1) How is science fiction different from
fantasy, according to Le Guinn?
2) How does Attebery (1980) define Fantasy? Find at
least five definitions?
3) In what ways does Tax
(2002) suggest Earthsea may still be relevant today?
4) What are some archetypes that often recur in fantasy fiction? Give
examples from Earthsea and other fantasy works you might know.
5) In what way is The Wizard of Earthsea a ‘coming of age’ novel? Does it
escape from the ‘boy’s own adventure’ story? How are Ged’s adventures different
from Tintin’s?
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ReplyDelete1) How is science fiction different from fantasy, according to Le Guinn?
ReplyDeleteAccording to Le Guinn (2005), Science fiction is a branch of realism. Science fiction pretends that the future is the present or the past and then tells us what happened in it. Science fiction pretends that “the future is a blank page, and the imagination can write anything it likes on it (para. 4). She mentioned that science fiction and realism both employ plausibility to win the reader’s consent to fiction.
Meanwhile, fantasy is “far more direct in its fictionality than either realism or science fiction.” In other words, creation and invention are essential to fantasy as there is no agreement as to whether the story the story happened, might have happened or might ever happen.
From what I’ve read, I can conclude that what Le Guinn is trying to say is that Science fiction explores what is possible (even though it might seem impossible), while fantasy explores the improbable. Based on what I’ve read, I believe that science fiction draws on and induces from what we know about reality and science. The physical world of science fiction story needs to follow the same basic rule of the “real world”, the story must be coherent with the “real world”.
Fantasy, on the other hand, is contrived on what does not exist in the reality we live in. A fantasy world does not require the same degree of plausibility. The laws and reason of the fantasy world can be absolutely disengaged from the “real world”, as long as the story follow the special logic of the world constructed in the fantasy story.
Reference:
Ursula K. Le Guin: Plausibility Revisited -- Wha Hoppen and What Didn't. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.ursulakleguin.com/PlausibilityRevisited.html
Excellent answer.
Delete2) According to Atterby (1980) define Fantasy? find at least 5 definitions
ReplyDeleteDefinition 1;
"Any narrative which includes as a any part of it's make up some violation of what the author clearly believes to be natural law- that is fantasy"
Definition 2;
"It can involve beings whose existence we know to be impossible, like dragons, flying horses, or shape-shifting men. It can revolve around magical objects; rings, hats, or castles possessing wills, voices, mobility and other attributes that inanimate objects do not, in our experience do not.
Definition 3: "It can proceed from events- two people painlessly exchanging heads, a tree reaching out to grab passers-by --that violate fundamental assumptions of matter and life. And Fantasy treats these impossibilities without hesitation, without doubt, without any attempt to reconcile them with our intellectual understanding of the workings of the world..."
Reference
Extract from course reader weeks 3 and 4
Extract; Atterby, B. The Fantasy Tradition In American Literature: From Irving To Le Guin. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980, 1-10
Well researched!
DeleteI found more about what fantasy is.
ReplyDeleteFantasy shows a view of exterior reality which has a contradiction because everything can be possible in the fantasy. Many impossibilities seem not to matter anymore, and the characters in the fantasy carry on these problems after all, which means such things could under any circumstances come true. However, consistency is need for fantasy. “Reader and writer are committed to maintaining the illusion for the entire course of a fiction” (Attebery, 1980, p.3).
Also, fantasy is the kind of device which appeals people to get interested because it invokes wonder and curiosity by making the various circumstances. “Prose narratives evoking wonder through the consistent treatment of the impossible as though it were possible” (p.3).
There is a major aim of fantasy; giving an adequate form to life, death, good, and evil. “A better work of fantasy can also engage us intellectually and morally by presenting the clash of ideas and issues in simple and concrete form” (p.4)
Imagination is required for fantasy because it based on ‘unreality’, or freedom from the domination of observed ‘fact’.
“Fantasy is a natural human activity. It certainly does not destroy or even insult Reason; and it does not either blunt the appetite for, nor obscure the perception of, scientific verity” (Tolkien, 1988, p.45)
Extract from Readings Week 3 & 4
Thank you Faye, I was going to come back to this and add the another 2 definitions (I still have to do that) but I need to read that article again & properly.
DeleteAnother excellent comment Faye, which digs a little deeper into the question. Well done.
DeleteFaye, i think your statement "fantasy is the kind of device which appeals people to get interested because it invokes wonder and curiosity by making the various circumstances" is a very accurate way of describing the fantasy genre. I think the appeal of the genre is the ideas of surreal and impossible things coming to life which is what we see in Wizard Of Earthsea.
DeleteRest of my post from the 18th of August -(Really I did it on the 19th in the evening 7:15pm, posted it at 9:30pm. But Blogger goes by Washington DC Time) Anyway;
ReplyDeleteDefinition 4
"W.R Irwin has pointed out that the primary feature, without which a work simply cannot be called fantasy, is "an overt violation of what generally accepted as possibility" He goes on to expand his description: "Whatever the material, extravagant or seemingly commonplace, a narrative is a fantasy if it presents the persuasive establishment and development of an impossibility, an arbitrary construct of the mind with all under the control of logic and rhetoric." (p. 9) "
Definition 5:
"By demanding a straightforward treatment of impossible characters, objects or events, we can distinguish between fantasy and related genres. Science fiction spends most of its time convincing the reader that its seeming impossibilities are in fact explainable if we extrapolate from the world and the science we know."
References
Extract from course reader weeks 3 and 4
Extract; Atterby, B. The Fantasy Tradition In American Literature: From Irving To Le Guin. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980, 1-10
W.R Irwin, The Game of the Impossible: A Rhetoric of Fantasy (Urbana, Iii.: University of Illinois Press, 1976), p. 4
How does Attebery (1980) define Fantasy? Find at least five definitions?
ReplyDeleteDefinition 1: A work cannot be fantasy without an overt violation of what is generally accepted as a possibility to the author.
Definition 2: It can involve creatures we know do not exist like dragons and flying horses. It can also revolve around objects like magic rings like The Lord of the Rings does.
Definition 3: Fantasy treats impossibilities without hesitation and without any attempt to reconcile them with the understanding of the of the workings of the world or make us believe that these things could come true under any circumstances.
Definition 4: Fantasy is like a game and demands one to play wholeheartedly and accept for the moment all rules and turns of the game. This can result in an occasional sense of unexpected beauty and strangeness or wonder.
Definition 5: Fantasy makes the impossible seem familiar and the familiar seem strange and new.
References
Extract from Course Reader Weeks 3 and 4
What are some archetypes that often recur in fantasy fiction? Give examples from Earthsea and other fantasy works you might know.
ReplyDeleteWithin the Fantasy Genre we see many archetypes that reoccur within texts in this genre. The website, ‘literarydevices’, describe archetypes as “a typical character, an action or a situation that seems to represent such universal patterns of human nature. An archetype, also known as universal symbol, may be a character, a theme, a symbol or even a setting.” The term is not genre specific, however, the fantasy genre is one that features some of the clearest examples of character formats and themes.
Carl Jung was the first to apply the term ‘Archetype’ to literature when he recognized that there were “Universal patterns in all stories and mythologies regardless of culture or historical period”. In Jung’s book ‘The Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious’ he listed the archetypes he found as:
1. The Self
2. The Anima
3. The Animus
4. The Syzygy
5. The Divine Child
6. The Superman
7. The Hero
8. The Great Mother
9. The Wise Old Man
10. The Trickster
11. The Shadow
These archetypes are used throughout the fantasy genre as a way of developing the story and are used a lot during the 3-act structure to build up to the climax.
We see many of these archetypal characters in the novel ‘The Wizard Of Earthsea” by Ursula Le Guin who conform to Jung’s idea of archetypes and archetypal characters. The character Ged, the main protagonist in the novel, must overcome many challenges, personal and with his power, as he learns from wise old teachers about magic. This idea of a restless student and a patient master is one that reoccurs within many fantasy stories.
References:
https://www.hccfl.edu/media/724354/archetypesforliteraryanalysis.pdf