FANTASTIC STORYWORLDS AND TRANSFICTIONALITY OF LITERARY CHARACTERS

Abstract

The interpretation of a literary character in the context of the distinction between the multiple storyworlds is connected with the phenomenon of “transfictionality” (Saint–Gelais 2005). When the same characters inhabit more possible worlds, they become travelling narrative individuals. If they originate as a ‘transfer’ of real historical persons through different fictional and non-fictional genres, “real individuals” represent extratextual versions (Margolin 1997, Dannenberg 2008). We refer to intertextual versions in case of variants of unreal individuals in different fictional genres. When we talk about variants of characters within a text created due to “travels” of characters from realistic to fantastic worlds, or through many virtual worlds, then we refer to intratextual versions. Our starting hypothesis is that transgressiveness of a character is an immanent characteristic of heroes in fantastic fictional worlds, regardless of the type of the fantastic. Modification appears as a compulsory factor of any type of transgression. The range and intensity of heroes’ changes, as we know, show high variability, from the oldest and most explicit metamorphoses to partial or soft and barely visible modifications, from bodily transformations to psychological and mental variations, from sudden shapeshifting to gradual changes. Special intention will be paid to the counterfactual aspect of fantastic narrative world in the short stories by Radoje Domanović, Dejan Vukićević and Neil Gaiman. In line with that, we will briefly outline the intratextual relations which originate between the doubles of actual realistic fiction world and virtual/fantastic worlds. In that vein, one can consider the significant role of techniques of the fantastic in switching between storyworlds.