The Monstrous Fantastic Conference Paper Abstracts - International ...

32. (CYA) Neil Gaiman’s Books for Children MapleChair: Daryl RitchotUniversity of British Colombia OkanaganThresholds and Depths: The Submerged and the Guardians of the Thresholds in Neil Gaiman's Sandman and The Graveyard BookKacey DoranHollins UniversityThis paper explores how Neil Gaiman uses the old associations of the serpent in Western Art to raise questions about gender and identity in hisstories “Hob’s Leviathan”, a comic in the Sandman series, and The Graveyard Book. In “Hob’s Leviathan”, the sea serpent acts as the guardianand the symbol of the thresholds of reality/fantasy and man/woman. The main character Jim, who is later revealed to be Peggy, discovers thatthere are fantastic parts of the world like the sea serpent that are just as real as the ordinary, and the reader discovers that a more integral partof Peggy’s identity is being on the open ocean and not a gender association. This progressive move by Gaiman keeps with the socialdeconstruction work done by such scholars as Kate Bornstein. Gaiman also takes a twist on identity with a serpent-like creature in TheGraveyard Book, where his protagonist Nobody Owens discovers who he is with the help of the ancient guardians of a tomb, the Sleer. Nobodyis a living boy who can communicate with ghosts and lives in a graveyard, and cannot figure out whether he belongs in the world of the living orthe dead. Nobody discovers his real name with the help of the Sleer, and therefore his place in life: Nobody. He does not need to exist in onerealm or the other, and is unique in that he understands both the worlds of the living and the dead. Unlike Lee Upton, who explores thenegative connotations of the monsters in the work of Rachel Ingall, Kacey Doran shows how Gaiman gives his monsters a positive spin; thus, thefantastic continue to thrive in modern fiction, and provide a healthy space for the questioning of socially constructed genders and identities bychildren and teenagers.Monster Parents, Normal Kids?: Neil Gaiman's Coraline, The Wolves in the Walls, The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish, and TheGraveyard BookMarek OziewiczUniversity of WrocławOne of the most popular fantasy writers today, Neil Gaiman has been notorious for representing parents as monsters—physical, psychologicaland/or emotional. His child characters are always puzzled about their parents’ or parent figures’ monstrosity, yet learn to accept it as part ofwhat their parents are. In Gaiman’s fiction, to be a normal kid one must have monster parents. This essay examines a selection of Gaiman’s YAfantasy—Coraline (2002), The Wolves in the Walls (2003), The Day I Swapped my Dad for Two Goldfish (2004) and The Graveyard Book (2009)—in which he uses the trope of parent monstrosity. My argument is that Gaiman projects the perception of parents as monsters—seen asirrelevant or even threatening to a child’s wellbeing—as a common phenomenon and an important developmental stage of childhood. Yet,unlike those children’s authors who, like Sendak, have either denied children’s perception of parents as monsters or, like Dahl, placated it byreplacing monstrous, insensitive parents with adult versions of children’s idealized playmates, Gaiman offers his readers a picture that is moreemotionally honest. He acknowledges parental monstrosity, but insists that it serves a vital purpose. If done away with, it would not provide achild with an opportunity to learn two lessons crucial for growing up. One, that the world will not change to suit one’s expectations; two—thateach one of us is a monster of sorts. In struggling to come to terms with their parents’ and their own monstrosity, Gaiman’s protagonists thuslearn that lasting human relationships are built not in the absence of but despite our own and other people’s shortcomings.36. (F/IF) Original Monsters in New Forms DogwoodChair: Elizabeth WhittinghamThe College at Brockport - SUNYChaos and Companionship: How Urban Fantasies Use Wolves and Ravens from Norse MythsEmil Hjörvar PetersenLund UniversityThe wondrous and monstrous fauna of mythologies is frequently brought into fantasy fiction. This paper focuses on how creatures from Norsemythology, namely wolves and ravens, are depicted in urban fantasies. Fantasy is a genre which depends on realism unlike the myths andfolktales that feed into it, or as Brian Attebery puts it: “[Fantasy] is a form that makes use of both the fantastic mode, to produce theimpossibilities, and the mimetic, to reproduce the familiar” (Strategies of Fantasy, p. 16–17). Rendering mythological aspects realistically makesthe myths more prominent and detailed, especially when they are set in what seems to the reader to be a familiar setting. Moreover, urbanfantasy as a mode – and as low fantasy – makes use of myths in conjunction with the type of fantastic that intrudes reality. I will concentrate onwolves and ravens, examining similarities and differences, in two urban fantasies: American Gods (2001) by Neil Gaiman and Norse Code (2009)by Greg van Eekhout, where, in both cases, the main intrusion is the Norse pantheon. The juxtaposition of Norse mythic brutality and modernlocations and sensibilities results in a specific representation of wolves and ravens. In Norse mythology, ravens are not seen as tricksters, but ascreatures of wisdom, guidance and companionship. In both stories in question, the ravens become guides in a disorienting urban setting,bringing a balance to a story which is otherwise filled with motifs of trickery and chaos. The other dominating animal of Norse mythology, thewolf, brings disruption into the urban setting. In Norse Code, wolves are symbols of ill omens and their intrusion on reality initiates anescalation of chaos. Being creatures of chaos, but also of terrible greed, wolves are used to underscore the apocalyptic theme. Meanwhile, theravens, as narrators and companions, counterbalance the narrative. Gaiman frequently uses animal imagery in American Gods, where it isrelated to the gods, such as Odin, but the relation is never coincidental.The Monster Gardens: How Do Mythical Creatures and Monsters Originate, And What Happens After That?