The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle

        The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle is a story about a unicorn who comes to believe that she is the last of her kind. She undertakes a quest to discover what has happened to all of the other unicorns. She soon discovers that few people retain the ability to see her for what she truly is: a unicorn, immortal and beautiful beyond imagining. What others see is an old, white mare… an exceptionally beautiful mare, but still an ordinary horse. This theme, that magic is in part a matter of perception, and more importantly, of believing, permeates the novel. In one instance, a witch running a carnival of mythological beasts, which are in fact normal animals enchanted to appear magical, uses patrons’ desire to see wonders to fuel her enchantments. One enchanted animal appears more convincing than others; this, we are told, is because the animal has come to believe that it is truly magical, which lends strength to the enchantment. Since unicorns have been gone so long from the world, no one believes that they are real or even that they ever existed. Since belief is as potent as magic, no one but those who still believe in unicorns can see the unicorn for what she truly is.

        The book itself is full of magic, both literal and literary. On her journey, the unicorn encounters a butterfly who only speaks in poetry and snatches of overheard conversation; self-aware outlaws who understand that “men need to have heroes, but no man can ever be as big as the need, and so a legend grows around a grain of truth, like a pearl,” and thus construct stories about their own deeds so that history will remember them as heroes; a tree who determines to love a human man; and various other memorable characters.

        The unicorn’s mission brings her together with a hapless magician, Schmendrick, and an ordinary woman, Molly Grue, who still cherishes dreams of unicorns. They both hinder and assist the unicorn as she seeks her brethren. Their journey takes them into the domain of the dreaded King Haggard, a man who has searched in vain for an object to possess that will make him happy. Schmendrick, Molly, and the unicorn travel through Haggard’s poverty-ridden domain until they arrive at the town underneath the castle, Hagsgate. Here they learn of the curse that has been placed on Haggard’s domain by the witch who constructed his castle. When Haggard refused to pay her for her labor, she cursed his domain, excepting Hagsgate and the castle, to decline. The people of Hagsgate, who enabled Haggard’s misdeed, are to share Haggard’s fortune until the castle is destroyed, an event that can only occur when someone from Hagsgate town enacts Haggard’s ruin. The three travelers try to unravel the curse, but something protects Haggard: the magical Red Bull, a creature that prowls the night and is said to be looking for unicorns…

        The true magic of this novel resides in the prose. The images that Beagle creates with words are whimsical and quirky. Here is an exchange between Schmendrick the Magician and Molly Grue:

        “‘You can’t come with us. We are on a quest.’ His voice and eyes were as stern as he could make them, but he could feel his nose being bewildered. He had never been able to discipline his nose.

        “Molly’s own face closed like a castle against him, trundling out the guns and slings and cauldrons of boiling lead. ‘And who are you to say “we”?’

        “‘I’m her guide,’ the magician said importantly. The unicorn made a soft, wondering sound, like a cat calling her kittens. Molly laughed aloud, and made it back.

        “‘You don’t know much about unicorns,’ she repeated. ‘She’s letting you travel with her, though I can’t think why, but she has no need of you. She doesn’t need me either, heaven knows, but she’ll take me too. Ask her.’ The unicorn made the soft sound again, and the castle of Molly’s face lowered the drawbridge and threw wide even its deepest keep. ‘Ask her,’ she said.” (70-71). 

        This passage is full of the whimsy that pervades the novel. I loved the idea of a nose that can’t be tamed and a unicorn that makes sweet momma cat noises. I especially love the imagery Beagle created regarding the emotional barriers that Molly erects between herself and Schmendrick that are quickly eroded by the presence of the unicorn. I would love to share more passages from the book but I wouldn’t want to spoil any of it!

        The book is at once sweet, imaginative, clever, funny, sad, uplifting, and self-aware, and I highly recommend it to readers of all ages! I look forward to renting the movie version.

Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

        In Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, three men go on an exploratory mission to a remote part of the world where natives insist that there is a country comprised solely of women that is inaccessible to outsiders. The three explorers, a doctor (Jeff), a rich hobbyist (Terry), and a sociologist (Vandyck, our narrator), disbelieve the rumors that an all-female society could exist, given the necessity of men to reproduce the race, but are determined to find out the truth. The men go into this adventure with different assumptions of what an all-female society will be like, each according to their dispositions. Terry, a man who thinks that all women yearn to be mastered, believes that there either must be men hidden somewhere, or that these women will be in need of rescue. Jeff, who idealizes women as all things feminine and peaceful, imagines that this society must be perfect (and is very nearly right). Vandyck, whose views of women are somewhere between Terry’s and Jeff’s, makes few assumptions and cherishes the idea of studying such a society.

        When the men arrive in what Van calls Herland, they are taken captive by women who are athletic, intelligent, and utterly unafraid of them. These women assign the men guards and tutors who teach them the language so that the women can eventually interrogate the men about the outside world. But the more that Van discovers how utterly advanced the Herland society is, the more he has trouble justifying the cultural practices of his own society.

        In Herland, there is no disease, no crime, and no drama. This is the result of 2,000 years of deliberate cultural advancement. After a natural disaster and a social uprising eliminated all of the men from a society hemmed in by cliffs, the remaining women believed that they would die out until the great miracle occurred: a single woman gave virgin birth (parthenogenesis). She gave birth five times, and each of her five daughters gave birth in turn to five daughters, starting a race of New Women. This gave rise to a new religion devoted to the concept of Motherhood, which defines all of the goals and values in Herland. The highest goal for all women of Herland is to serve the future generations. The end result is a utopia of sisterhood and Motherhood where there is no concept of shame, danger, or evil.

        The women of Herland have deep, penetrating minds and are able to observe the logical fallacies inherent in many customs of patriarchal society, as well as the numerous moral failings of human society outside of their utopia. Van finds himself reconsidering the sense of moral superiority he feels about other societies as an American when faced with their ideal society. Terry, on the other hand, cannot get over his expectations of how women ought to behave—namely, as the possessions of men. These women do not display any of the qualities that Terry believes are feminine, such as modesty, submissiveness, and coquettishness. He also expects that all women are prone to vanity, pettiness, jealousy, and hysteria, but finds that the women of Herland are instead pragmatic, socially conscious, full of the spirit of sisterhood, and remarkably calm-tempered. This leads Van to conclude that “feminine charms” are not inherently feminine, but rather are “mere reflected masculinity—developed to please us because they had to please us, and in no way essential to the real fulfillment of their great process.” I wholly agree with this sentiment, and think that, like Terry does, many men in contemporary society are responding with aggression to the changes in modern gender expression as both men AND women realize that gender is a social construct that only serves to harm individuals who do not adhere to societal expectations.

        One thing I found especially interesting and thought provoking was how the men try to defend the benefits of competition as a boost to industry, but the women’s questions expose the underlying ideology of industry, which is that one must have an incentive to work, or contribute, to society. This poses a strong contrast to the women of Herland, who are united in Motherhood to invest in the future. The men admit that it is true that their women are motivated by motherhood as well, but insist that men need competition to motivate them. This is obviously reductive, but still points out the deficiency of a society motivated by competition when contrasted with the vision of what a united society could accomplish. The women of Herland have a unanimity of purpose, that of coordinating to further the race with each successive generation. The mothers are not invested only in their own child, but in all. In fact, in Herland, mothers only give birth and breastfeed their children; the education of children is reserved only for specialists. Terry insists that their version of motherhood is not “motherly” at all, as he assumes women should be absorbed in their own baby and value it more than others’. But what could be more motherly, the women of Herland insist, than ensuring that a child is raised by those most qualified to do so?

        This and several other concepts in Gilman’s utopia are controversial. Another example of controversial ideology is how the women of Herland actively practice eugenics in the form of not allowing substandard specimens of their race to propagate. They also practice population control by only allowing each woman to have a single child, with exceptions for women who produce "high quality" children.

        It is clear that this is a book with an agenda: Gilman insinuates that social reform led by feminist ideals will rid the world of conflict and social ills such as poverty. Jeff is clearly Gilman’s idea of an ideal, feminist man. He sides with the women of Herland in all things. To use the sociology term, Jeff “goes native” in Herland and adopts all of their beliefs and customs. Van also acclimates well to Herland society, but encounters difficulties in his marriage to Ellador when she insists that sex is for procreation only, which she and the women of Herland consider a holy sacrament. One thought that I had when reading about the Herland women’s opposition to sex for pleasure rather than recreation was that Gilman did her characters a disservice by insinuating that women are not sexual creatures. It made the all-female utopia less sympathetic to the male characters, and less sympathetic to me as a reader. There is even an implication that women who had sexual desire were bred out of the society for being unmotherly in the Herland sense of the term.

        Overall, I absolutely delighted in reading this book. It reads almost like an ethnology, which I found fascinating. The book was endlessly thought provoking, and made me reconsider aspects of gender and culture that I took for granted. I find it really impressive that this book was written in the early 1900s. There are certainly problematic elements in the book, but that need not discount the many thoughtful points that Gilman makes about the sometimes distorted values of patriarchal society. I liked it so much that I plan to read the sequel, which covers what happens when Van takes his wife into the outside world.

Defining the Fantastic

        This week I read chapter 2 of Tzvetan Todorov’s The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre. This chapter explores Todorov’s definition of “the fantastic.” The fantastic consists of uncanny events that cannot be explained according to the laws of the world we are familiar with. Todorov’s definition of how the fantastic works as a literary genre hinges on the concept of hesitation; for a story to embody the fantastic, the reader must hesitate between assigning uncanny events a natural or a supernatural explanation. The characters of the story may also experience this hesitation, but it is not necessary. The third clause of Todorov’s definition is that the reader must reject poetic and allegorical interpretations of the story in order for a story to embody the fantastic, as poetic and allegorical interpretations remove the ambiguity that is necessary for the fantastic to exist. The moment that a reader suppresses his hesitation to assign an uncanny event a natural or supernatural explanation is the moment that the fantastic ends. If the reader decides that the event has a natural explanation, it renders the event simply eerie or strange, whereas a supernatural explanation renders the event “marvelous,” but no longer fantastic.

        Through this lens I will evaluate several 19^th century short stories which all share in common the presence of uncanny events.

“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving, 1820

        “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” relates the tale of Ichabod Crane, a stern schoolmaster with pretensions of marrying up into high society. He pursues the wealthy heiress Katrina Van Tassel, but must compete for her affections against local bully/hero Brom Bones. They live near Sleepy Hollow, a valley that is reputed to be inhabited by ghosts, and in particular the Headless Horseman. After attending a party where villagers relate their sightings of the famous spectre, Crane proposes to Katrina but is soundly rejected. He rides home through Sleepy Hollow, becoming increasingly nervous as he remembers the ghost stories he has heard. His imagination runs wild until he realizes he is being followed by none other than the Headless Horseman, who throws his head at him and causes him to fall of his horse. The next morning, Crane is nowhere to be found, and all that remains of him is the horse, his hat, and a shattered pumpkin. Katrina goes on to marry Brom Bones, who looks “exceedingly knowing whenever the story of Ichabod was related.”

        I would argue that “Sleepy Hollow” does not qualify as a fantastic tale under Todorov’s definition because at the culmination of the story, there was a clearly plausible natural explanation of the uncanny event (the appearance of the headless horseman and Crane’s disappearance). Irving gives the readers clues as to the nature of the event: the smashed pumpkin is the head that was thrown at Crane, and Brom is the prankster who disguised himself as the Headless Horseman in order to drive Crane out of town, which we can infer from his knowing looks whenever Ichabod’s story is told. The reader is even told that Crane isn’t dead, but turned up in another state. Although there is some ambiguity left in the tale, as many of the women in the town uphold the belief that Crane was spirited away by the Horseman’s ghost, as a reader my sense of hesitation was suspended and put to rest by the end of the story.

“Rip Van Winkle” by Washington Irving, 1819

        In “Rip Van Winkle,” the eponymous Rip is a hen-pecked husband who is averse to all “profitable labor” done on his own behalf, though he will help out anybody else who requires assistance. One day, Rip goes out with his dog, Wolf, and his gun in order to escape his wife’s haranguing. In the mountains, Rip encounters an old man attempting to carry a keg up the mountain, who he then assists. At the top of the mountain, Rip sees a party of queer people with strange faces who are dressed in antiquated clothing. Although they are playing a game of nine-pins, the crashes of which sound like thunder, they all appear solemn. Rip drinks from the keg and passes out. When he wakes up, he is at the foot of the mountain. In place of new gun is an old rusted one and his dog is nowhere to be found. He returns to the village to find that he doesn’t recognize anyone and that everybody is dressed differently. The villagers touch their chins and gape at Rip, who discovers he has a beard that is a foot long! He searches for those he used to know, but eventually discovers that twenty years have passed and everything has changed, including the fact that his wife has died and the America has fought and won its independence from Britain. Rip goes on to become a village legend, with some believing he ran away from his wife and others believing his supernatural tale.

        Initially I was inclined to think that “Rip Van Winkle” did qualify as a fantastic tale according to Todorov’s definition, but upon further reflection, I do not believe that it does. Unless Rip cannot be trusted as a reliable narrator, which is a possibility, it would appear that there is a clear supernatural explanation to the events that befell him, which eliminates the element of hesitation. When Rip comes back to town, the villagers relate to him how it is common lore that the founders of the area are known to come back every twenty years to play at nine-pins in the mountain, and it would appear that Rip encountered these supernatural beings.

“Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1835

        This story begins as Goodman Brown leaves his wife of three months, Faith, to go on an unknown errand in the woods, but the author lets us know that he has an “evil purpose.” On his journey Goodman Brown meets a fellow traveler with a staff shaped like a snake. Goodman Brown experiences misgivings about continuing the journey, believing that to continue the journey will endanger his status as a good Christian. His fellow traveler assures him that both his father and grandfather before him took the same journey before him. The traveler boasts of friends from all walks of life, including politicians and priests, and stops to greet pious Goody Cloyse who refers to him as the Devil but welcomes him anyway. Goodman Brown refuses to venture further into the woods, saying that he refuses to quit his Faith for the devil, but sees his spiritual advisors pass him in the woods to attend some sort of communion. He hears Faith scream and finds one of her hair ribbons and declares Faith gone and all good in the world gone with her. He follows everybody else into a clearing where everyone he knows, both good and evil, join together in an unholy communion. The leader of the communion declares that once he is initiated, he will be able to see sin everywhere, as “evil is the nature of mankind.” Across the altar he sees his wife, Faith. Goodman Brown tells her to resist the wicked communion, but he does not see if she obeys. Suddenly the clearing is empty and he is by himself. He returns to the village the next morning but sees wickedness everywhere and in everyone where before he had seen good. He becomes distrustful and “shrank from the bosom of Faith” thereafter.

        This story may or may not qualify as a fantastic story under Todorov’s definition depending on whether the reader chooses to read the story as an allegory about the recognition of evil in human nature. If it is read as an allegory, it is no longer fantastic. However, if one reads it simply, they are left to wonder whether it was all a dream, or a fit of madness, that led Goodman Brown to so radically change his worldview. I am more inclined to read it as an allegory, especially because of the fact that he wife is named Faith, which seems a bit too on-the-nose to be incidental.

        That all of these stories do not qualify as fantastic under Todorov’s definition makes me believe that his definition is too narrow. To me, the fantastic does not have to be ambiguous, as the recognition of something as supernatural does not disqualify it from being fantastic in my opinion. To me, the fantastic is anything that cannot be explained by the laws of nature. By my own definition, “Sleepy Hollow” still does not count as a fantastic story, but “Rip Van Winkle” surely does. As for “Young Goodman Brown,” I am inclined to agree with Todorov that poetic and allegorical interpretations take a story out of the realm of the fantastic.