Real-izing Fantasy: The Double-Sided Mirror of Magical Realism and "the other side of reality" in Robin McKinley's <i>Spindle's End</i>

  • Evelyn Perry Framingham State College

Abstract

In this first part of an extended study of Robin McKinley's Spindle's End, the relationship between fantasy (in literature) and a reader's personal reality is highlighted. Perry argues that McKinley's novel does more than just mirror our experience of fairy tales and the fantastic. By showing us both sides of the mirror, our inner and outer phenomenal settings, the novel argues that how we function within the landscapes of Literature and how Literature encourages us to build, experience, and reshape our world(s) is the ultimate--and ultimately, the only significant--reality. (This article is continued in The Looking Glass, vol. 9, iss. 1, 2005)

Author Biography

Evelyn Perry, Framingham State College
David Beagley is Lecturer in Children's Literature and Literacy at La Trobe University's Bendigo campus, Victoria, Australia, where he teaches units in Genres, History, Australian and Post-colonial children's literature. He has previously taught in secondary schools, and has been a school and university librarian.
Issue
Vol. 8 No. 3 (2004)
Section
Jabberwocky
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