The Fantastic Fantasy and Science Fiction

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The FantasticFantasy and Science Fiction

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Fantastic Stories

• Fantastic Stories ask us to imagine alternative
  worlds, which challenge and provoke controversy
  and debate about possibilities in human
  experience.In other words, fiction of the
  Fantastic allows us to the see the world with new
  eyes...

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An overview

• The Fantastic is the literature of change - It
  creates a world where anything can happen,
  limited only by the mind of the writer. It is a
  place both beyond and within reality, a place
  that could have been, or might be, if only the
  rules of the Universe were altered just a bit.
  The Fantastic allows one to go beyond the mundane
  nature of the everyday world, into a realm of
  magic, fantasy, myth, horror or science
  however, each of these worlds must have a set of
  norms the reader can understand and follow.

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Science fiction could happen, fantasy couldn't.
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Evolution of fantasy

• Fantasy, in its archaic form, dealt with the
  fairy tale and the heroic epic - and the
  corresponding issues of education, personality,
  morality, duty and relationship that went along
  with such an exploration.
• Supernatural tales were a way of relating
  ordinary themes of everyday life in extraordinary
  ways, thus inspiring the reader not only to
  magical worlds of disbelief, but also, educating
  him on important issues which were universal in
  nature. Fantasy, contrary to its name, always
  carries an element of truth within it.

• Fantasy provides our modern, materialistic and
  so-called enlightened culture with a sense of
  spirituality or a numinous mysticism.
• Fantasy has its roots in mythology, as do most
  religions, and is attempting to see beyond the
  mere physical reality of our world.

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Science Fictions

• Science Fiction is imaginary writing based on
  current or projected scientific technological
  developments
• This fiction deals with the influence of real or
  imagined science on society or individuals.
• A story based on fictional, scientific
  possibilities.
• A form of fiction that draws imaginatively on
  scientific knowledge and/or speculation.
• literary fantasy involving the imagined impact of
  science on society
• A kind of fiction that could only result from a
  scientifically-influenced worldview.

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Jung and Fraser

• The works of Carl Jung, one of the founding
  fathers of Psychology, and anthropologist Sir
  James Frazer, lead to archetypal criticism.
• What both Jung and Frazer show is that ritual,
  dreams and by extension, fantasy literature, tell
  us a great deal about the inner workings of our
  mind and soul.
• Carl Jung claimed that, "All the works of man
  have their origin in creative fantasy."
• "When we read a good fantasy we are being
  admitted into the subterranean worlds of our own
  souls."