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Excerpt ​

Excerpt from Phantastes: A Faerie Romance for Men and Women, by George MacDonald

CHAPTER I

“A spirit . . .
. . . . . .
The undulating and silent well,
And rippling rivulet, and evening gloom,
Now deepening the dark shades, for speech assuming,
Held commune with him; as if he and it
Were all that was.”
SHELLEY’S Alastor.

I awoke one morning with the usual perplexity of mind which accompanies
the return of consciousness. As I lay and looked through the eastern
window of my room, a faint streak of peach-colour, dividing a cloud
that just rose above the low swell of the horizon, announced the
approach of the sun. As my thoughts, which a deep and apparently
dreamless sleep had dissolved, began again to assume crystalline forms,
the strange events of the foregoing night presented themselves anew to
my wondering consciousness. The day before had been my
one-and-twentieth birthday. Among other ceremonies investing me with my
legal rights, the keys of an old secretary, in which my father had kept
his private papers, had been delivered up to me. As soon as I was left
alone, I ordered lights in the chamber where the secretary stood, the
first lights that had been there for many a year; for, since my
father’s death, the room had been left undisturbed. But, as if the
darkness had been too long an inmate to be easily expelled, and had
dyed with blackness the walls to which, bat-like, it had clung, these
tapers served but ill to light up the gloomy hangings, and seemed to
throw yet darker shadows into the hollows of the deep-wrought cornice.
All the further portions of the room lay shrouded in a mystery whose
deepest folds were gathered around the dark oak cabinet which I now
approached with a strange mingling of reverence and curiosity. Perhaps,
like a geologist, I was about to turn up to the light some of the
buried strata of the human world, with its fossil remains charred by
passion and petrified by tears. Perhaps I was to learn how my father,
whose personal history was unknown to me, had woven his web of story;
how he had found the world, and how the world had left him. Perhaps I
was to find only the records of lands and moneys, how gotten and how
secured; coming down from strange men, and through troublous times, to
me, who knew little or nothing of them all. To solve my speculations,
and to dispel the awe which was fast gathering around me as if the dead
were drawing near, I approached the secretary; and having found the key
that fitted the upper portion, I opened it with some difficulty, drew
near it a heavy high-backed chair, and sat down before a multitude of
little drawers and slides and pigeon-holes. But the door of a little
cupboard in the centre especially attracted my interest, as if there
lay the secret of this long-hidden world. Its key I found.

Explanation ​

Detailed Explanation of the Excerpt from Phantastes by George MacDonald ​

Context of the Source ​

Phantastes: A Faerie Romance for Men and Women (1858) is a fantasy novel by George MacDonald, a Scottish author, poet, and Christian minister who heavily influenced later fantasy writers like C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. The novel blends fairy-tale elements, Gothic atmosphere, and philosophical introspection, following the protagonist Anodos ("pathless" in Greek) as he enters a dreamlike fairy realm that mirrors his inner psychological and spiritual struggles.

This excerpt is the opening of Chapter I, where Anodos awakens on his 21st birthday—a symbolic threshold into adulthood—and begins exploring his deceased father’s mysterious secretary (a writing desk with hidden compartments). The scene sets the tone for the novel’s themes of identity, inheritance, memory, and the unseen forces that shape human existence.

Themes in the Excerpt ​

  1. The Threshold Between Consciousness and the Unconscious

    • The passage begins with Anodos awakening in a state of "perplexity," a liminal space between sleep and wakefulness where reality and dream blur.
    • The "dissolved" thoughts reforming into "crystalline shapes" suggest the mind’s struggle to reconstruct identity after sleep, a metaphor for the fragmented self and the unknown depths of the psyche.
    • The epigraph from Shelley’s Alastor (a poem about a poet’s doomed quest for an idealized vision) reinforces this theme—nature itself seems to "hold commune" with the protagonist, as if the external world is an extension of his inner state.

  2. Inheritance and the Weight of the Past

    • The 21st birthday marks Anodos’s legal adulthood, but it also burdens him with his father’s legacy—both literal (the keys to the secretary) and metaphorical (the unseen history of his family).
    • The secretary becomes a symbol of hidden knowledge, repressed memories, and the inescapable past. Its dark, neglected state mirrors the unexplored recesses of the mind.
    • The question of what he will find—"records of lands and moneys" (material inheritance) or "fossil remains charred by passion and petrified by tears" (emotional, psychological inheritance)—sets up the novel’s tension between surface reality and deeper truth.

  3. The Gothic and the Sublime

    • The dark, bat-like chamber with its "gloomy hangings" and "deep-wrought cornice" evokes Gothic horror, where the past is not just remembered but haunts the present.
    • The light failing to dispel the darkness suggests that some truths resist illumination, reinforcing the mystery of existence.
    • The awe and reverence Anodos feels imply that the secretary is not just a piece of furniture but a portal to another world—a foreshadowing of his later journey into the fairy realm.

  4. The Search for Meaning and Identity

    • Anodos’s curiosity and trepidation reflect the human desire to understand one’s origins—yet also the fear of what may be uncovered.
    • The little cupboard in the center is singled out as the "secret of this long-hidden world," symbolizing the core of the self or the hidden truth of existence.
    • The act of unlocking the desk mirrors the unlocking of the subconscious, a recurring motif in Romantic and Victorian literature (e.g., Freud’s later theories on repression).

Literary Devices & Stylistic Analysis ​

  1. Imagery & Sensory Language

    • Visual: The "peach-colour streak" at dawn contrasts with the "dark oak cabinet" and "gloomy hangings," creating a tension between light (knowledge, awakening) and darkness (the unknown, the past).
    • Tactile: The "bat-like" darkness that "dyed the walls" gives the room a living, almost vampiric quality, as if the past clings to the present.
    • Auditory Silence: The absence of sound (except for the "rippling rivulet" in the epigraph) enhances the solitude and introspection of the moment.

  2. Symbolism

    • The Secretary: Represents the mind, memory, and the subconscious. Its compartments and locked doors symbolize the layers of the self.
    • The Keys: Signify access to hidden knowledge, but also the responsibility of adulthood—Anodos is now the keeper of his father’s secrets.
    • The Dark Chamber: A womb-like space (both protective and suffocating), suggesting that self-discovery is a rebirth.

  3. Foreshadowing

    • The difficulty in opening the desk hints at the resistance of the unconscious to reveal its secrets.
    • The communion with nature in Shelley’s epigraph foreshadows Anodos’s later merging with the fairy world, where the boundaries between self and other dissolve.

  4. Romantic & Victorian Influences

    • Shelley’s Alastor (1816) is a Romantic poem about a poet’s doomed quest for transcendence, mirroring Anodos’s own search for meaning in a world that may be illusory.
    • The Gothic elements (darkness, inherited secrets, a haunted past) reflect Victorian anxieties about industrialization, science, and the loss of spiritual mystery.
    • The psychological depth anticipates Freudian ideas about repression and the unconscious (though MacDonald predates Freud).

Significance of the Passage ​

  1. Introduction to the Novel’s Central Conflict

    • The excerpt establishes that Phantastes is not just a fairy tale but a psychological and spiritual journey.
    • Anodos’s opening of the desk is the first step into a larger, stranger world—one where reality is fluid, and identity is unstable.

  2. The Blurring of Realities

    • The dreamlike quality of the prose suggests that Anodos’s "real" world may already be a dream, preparing the reader for the surreal logic of the fairy realm.
    • The secretary as a threshold mirrors later portals in fantasy literature (e.g., Lewis’s wardrobe in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe).

  3. Theological & Philosophical Undertones

    • MacDonald, a Christian minister, often explored the relationship between the seen and unseen worlds.
    • The search for the father’s history can be read as a quest for divine or ancestral truth, a theme that resonates with mythic and biblical narratives (e.g., Jacob wrestling with the angel, Odysseus consulting the dead).

  4. Influence on Later Fantasy

    • This passage sets a template for portal fantasy—the idea that ordinary objects (a desk, a wardrobe, a mirror) can open into other worlds.
    • The psychological depth of the protagonist’s inner conflict becomes a model for modern fantasy’s focus on character development (e.g., Tolkien’s Frodo, Rowling’s Harry Potter).

Conclusion: The Passage as a Microcosm of the Novel ​

This opening excerpt encapsulates the essence of Phantastes—a journey into the self through the lens of the fantastic. The act of unlocking the desk is both literal and metaphorical, representing:

  • The transition from childhood to adulthood (the 21st birthday).
  • The confrontation with the past (the father’s secrets).
  • The threshold between reality and dream (the fairy world that awaits).

MacDonald’s rich, symbolic prose invites the reader to question what is real, much like Anodos himself. The Gothic atmosphere, psychological depth, and spiritual yearning make this passage not just an introduction to a story, but an invitation into a deeper meditation on existence itself.

Would you like a deeper dive into any particular aspect, such as the Gothic elements, the influence on later fantasy, or the psychological symbolism?