Abstract
With the popularity of fantasy literature in recent years, more and more writers of adolescent books shifted their attention to depicting the macabre and the bizarre. While authors of fantasy literature endeavor to show that something that is unreal, strange, whimsical, or magical nevertheless has an internal logic and consistency, at the same time, certain stereotypes typical of the realistic world are destabilized. In the imaginary world in which the events, settings, or characters are outside the realm of possibility, many ideas like love, truth, reality, and identity are constantly destabilized and contested. For example, in Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book (2008), which garners him the Carnegie Medal and the Newbery Medal, the problem of personal identity is apparent in Nobody Owens, an orphan whose parents are killed by a man called “Jack” and whose survival depends on the mercy of the ghosts living in the graveyard that Nobody runs to and hides in to escape Jack. This paper aims to discuss how the protagonist of The Graveyard Book grapples with his bewilderment when confronted with the myth of his identity and how the elements of fantasy are incorporated to help untangle this coming-of-age mythology.
Highlights
INTRODUCTIONNaming and identity have been widely explored in the history of western literature
This paper aims to discuss how the protagonist of The Graveyard Book grapples with his bewilderment when confronted with the myth of his identity and how the elements of fantasy are incorporated to help untangle this coming-of-age mythology
Naming and identity have been widely explored in the history of western literature
Summary
Naming and identity have been widely explored in the history of western literature. When Odysseus tells Polyphemus that his name is “Nobody,” the foresighted. Greek hero is managing to hide his own identity so as to shield himself from the attack of the one-eyed monster; whereas for Emily Dickinson, the term “Nobody”. Demonstrates not so much a pretense of shunning danger as her preference for obscurity and tranquility. With their different intentions, both characters use the vol 13 (2015) 7-18
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