The Night Circus

The Night Circus as a young adult novel mirrors the confusion of Marco and Celia. They are thrust into a competition they don’t understand. They don’t know the rules, who their competitors are, or what they are supposed to do. This mirrors a young adult moving into teen years and beyond. The transition between child and young adult. Like children today, Marco and Celia struggle to find their own way, their own path different from their mentors. Sometimes that means going against their wishes. It tends to be easier in real life, when you aren’t eternally bound to a magical competition that won’t end until one of you is dead. And you’re in love with the person you’re supposed to kill. But in the end, despite this it ends in a stalemate, with both Celia and Marco becoming spirits bound to the circus, able to be happy together for eternity.

It also deals with hard decisions, and encourages the reader to not settle for the obvious solutions. The competition won’t end until one of them is dead, and the circus has the possibility of going with them. At least that what it looks like on the surface. They follow their hearts. Celia tells Marco she wants to kill herself so he can be the victor. Marco plans to trap himself in a cauldron in the circus courtyard, not killing him but ending the game. But Celia reaches for Marco’s hand and de-atomizes both of them. In a sense, they found their own loophole, able to be together forever. Plus, in the process neither of the mentors, Hector or Alexander come out victorious. It gives them what they deserve for sacrificing two children for the sake of bragging rights. I believe this is the strongest lesson in The Night Circus. To not settle, no matter how much the odds seem stacked against you.

I might also add, because I don’t want to leave it out, that itt also gives a small warning of the dangers of jealousy. Particularly when Isobel grows jealous when Marco falls in love with Celia and proceeds to destroy her own spell that pretty much results in the death of Herr Thiessen by Chandresh.

The Hobbit

Ordinary world - Bilbo is a perfectly happy 50 year old hobbit with a routine living life peacefully in The Shire

The Call to Adventure - Gandalf shows up

Refusal of the Call - Respectable hobbits don’t go on adventures!

Supernatural Aid/The Mentor - In the morning, Bilbo goes outside to see Gandalf, who encourages him to go and Bilbo runs to catch up with the dwarves.

Crossing the Threshold - Bilbo runs to meet the others at the inn, leaving the safety of his hobbit hole

Belly of the Whale - When Bilbo kills the spider. It’s the first enemy he’s really defeated and he states that feels different.

Road of Trials/Tests- Trolls, goblins, elves, men, and spiders. Oh my!

Meeting with the Goddess -???

Woman as Temptress - The comforts and temptations of home

Atonement with the Father - When Bilbo gives bard the Arkenstone and is then praised by Gandalf for making the right choice

Apotheosis - ???

The Ultimate Boon - Bilbo gets treasure, gets to keep the ring, and the elvish dagger

No refusal of return or magic flight

Rescue from Without - Not necessarily in The Hobbit but they do spend the winter on the way back with Beorn.

The Crossing of the Return Threshold - Bilbo returns to The Shire

Master of Two Worlds - Bilbo returns to Bag End as a respectable hobbit, although he will ever be quite the same as the others.

Freedom to Live - Bilbo is less narrow-minded after his adventure and is much more confident.

I apologize if I repeated anything said in class, for I was absent. This is my idea of the Heroic Journey as in the Hobbit, and all of the points that it has that fits the classic monomyth. The biggest thing The Hobbit is missing is The Meeting with the Goddess. He is never tempted or thrown astray by any beautiful women. My idea as to why is to keep the tale more child friendly. The other thing that's missing is Apotheosis. There is no one defining incident where Bilbo rises to god-like status. Instead he is rather reluctant and gradually becomes the hero willing to fight in the Battle of the Five Armies, a feat unlikely for any hobbit. Given, he gets knocked out and misses most of it. There is also no refusal of return, or magic flight. There is a magic flight at the end, however there is one earlier when Beorn, the Lord of the Eagles saves the group from the Wargs and Goblins. 

Aunt Maria

First I had to do some research on stereotypes vs archetypes. My research lead to the answer that the difference is that the archetype uses the basic knowledge of the character type as a starting place, while stereotypes add nothing extra, using it as the end point. I would argue that the witches in Aunt Maria are archetypes. They are not stereotypes, they are not oversimplified. They don’t run around on brooms simply causing chaos.  They are more archetypes. In Aunt Maria the witches are never even called witches, they are just assumed to be so. They don’t seem to have any particular spells, but the only thing Aunt Maria is really seen getting up to is turning people into their “pure” animal form. In a sense that isn’t creating something from nothing. Is there a limit to her abilities? I didn’t get to the ending but in what I did get to read they didn’t go around creating potions in cauldrons or flying on brooms. When I think of witches my mind always goes to the Disney movie Hocus Pocus. I believe the witches in that movie could be the most common and influential portrayal of witches I can remember from my childhood. They fly around on brooms, are purely evil, and try to eat children so they can regain their youth. I realized that she also wrote The Tough Guide to Fantasyland which was an option for a few weeks ago which I took a peek at. There she really delves into the many stereotypes of fantasy. So I believe Diana Wynn Jones has a very strong understanding of character, and the good and bad that can come from stereotypes.

As for the way our culture models women with power, if you look directly at Aunt Maria who has most of the power, she put in the position of a witch. She is an evil woman who manipulates the men into submission and the women around her into a following. The classic witch coven so to speak. She doesn’t earn her power fairly, but manipulates the system to get it.

The New Weird - Perdido Street Station

Perdido Street Station. My first impressions of the book were strange. I found myself often having to re-read pages of the already long novel to really understand what was being explained, and then more time was spent trying to make up the world in my head. The book is more one of world building rather than storytelling. Normally a word assists a story’s progression, but in Perdido Street Station I felt it was the other way around. The story was but a way to navigate the streets of New Crobuzon. I also found myself having to often refer to a dictionary tab on my computer. Perdido Street Station was quite exhausting to actually read, but the world it offered was rich. It was simply too much to comprehend for long reading sessions and instead I had to read it in short bursts. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy it. It was unlike anything I have ever read before which brings me to the topic of the New Weird and the direction of horror in books.
Horror in the past was scary, then books and movies manipulated it, turning the once scary creatures into comedy and romance. Then they were no longer scary. When most people are left to imagine a world, they often rely on what they know. This leads to stories that if too much is left to the imagination, start to blend together becoming less unique. I think the future of horror and the New Weird is new creatures. We’ve put every twist on the scary creatures of old. We know so much about them that they’re just not scary anymore. People need new creatures to fear after. This is part of the reason I believe the movie The Babadook was praised so highly. A book I read a couple years back called Bird Box is another great example of where horror is headed in literature. The creature in question? A being so immense, that the human brain can’t comprehend or understand it. It basically fries a person’s brain if they see it. It brings out an innate fear, because how can you not be scared when there’s something beyond the human comprehension of reality?