The quest for identity in children's high and wainscots fantasy

Abstract

Like Wilkie-Stibbs, I draw upon the work of Lacan and Kristeva to connect children's fantasy to the feminine Imaginary. My focus is the sub-genres of high and wainscots fantasy. In the first analytical chapter, using a psychoanalytical and semiotic lens, I explore how the protagonist follows a quest to define identity in which the concept of true names is often an underlying motif. Using the critical themes of resistance, agency, and emancipation, I link the quest to the problematic post-modem view of truth and with the post-colonial concept of hybridity. In the second analytical chapter, I focus on fantasy fiction's depiction of the soul and the contrast between the natural order and immortality. Issues of concern are knowledge and power. In the third analytical chapter, I relate the fantasy quest motif to my own naming and to how I equate my views on the soul, the natural world, and mortality with those of a fantasy protagonist.