria of as a departure from consensus reality because it is precisely this departure that the novel wishes to avoid. The ambiguity of the ending continues the trend of the rest of the book; are we subject to some kind of narrative trick? Lost in the mythic elements of the story? Or do we see events and characters in the novel as they really are? = It is to the credit of the novel that these questions can never be answered by= its readers. Carter resists the temptation to use her art as a weapon of ideolo= gy (in the Walter Benjamin sense, Franklin 24), but sees that art is an ideology unto itself. Fevvers liberation lies = in her ability to craft narration; she is subversive not because she departs f= rom the consensus ideal of womanhood but because she does not need to prove that she has (60). She has transcended objectification through her art. Fevvers wings give us a visual symbol of her transcendence but we reject an allegor= ical reading (Todorov in Jackson 50) because each changing narrator has no more knowledge of the meaning of = her condition than any reader. In the beginning of the book we are distanced fr= om Fevvers’ story by Walser’s skepticism but like him readers have= a habit of suspending belief (Carter 10) and the potential to lose ourselves = in the Fantastic. In our very post-modern crisis we have confidence in the narrative structures in our own lives but are used to feeding on illusionary texts; we will run from a bullet but acknowledge that a gun is an empty ima= ge. In the Fantastic, illusion is a necessary part of reality. In Nights at the Circus a bear can be a beloved fluffy pet and “a transcendental kind of meta-bear, a minor deity and also a partial ancestor” (257). The two bears exist at once, one a natural reality a= nd one a supernatural reality but the bear the reader encounters is the mixtur= e of the two, the unnatural Fantastic bear. The nature of Fantasy is manifested = in the instability of this image that denies an exclusive reading of either the marvelous or the mimetic (Jack= son 53) but relies on knowledge of both.

Neuromancer = was written in 1984, the same year as Nights at the Circus, and like George Orwell’s novel named for that year, Gibson writes of a futuristic dystopia. For this novel, as f= or many considered to be science fiction or sub-genres thereof, a depiction of= the future does not invite the same tension in the text between the natural and supernatural as magic realism can and did in Carter’s novel. Readers cannot know what is possible for the future. Many of Gibson’s concept= s in Neuromancer have been realized = since his novel was published and due to the cult status of his book, the creator= s often borrow from his terminology (for example, “cyberspace”) to desc= ribe the innovations in the field. Neuro= mancer is indeed less Fantastic now than it was in 1984. Despite the differenc= e in approach between Gibson’s novel and Nights at the Circus (which conforms very nicely to Jackson’s language of criticism),= Neuromancer is also a comment upon= the nature of the Fantastic and the tension between logic and imagination. The struggles are evident in the amoral concept of human-machine fusion in the novel and, on a more romantic scale, the opposing roles of Neuromancer as a representation of fantasy and Wintermute as cold realism (Pascal 17^th May 2005). In this world urban decay and industrialization have reached such a level t= hat people become alienated not only from nature but from their own bodies. The= sky must be described using the language of technology, “The sky above the port was the colour of television, tuned to a dead channel” (Gibson 3= ); Case sees his own body as “meat”, “the prison of…flesh” (8) from which he escapes into the freedom of the Mat= rix. He is a member of a kind of futuristic beat crowd, drug-taking guns for hir= e, part of a generation for whom life seems to be a “consensual hallucination” (12). In the inverse to Hume’s “consensus reality”, Neuromancer imp= lies a kind of hyper non-reality. This new world is in dialogue with the world of = the readers, the characters are forms borrowed from romantic fiction, where the heroes are quite unlike normal people, and Gibson’s vision of the possibilities of technology resonate more and more with the passing of time= . It is a world that moves towards the Marvellous but is not devoured by it. As the inst= igator of the Cyberpunk movement Neuromanc= er is immediately and obviously dissident in the same way that all counter-culture texts must be, but Gibson’s novel is also textually subversive throughout. Mythology is almost made literal in many instances in the book,= the history of Zion and Babylon is realized in the Matrix and t= he gothic decadence of a rich-self indulgent family in chapter fifteen is contrasted by the selflessness of cyberspace. These extremes are not natura= l; a fusion of romance and reality is needed for though Fantasy is an irresistib= le impulse for all people, it can be overdone. Ultimately the novel suggests t= hat reality can only really be known through Fantasy; Case needs the Matrix to realize the complexity of meat, they are dialectic forces that overlap to f= orm windows of truth.=

Both Carter’s Ni= ghts at the Circus and Gibson’s N= euromancer are representatives of the genre of Fantasy as defined by Hume and Jack= son. They embody elements of the debate about Fantasy within their narrative structures, exploring the fine and perilous line between the natural and the supernatural. Though Neuromancer in particular may be considered to be a work of the Marvelous rather than Fant= asy by Jackson, the novels illustrate the key element of Jackson= ’s conceptual scheme, that of hesitancy creating subversion.

Bibliography

Carter, Angela (1994). Nights at= the Circus. London<= /st1:place>, Vintage.

Gibson, William (1984). Neuroman= cer. New York, Ace Books.

Hume, Kathryn (1984). Fantasy and Mimesis: Responses to Reality in Western Literature. New York, Methuen [In ENGL2058 Reading Brick 2005= ]

Jackson, Rosemary (1981). Fantas= y: The Literature of Subversion. London, Methuen [In ENGL2058 Reading Brick 2005]

Leary, Timothy (1994). Chaos &am= p; Cyber Culture. Berkeley, Ronin Publishing.

Leitch, Vincent B. [Ed.] et.al. (20= 01). The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. New York and London, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

May, Christopher [Ed.] (2003). K= ey Thinkers for the Information Society. New York, Routledge.

Pascal, Rich (May 17^th, 2005). “Reali= ty Rendered Virtual: Neuromanci= ng Cold Silent Reality”. ANU, ENGL2058 Lecture.

Phillips, Lisa [Ed.] (1995). Beat Culture and the New = America: 1950-1965. New York, Flammarion.