A lily-white Marble Lady. A host of sweet, believing women in cottages, and a loving, saint-like Beech Tree. There is no doubt that MacDonald's Phantastes is replete with soft, maternal figures. Critics have a number of ways of looking at this motif that appears so often throughout the journey of Andonos.
For starters, the maternal figures are easily spotted by Freudian and Jungian psychoanalysts. Robert Lee Wolff, one such critic, sees the whole story as a sort of allegory that signifies MacDonald's personal quest for his deceased mother. This is supported by the often-revisited idea that the kindest, most gentle maternal figures in the book want to love Andonos, but can not, or won't fully. This is especially evident in the Beech Tree, who croons that she cannot love him, for he is a man and she is only a tree.
Another interesting interpretation of the inclusion of maternal figures in Phantastes explores the idea of a feminized God. Though, as a Protestant, the idea of God being feminine or maternal would mean heresy for MacDonald, some critics believe that his Calvinist upbringing might play a role in this portrayal. Growing up, MacDonald was raised in a strict Calvinist household, and the idea of a loving, comforting God was far from his childhood home. To reconcile the harsh, unfriendly idea of the God he grew up knowing and the God he came to love later in life, MacDonald easily made have had an idea, either consciously or unconsciously, of a God who took on a more feminine, motherly persona.
Research for this post was done using this article by Midori Kihara.
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