Introduction

Introduction

If each man were, in his time, cast to the ground in the whitest of lights with the question “why are you persecuting me?” rolling in his ears, then all humanity would understand what it is to be awoken into life. Each person who does experience such an awakening, though it be far less grand in telling, understands this story of Saint Paul, and each who has not, though he believes himself to understand, is unable. When the saint dropped the name of Saul and became Paul, he demonstrated the absolute change brought about by his awakening. He was not a changed man, but rather a new man.

The Rev. George MacDonald’s stories, be they for little children or grown people, center around the awakening of a soul. His characters, besides those who begin awake, undergo a change, or a transformation, so that they end their stories not only as better selves, but also as true selves. This transformation goes beyond belief in God to true belief in God, meaning, belief in the true sense of the word: one cannot be convinced so or otherwise. One simply knows. The awoken character lives with the conviction “that good is always coming, though few have at all times the simplicity and the courage to believe it.” The awakenings of Mr. MacDonald’s characters show that “when a man throws wide his door to the Father of his spirit, when his individual being is thus supplemented--to use a poor miserable word--with the individuality that originated it, then is the man a whole, healthy, complete existence.” The awakening of the soul, the call to life of an inwardly dead individual, as a central theme of MacDonald’s writing, is the topic of this study.

Although MacDonald wrote many works, this study will primarily refer to only five stories, but these five stories represent all genres of MacDonald’s fiction: Victorian novels, children’s novels, fairy tales, and fantastic novels. Needless to say, there is great crossover between these genres. The stories referenced in this study are, respectively, Thomas Wingfold, Curate, the Curdie books (meaning, The Princess and the Goblin and The Princess and Curdie), The History of Photogen and Nycteris, and Phantastes. Though plot is an integral part of any literary analysis, this study largely focuses on character and dynamicity of character as the defining quality of MacDonald’s writing, as it is only in a character that a soul can be awoken. Referenced and quoted alongside these stories are the three volumes of MacDonald’s Unspoken Sermons, which could be called the inseparable reason to the rhyme of his stories.

Four chapters follow this introduction. The first chapter details what exactly, for MacDonald, constitutes an awakening. This chapter works through definitions of an awakening as detailed by other scholars, followed by my own definition of an awakening. Although, in this and all following chapters, I draw from several of MacDonald’s works, Thomas Wingfold, Curate will primarily serve in this chapter both for clarification and textual support of my definition. The second chapter organizes the awakenings of several characters into unique theoretical categories, each category exemplified by the experience of a character. Granted, these categories are indeed theoretical, as is apparent in the final character discussed. This chapter considers the necessity of various events and emotions for the redemption of each character, debunking theories of authorial favoritism. The characters in this chapter are drawn from the Curdie books and The History of Photogen and Nycteris. The third chapter explores the importance of journey to the awakening of MacDonald’s characters. Pieces of MacDonald’s work, especially his adult fantasy novels, are sometimes criticized as chaotic in plot and lacking in direction. However, in this chapter it is shown that MacDonald’s characters, while their physical locations or directions are often of little consequence, travel roads of absolute importance. The particular journey followed in this chapter is that of Anodos in Phantastes, the reading of which, many may remember, C. S. Lewis described as “cross[ing] a great frontier.” The final chapter, which heavily relies on the Unspoken Sermons, explores MacDonald’s concept of dying into life, and how his stories serve to open eyes to the absolute beauty of the words, “I will arise and go to my Father.” The sermons are integral to understanding the theme of awakening in MacDonald’s fiction, and they offer a robust theological framework for the types of awakening explored in the prior chapters.