Abstract
The year 1922, often termed as the annus mirabilis or the high point of literary modernism, witnessed a wave of great works being produced. In addition to several other reasons, one significant aspect which amplifies the supremacy of the year is that it adds an impetus to the avant-garde narrative. In this paper, the fantasy genre is studied in relation to the existentialist view(s), through two works produced in the year 1922, Margery Williams' The Velveteen Rabbit and David Garnett's Lady into Fox. The complications and ambiguities related to existence, in oneself, and the connection with others, form subjects of study. In The Velveteen Rabbit, a reader finds a toy rabbit transformed into a real one; in Lady into Fox, a human is transformed into an animal. While the former is regarded to be a transformation for the better, the latter indicates otherwise. However, the paper examines the way in which the phenomenon of such metamorphoses has further implications attached to it, primarily, in regards to existence. The fantastic concept of transformation of the characters and the effect it has on the story, and in the discourse of humanism would be analyzed with related theoretical ideas. The paper studies the ethos attached to the transformed being, and the effect of pathos it creates. Further, the paper would cater to the existentialist stances the transformation creates, relating to the manifested paradox in it. It would determine the ambiguous space of humanism, and if the different form creates a feeling of freedom. The analytical study would determine the element of essence losing importance over existence and vice versa, even if it becomes redundant or meaningless.
Keywords: Ambiguity, Animal, Being, Essence, Existence, Existentialism, Fantasy, Freedom.
The succinct uncertain dynamics around human experiences cater to subjective reasoning. As for such incoherent stigmas that are attached to the human understanding, the absurd breakdown in the same peeks into a window of unconventional expressions. The fantastic brings in the narrative of the unconventional to replicate one's experiences, which is not entirely new in literature. Fantasy, spawning out of supernaturalism, could be seen in literature since time immemorial. Appropriation of fantasy is in a breakdown of order; the logical reasoning, whereby, moves secondarily.
In order to regulate a context to fantastic discourses, the prerequisite obliges to the need of the literary period. On the backdrop of the breakdown in the world order, modernism encapsulates different aspects backed up with uncertainty. The literature which grows, thereby, does not remain one-dimensional; as a result, there transpires an upsurge in narratives, and the framework comprehends complexity. This flurry is the same in the case of fantasy and the human experience.
The year 1922, often termed as the annus mirabilis or the high point of literary modernism, witnessed a wave of great works being produced. Significant literary works, such as James Joyce’s Ulysses, Virginia Woolf’s Jacob’s Room, D.H. Lawrence’s England, My England and Other Stories, T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land,” F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tales of the Jazz Age, in addition to several other got published in the year. In the same year, we find two texts based on fantasy being produced: Margery Williams’ The Velveteen Rabbit and David Garnett’s Lady into Fox. Either of the two works amplifies the notion of existence in contrasting shades: it caters to the relativity between fantasy and reality, which, in turn, apprehends existence to have subjective complexities in desire:
In expressing desire, fantasy can operate in two ways (according to the different meanings of ‘express’): it can tell of, manifest or show desire (expression in the sense of portrayal, representation, manifestation, linguistic utterance, mention, description), or it can expel desire, when this desire is a disturbing element which threatens cultural order and continuity (expression in the sense of pressing out, squeezing, expulsion, getting rid of something by force). (Jackson 2)
The aspect which emanates from the unstable expression of fantasy moves to the point in which the modern problem persists. This identifies the problem that the paper intends to address. The modern complication of existence catapults the breakdown in social stability. Fantasy, thereby, breaks away from the order of logic to an abhorrent collapse.
The Velveteen Rabbit or How Toys Become Real was published in the year 1922 by English-American author Margery Williams Bianco. Regarded as one of the classics in children's literature, the short story is about a toy Rabbit in a nursery. The Rabbit was gifted to a Boy at Christmas, and after being played with for two hours, the toy is forgotten. A wise and old toy, the Skin Horse, tells the Rabbit about the way in which toys become real because of the love they receive from children. There was a character introduced as Nana who, one day, gave the Boy the Rabbit to sleep with as a substitute for another toy. He soon becomes fond of the Rabbit and considers the toy to be ‘Real.’ Once, the toy Rabbit meets some real rabbits, and there is an interaction between them; here, the toy Rabbit realizes that he could not hop. At a point in the story, the Boy falls sick with scarlet fever. Once recovered, the room is supposed to be disinfected, and certain things are supposed to be burned, including the toy Rabbit. He, eventually, is not burned, but he manages to come out of a loosely tied sack. He cries and a Fairy appears from the place where a tear drops. The toy Rabbit is transformed into a real Rabbit by the fairy. The Rabbit was real to the Boy before, but now he was real to everyone, as the Fairy said. The Boy at the close of the story meets the Rabbit, now real, and finds a resemblance to his old loved toy, not realizing that it indeed was that Velveteen Rabbit transformed into a Real one.
The Velveteen Rabbit perpetually oozes into the supernatural activity in a light vein. The Rabbit holds the center of the story; the story can, thereby, be understood to be a beast fable. There is a certain amount of "inherent morality" involved, as proposed by John Ronald Reuel Tolkien in his “On Fairy Stories.” However, Tolkien states that the beast usually “wholly forgets” the “desire” in the story, which is not the case in The Velveteen Rabbit. Rosemary Jackson states, “A powerful myth of endlessly unsatisfied desire becomes one of the hallmarks of modernism” (96). This is the paradox in the amorphous existence, whereby, The Velveteen Rabbit has his desire been partly accomplished, but without the person with whom the Rabbit has his fondness in the first place. The Rabbit becomes real, but the Boy is no more by his side. The essence of a thing created by humans rolling into life had taken place before in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818), and, more closely, after, in Disney's Toy Story movie series, created by John Lasseter, Pete Docter, Andrew Stanton, and Joe Ranft. In every case, this very "desire" remains wherein existence in itself destabilizes the feeling of accomplishment. Simply put, “existence precedes essence” in such human-made toys/sapient creatures too.
The novella Lady into Fox was also published in the year 1922, by British writer David Garnett, who, interestingly received the nickname 'Bunny.' Lady into Fox is about the story of Sylvia Fox Tebrick and Richard Tebrick, a married couple. The lady who turns into a Fox/vixen is Sylvia Tebrick, and this metamorphosis happens abruptly. There is no reason attached to it, even though the narrator makes an attempt to come out with an explanation. Nevertheless, the sudden transformation shocks Mr. Tebrick, and, apparently, saddens Mrs. Tebrick. Mr. Tebrick sends all his helpers away so as to keep the transformation of Mrs. Tebrick a secret, though Mrs. Tebrick's old Nanny recognizes her. Mr. Tebrick also kills his dogs, for that would risk Mrs. Tebrick's life, as she might be attacked by the dogs. The story then continues where Mr. Tebrick lives with his wife in seclusion. Mrs. Tebrick initially behaves like a human, but her instincts gradually become that of a vixen. Towards the end of the story, Mrs. Tebrick no longer has anything human about her, and both her body and her characteristics become that of a vixen's, even though she still recognized her husband. She is eventually killed by some hounds, which also attack Mr. Tebrick, who barely escapes, and recovers.
Garnett’s Lady into Fox images a lapse from human to inhuman, dissimilar to the transformation in The Velveteen Rabbit. Just like Gregor Samsa in Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis (1915), Sylvia Tebrick’s change from a lady into a vixen “does not occur through marvellous intervention (supernaturalism, magic, quasi-scientific experiments or potions) or through unconscious motivation (uncannily revealing a latent desire). It is a transformation without cause” (Jackson 93). Such absurd transformation caters to a condition of vulnerable human capability. The state of helplessness, as reflected by Richard Tebrick, is potent to the rupture in human connection. Mr. Tebrick's love for an animal, even with the knowledge that the animal is his wife, is in itself absurd to think of. The "existence" matters, the "essence" does not.
The Velveteen Rabbit and Lady into Fox, both emanate critical inputs in the fantastic discourse. The two texts have different means of expression, for one is a children's fantasy, the other dark. In the case of The Velveteen Rabbit, there is a certain amount of morality involved; Lady into Fox does not. Further, a reader would be able to look at the experiences of the Rabbit clearly, but not of the Fox, for in Lady into Fox, the assumptions are made either by Richard Tebrick or the narrator. The one binding element is, however, that of transformation. The effect of such transformation elevates the foundation of the paper. The expression of the transformation as in these texts bifurcate the virtue of existence juxtaposed with the absurdity of it. The characters involved in the transformation and the emotions attached to the same culminate a paradox if a reader considers the two texts together. Existence has contradictory receptions in these texts. The Rabbit does not entirely abhor the transformation, for the effect transpired by the transformation is supposed to be happy. The vixen is not directly being looked at, but as supposed by the narrator, the absurd and abrupt transformation is tragic, and an instant break in human intimacy is done. The notable aspect, here, is that the Rabbit virtually has no change in behavioral characteristics, but the vixen does. This underlies the dimensions of existence itself, the absurdity of it, and the stability too.
The matter of scrutiny profuse the efficacy obtaining the effect that existence has subjective implications. The ethos of the texts procures the abeyance of the essence and explores existence. Entailment of the existential absurdity stimulates the self or the ethos when it comes to fantasy. The reflection of it is operated as the pathos, the emotions begetting for the other. The binary of ethos and pathos are concepts infused for interpretation, beginning from Aristotle. The corresponding elements in regards to the fantastic happen through the binary of ‘self’ and ‘other,’ as proposed by Tzvetan Todorov (in consideration of fantasy). Perception and reasoning form prominence in the self. The presentation of the character, that is, the ethos in the story recognizes the self as the one who forms the center of affairs and is the aggressor in the plot. The other is rather passive in nature: it is the emulated emotion that is contemplated out of the activities which take place in the story. The stress remains upon the pathos, that is, the playing upon the feelings of the characters other than the one holding the center.
The strategy of the unfurling didactic of existence in the texts in consideration renders around the effect of reality. The insatiability of existence conforms to the perceptions regarding reality. “The story of The Velveteen Rabbit presents a developing account of the significance of both self-definedness and other-definedness for securing a thing's character as something both distinct from and integrated with other things, as a part of reality” (Jacobson 5). The Rabbit is never seen to have had a major behavioral shift, for the essence of the creature kept its focal point towards the becoming of reality, wherein, the stress is rather ambiguous and implied. The apprehension of happiness at the end is, perhaps, a misjudgment. The theme of 'other' in this fantasy is not direct, for the story focuses on the Rabbit's experiences and activities. Assertion of the other is substantiated through the involvement of the Boy, the Fairy, and the appearances of the other rabbits. The Rabbit's transformation only gives life to a toy, but the end does not entirely provide happiness. The fantasy remains confided to the Rabbit, and thereby, one may presume the end as a happy one. However, to formulate the action in an existential stance, the transformation alights a new story altogether, virtually making the relations hitherto absolutely null. The existence of the real Rabbit turns out to have no bearing on the story, apart from the fact that his life is saved. The Rabbit becomes real, but there is no explication in it, as the Rabbit is now a regular one in the wilderness. The toy becomes real, the inanimate becomes animate: the existence is sustained but the essence becomes a void. There is no relational value to the existence of the Rabbit, the 'other' ceases to exist, and the 'self' is a part of the herd.
The notion of 'Real' plays the major motif in The Velveteen Rabbit. The motif first occurs in a conversation between the Rabbit and the old Skin Horse; develops in the verbal exchanges between the Boy and Nana; recurs when the toy Rabbit meets some real ones; and finally can be seen towards the end, where the Rabbit meets the Nursery Magic Fairy. To be real is to exist:
Real is actually a social and physical process of change that can transform a toy into a friend, from simple object to a prized play relation. And as that friendship develops the material wear on those toys becomes the measure of a toy's social value. (Kellehear 41)
Social acceptance and the feeling of belonging is the substance that has been played upon in The Velveteen Rabbit. The text was published in the backdrop of Post-World War 1, a period witnessing a collapse in human relationships both socially and globally. It is when such a collapse had already doomed the world; that we find a text highlighting an eagerness for belonging to be addressed.
One of the essential aspects of modernism is the complexity of existence itself. Notably, the Rabbit can be heard and seen, it regulates the story firsthand. However, the Rabbit has no authority over himself:
The Velveteen Rabbit is restricted in two ways; first, by his form, and second through his agency. He does not have hind legs, so therefore cannot hop and even if he was made to possess hind legs, he would lack the capacity to act on them and still could not hop. He would need to be physically manipulated by the boy or by Nana to ‘hop.’ (1)
Existence, thereby, is complicated, for existence might mean sheer presence with no essence, or freedom. Existence can be thought of as an institution through the Rabbit, where he has nothing to act upon. The existence is with no essence altogether, until he is transformed. This transformation is pivotal for the freedom of the Rabbit and in order to gain the essence that was hitherto missing. The metamorphosis from a Toy Rabbit to a Real Rabbit, thereby, is a method to procure essence, for it has been preceded by existence. All other dimensions attached to it: love, survival, fear, and hope; no longer remain important to the fantasy.
“David Garnett’s Lady into Fox modernizes theriomorphic fantasy [sic]” (Stableford xxvi). Theriomorphic fantasy is a “fantasy featuring transmutations between human and animal form; the Clute/Grant Encyclopedia prefers the term “shapeshifting,” which implies a degree of conscious control, or at least a regularity and reversibility” (403). The creation of such fantasy makes an attempt to create a different reality. Contrastive literature can “encourage protest at both realities without suggesting a remedy” (Hume 96). Such a work is Garnett's Lady into Fox. The complication in reading Lady into Fox is fuelled by the fact that the narrative remains predominantly about the 'other.' The complicated aspect herein lies in the construct of the story, in which, the central character has neither any vocal expression nor can the reader look at the story from her perspective. This points to the tales as stated for someone else's transformation:
In accounts of biomutation by tellers who did not themselves undergo the change or changes in question, and irrespective of whether the metamorphosis exceeds or remains within the horizon of what the text portrays as the natural causal order, key factors bearing on degrees of ontological disruptiveness include the narrator’s stance toward the narrated events as well as the text’s handling of the mutated agent’s perspective on the storyworld. Depending on how these and other aspects of narrative structure are managed, a text that portrays a species change as marvelous can be ontologically conservative overall, apart from the initial transformation, whereas a text in which no literal shift of species occurs can adumbrate a wholesale revision of the categorization systems used to understand self-other relationships across the species boundary. (Herman 77)
The story keeps its focus on Mrs. Tebrick, but her experiences never could be understood firsthand. This is a straight contrast to what we find in The Velveteen Rabbit. In Lady into Fox, the reality is afflicted with uncertainty. The reversal of the transformation remains uncertain, and so are Mrs. Tebrick's human attributes. There is a breakdown in the communication between Mr. and Mrs. Tebrick. Further, Mr. Tebrick isolates himself from other people too. This is akin to Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis.
The Metamorphosis and Lady into Fox utilize the mythic permeability of animal and human identity to convey the alienation of modern humans not just from other animals but also from each other. Both texts use the form of the fable to make the point that we find relations with animals easier than with human beings. (Danta 154)
As a result, existence is accepted to be bound and based on dependence. The dependence for the survival of the Fox on her husband and the dependence aimed at the emotions of the husband on his wife. Existence, thereby, is different to be apprehended from that of The Velveteen Rabbit. Here, existence forms the primacy, but the essence is almost not required. The story in Lady into Fox, however, does not remain open-ended. One might wonder how Mr. Tebrick might have mourned the death of his wife, but he never was the one on whom the story was primarily based. The Fox in the story dies and does not transform back at any point.
The crisis in the existence of the lady is dark, yet meaningless. In this case, the reality is rather a downfall. Such transformation from a human body to that of an animal conforms to the uncertainty of modernism. While in The Velveteen Rabbit, the transformation conditions itself with afflictive loss, but is supposed to be affirmatory; in Lady into Fox, the transformation is tragic in the absolute sense.
The arguments so far have been made in order to analyze the instability in existence, and that it has a problematic relationship with essence and freedom. Freedom, to be precise, is a catalyst that connects The Velveteen Rabbit and Lady into Fox. Both the animals are eventually amidst a familiar habitat, at least in terms of appearance. Such expressions regarding freedom or sheer existence are propounded and theorized by Martin Heidegger:
Heidegger’s assertion that the most fundamental aspect of the human condition is angst resulting from awareness of death can easily be extrapolated into a partial explanation of some of the classic themes of fantasy, including wish-fulfillment fantasies of immortality and various forms of afterlife, the personalization of Death, and the compensatory construction of secondary worlds. (Stableford 137)
This existential angst is exploited by the demarcation of 'Being,' which is a concept as a basic state of Dasein. “All the Being-as-it-is [So-sein] which this entity possesses is primarily Being. So when we designate this entity with the term 'Dasein', we are expressing not its "what" (as if it were a table, house or tree) but its Being [sic]” (Heidegger 67). Such ontological bearing upon the existence, contesting with essence, provides impetus to the dissecting marker, elevating the objective the paper attempts to achieve. The texts in consideration of the paper complicate Heidegger's philosophy. The rationale of the Rabbit supports the meaningfulness of being; the irrationality of the Fox caters to the absurdity of being. In the case of the latter, the exposition of Jean-Paul Sartre, in reference to G.W.F. Hegel could be connected with:
Now the characteristic of Heidegger's philosophy is to describe Dasein by using positive terms which hide the implicit negations. Dasein is "outside of itself, in the world"; it is "a being of distances"; it is care; it is "its own possibilities," etc. All this amounts to saying that Dasein "is not" in itself, that it "is not" in immediate proximity to itself, and that it "surpasses" the world inasmuch as it posits itself as not being in itself and as not being the world. (Sartre 18)
The manifestation of 'Being,' is thereby, not static. As per the arguments in the paper, the ontological implication may shake based on the ethos and the pathos in the certain text in consideration. The closing of either of the texts, The Velveteen Rabbit and Lady into Fox, formulate the explicit connection with Heidegger's and Sartre's contrasting outlook toward the concept of 'Being.' “The mantra of Sartrean humanism, echoed by Camus and de Beauvoir, is that you can always make something out of what you’ve been made into” (Flynn 49). While this reflects the change in the essence, we find that the transformation results in the making of something different in the literal sense. The transformations are not repetitive, and the act is linear, with no cycle present. There is, hence, an absolute transformation. The reality of the being is placed along with the absurdity of reality. In the case of the Rabbit, the essence of the phenomenology of being real and free in the wild only breaks its connection to the human world. The Fox, too, is bereft of the connection with the human space. She, further, has babies with another fox. The space of the humans is, thereby, indicated to be an unwanted space, through the imagery of animals. The real space of the humans, thus, might be censured in this case. The angst of existence remains in the human world, and the transformation only stipulates an escape to move out of this space. Freedom is only available for both the Rabbit and the Fox, once they are transformed into complete animals.
Freedom is emancipated from a detachment from the human world. Albeit the exploration of freedom became predominant after the Second World War, the understanding of it is applicable to the texts in consideration of this paper: the reason being that the 1920s was still a period of uncertainty and global crisis, against the backdrop of the First World War. Such consideration strengthens the existentialist view in connection to The Velveteen Rabbit and Lady into Fox. The human world and its ambiguity are reflected in the texts, wherein freedom is meaningless, for there is no discovery involved in it. The habitat is being revisited in both cases, but this is just another escape from the human world. The remembrance of the Boy in The Velveteen Rabbit, and Richard Tebrick in Lady into Fox, problematizes the freedom, for there is a string attached, and complete freedom is not achieved. “In order to achieve genuine freedom, Beauvoir says, one must will oneself to be free” (Arp 263). However, a reader would find traces of emotional involvement in the texts, albeit the loss is irreversible in both cases. Further, in the case of humans, existential thought projects freedom to come with a sense of responsibility. The escape from the human body, or having the body of an animal but with reasoning, only discards the aspect of responsibility. This, in turn, propagates the aspect of the existence giving angst to humans only, for even with a certain amount of reasoning, the animals are indifferent to responsibilities.
Existence is a complicated concept, which has its effect not only on the 'self,' but also on the 'other.' The consideration of one character amplifying emotions through the state of existence marks a corollary of being. In The Velveteen Rabbit and Lady into Fox, the state of 'being' creates contrasting pictures. Fantastic is felt when there is a certain amount of hesitation involved in apprehending the state of the existence of that world. The Velveteen Rabbit imbibes the aspect of reality to signify the superiority of animation or the state of being free to move and operate oneself. The transformation as such matters for the longevity of the Rabbit, which, almost is in a state of death. Hence, there is a near-death experience involved in the Rabbit's story, and the transformation acts as a prevention from it. This transformation is, thereby, a mark in a state of what J.R.R. Tolkien calls 'recovery.' “Recovery (which includes return and renewal of health) is a re-gaining—regaining of a clear view” (28). Whether or not this marks a point of happiness is, as argued in the paper, problematic. A paradox we find in the existence of the Rabbit is that the new life virtually removes the remains of the previous one. There is freedom, but the emotional value is retracted. The essence, thereby, is relinquished with the longevity in existence. The attempt here is to add meaning to existence. Lady into Fox projects a distinctive picture. The transformation is unwanted, and so is the freedom. There is a virtual downgrade, in terms of reasoning. However, a close study would correlate the same with a breakdown in humanism. The movement away from the human world indicates a rather gloomy picture. The paradox underlying the metamorphosis of Sylvia Tebrick is that the existence in itself is absurd. The relationship between the husband and the wife is violated, and so does the essence of being. This transformation moves away from having a meaning to meaninglessness.
The significance of fantasy in connection with existence could be, thus, identified in the texts under consideration. The integral observations that the paper propounds show the periphery of existence to have unstable effects. The underlying sense of desire in either of the texts shows contrasting pictures: in The Velveteen Rabbit, there is a strong manifestation of a desire to become real, for the motif of turning real is accomplished in the text. Lady into Fox is a text that strongly expels desire, for the transformation is an unwanted one. The desire, in the purview of the paper, lies in the very notion of essence. The concept of existence is correlated with essence, and the ambiguity could be seen in the perception of the latter. For the Rabbit, the essence remains a desire until it becomes true; the case is not the same for the Fox. Through the narrator, a reader finds that the essence of the Fox is not the primary concern for the husband; the existence of his wife matters, even if she is metamorphosed as a Fox. The paradox of existence could further be seen in the effect of transformation: for the Rabbit, transformation is a desire with reasoning involved, while for the Fox, there is no reasonable explanation for the transformation. In general, thereby, existence in itself could be regarded as paradoxical. Further, looked at as a subjective domain, existence largely depends upon the experience of the subject. The Velveteen Rabbit is a story that is centered on the titular character, the ethos of the text is, naturally, transparent; Lady into Fox, however, is a story of the other, shown through the narrator and Mr. Tebrick. Hence, a reader could only assume the experiences through the narration, rather than the character herself. This connection, however, adds another finding to the paper. The Rabbit's dependency eventually becomes nullified for the story gradually becomes one based on the toy becoming real; the Fox and the husband, however, are interdependent — the former over the latter for survival, the latter over the former for emotions. Another major point in consideration is that of the ambiguity of freedom itself: in both the stories, freedom is attained only when the animals are out of the human world. Given that the period when the texts were written still had the effects of world war and the economy was in the downhill, the human critique had already started to grow in literature, with the recurrence of the existential angst. The last of the major findings, as stated earlier, the rationale of the Rabbit supports the meaningfulness of being; the irrationality of the Fox caters to the absurdity of being. Existence, therefore, is a complicated concept in either of the texts. There is a certain amount of angst involved in the expression. Humanism is critiqued through the medium of fantasy. The method of using transformation as a tool to establish the plot of the story correlates with the characters' experiences, and the emotions evoked out of it, both to the 'self' and the 'other.' The ethos and pathos in these works of fantasy recognizes existence having unstable implications. Even though existence persists, the essence is being toyed with, with the impetus being provided by the concept of freedom. This addresses the modern crisis in existence, where humanism has collapsed. There is either an escape from it or a refusal altogether.
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