I don’t have much insight into this, because you could read it as a fantasy novel story complete with fairies, moving trees, and magical objects, or you could read it much deeper and more intriguing than just that. I only wanted to include a few random passages of why I love it so very much. They’re toward the end simply because I didn’t have this journal until then, but there were certainly many astonishing uses of language earlier on.

A gray mist continually gathered behind me. When I looked back towards the past, this mist was the medium through which my eyes had to strain for a vision of what had gone by; and the form of the white lady had receded into an unknown region. (Ch.XVIII)

As I walked over the grass towards the cottage, which stood at a little distance from the bank, all the flowers of childhood looked at me with perfect child-eyes out of the grass. My heart, softened by the dreams through which it had passed, overflowed in a sad, tender love towards them. They looked to me like children impregnably fortified in a helpless confidence. The sun stood half- way down the western sky, shining very soft and golden; and there grew a second world of shadows amidst the world of grasses and wild flowers. (Ch.XIX)

I knew now, that it is by loving, and not by being loved, that one can come nearest the soul of another; yea, that, where two love, it is the loving of each other, and not the being loved by each other, that originates and perfects and assures their blessedness. I knew that love gives to him that loveth, power over any soul beloved, even if that soul know him not, bringing him inwardly close to that spirit; a power that cannot be but for good; for in proportion as selfishness intrudes, the love ceases, and the power which springs therefrom dies. Yet all love will, one day, meet with its return. All true love will, one day, behold its own image in the eyes of the beloved, and be humbly glad. (Ch.XXIV)

It is a beautiful book, and I don’t expect it should be any less beautiful in the second read. It takes quite an interesting journey with the “shadow” and the “white lady,” both rather frequent motifs in fairy land stories (take Hans Christian Andersen’s The Shadow, for instance). It was a dream-like narrative, not in the way that it didn’t make any sense, but in the way where after reading it you wonder if you didn’t just dream all of that (and, if you did, you feel like you have “smart” dreams, and therefore feel smarter than you did before you started the book). It’s written so well that I did have dreams the nights after reading portions of it that included Anodos, the white lady, and any one of the adventures he experienced. It was dream-like because things were unexplained, but it didn’t matter that they weren’t explained because somehow you’re in this world where it makes sense, despite the fact it would never make sense in the “real” world. The writing is so well-done that you feel part of the words, as if the story is your own.

(Page numbers unavailable, as I’m reading it thanks to Project Gutenberg.)

On second thought, here’s the portion of the paper I had to write on this book. It’s choppy and partially disconnected because I also included another book in the paper. I’ve only exerpted the parts concerning Phantastes in hopes that it would give you a notion of the complexity; however, this is a very limited view (to fit with the paper assignment). I might be able to go on for much longer about the meaning of the shadow, and perhaps I will next time I read the book. Frankly, I’d like to have a hard-copy in hand when that happens, because from this experience I have learned that it really sucks to read books off the computer.

In Ursula LeGuin’s essay “The Child and the Shadow,” she states, “a man who will not confront and accept his shadow is a lost soul” (LeGuin 57). In MacDonald’s Phantastes, the shadow is associated with the main character Anodos. It is a projection over which Anodos has no control, and in fact, even toward the end of the book, the shadow in some ways controls him. The character associated with the double has a certain degree of difficulty with accepting his double.

Anodos gains his shadow by acting on impulse. He opens a door in the house of an ogre woman, after she clearly expresses he should not; from the door comes a mysterious being. He asks her what it is, and she says, “it is only [his] shadow that has found [him]” (MacDonald 106). After travelling with the shadow for some time, Anodos sees that it changes the image of the things he desires. For instance, he comes upon a fairy boy whom he finds quite beautiful and delightful. The child is then seen through Anodos’ shadow, and then loses all desireable qualities. It reflects his wants; however, not pristinely. The child is seen as a normal boy rather than an amazing sight once the shadow lays over him. This perhaps reveals the fruitlessness of his desires. Again, the shadow overcomes the white marble lady while she is in the Fairy Castle. In his dream, searching for the marble lady, he sees “a dark shadow descending from above like the curtain of a stage,” which “gradually hid her entirely from [his] view” (MacDonald 195). The white lady is his constant desire throughout most of the book. He takes certain paths in hope of finding her, and certainly admits to loving her numerous times. The shadow reveals the uselessness of pursuing the woman by engulfing her.

It is unclear what the shadow is, exactly, as presumably Anodos possessed a natural shadow before this one arrived. He tries to justify it himself by saying the shadow “does away with all appearances, and shows [Anodos] things in their true colour and form” (MacDonald 112). This alone may show that the presence of the shadow reveals his ignorance. Though it encompasses his desires, it also declares his incapacity to see anything beyond what he would like to see. Perhaps it does not reveal the “true colour and form” of objects; however, it certainly attaches itself to objects that Anodos cannot have, though he may want them. With the shadow, he allows himself an excuse for anything he may see or experience. The shadow almost takes on the role of a child’s imaginary friend; the child points his finger at the invisible person to deflect the blame from him. In this case, the shadow is a projection of Anodos, and whatever folly comes from the shadow is a reflection of him.

By the end of the story, Anodos has seemingly gotten rid of the shadow. He has matured by accomplishing a number of tasks, and by sacrificing himself, it seems he has won his way out of Fairy Land and away from the shadow. However, in a sense the shadow still holds power over him, though it is not present. He calls the world outside of Fairy Land the “world of shadows,” and upon entering “[his] first dread was, not unaturally, that [his] own shadow had found [him] again, and that [his] torture had commenced anew” (MacDonald 315). Almost to the last paragraph, the text is sprinkled with his anxieties about the shadow’s return. The shadow has over-powered him; in the first, it was to mask his perceptions of the world. After he leaves Fairy Land, the shadow is in his thoughts and fears.

There’s no need to comment on the poor quality of the writing, as it is 2:00am, and I’ve only slept a few hours total this weekend.