Phantastes and Stuff

For a starter, with this book, I'm still not sure if I liked reading it at the pace we did.  It can be exquisitely beautiful, and painfully slow, and occasionally dull, and overly moralizing. But I can say that from time to time I was caught by MacDonald’s enchantment, by his underlying concept that we can build a land of Faerie in our minds, and travel there. So, for this post I'm going to talk about the theme or 'motif' of death and decay throughout this novel. The first time we see any mention of death or decay from the narrator is when Anodos is lying beneath the beech tree and, in his trance-like state, imagines that he “in autumn, grew sad because [he] trod on the leaves that had sheltered [him], and received their last blessing in the sweet odors of decay.” Here, MacDonald seems to allude to  decay as positive, associating it with the “sweet odours” that accompany autumn, rather than focusing on them as a precursor of winter and death. Although the odors are pleasurable, they still symbolize the death of the leaves and the only consolation is that they will return in the spring. Once again, MacDonald refers to decaying leaves along the forest floor, and although he terms them “brown,” a bleak color of dead nature, he also uses the word “rich.” This gives a positive idea to the decay, as the sweet smell did in the previous passage. MacDonald seems to recognize the death that decay brings, but accepts it as a part of nature and embraces the positive attributes of decay, such as the color and smell. In another passage, however, MacDonald becomes more negative when Anodos describes, “Yet, as the clearest forest-well tastes sometimes of the bitterness of decayed leaves, so to my weary, prisoned heart, its cheerfulness had a sting of cold, and its tenderness unmanned me with the faintness of long-departed joys.” He no longer portrays the leaves as having a “sweet odour,” but rather a “bitterness,” and the forest does not enliven him, but makes him cold. This negative shift gives the forest a much more sinister representation, creating a duality of both good and evil in the woods. Another time that MacDonald mentions decay in a negative light is when the Maid of the Alder-tree, with whom Anodos becomes enchanted, turns to her real form and Anodos describes her as “a rough representation of the human frame, only hollow, as if made of decaying bark torn from a tree.” This gruesome description also sheds a sinister light on decay. By giving this enchantress, who attempts to leave Anodos at the mercy of the Alder-tree, a body of rotting bark, MacDonald portrays decay as almost monstrous, since she is. Overall, MacDonald’s story looks at both the positive and negative implications of death and decay in terms of nature and people, representing them more positively than do authors writing about Victorian society. This just portrayal fits appropriately with his Fairy Land where both good and evil exist in a fairytale-like way. Although the forces of good and evil often find themselves in conflict, they result in a harmony and justice: reward for those who are good and punishment for those who are bad. I found in a review someone said, "Knights fight Alder-trees and maidens deceive, but everything works itself out ultimately." Moreover, while decay can destroy and kill, it can also renew and create beauty, particularly in fragrance.