Abstract:
Fantasy has always been a subversive and intertextual genre, contrary to what its critics have claimed. The purpose of this thesis is to show that fantasy, as entertaining as it is, is also capable of providing critical commentaries on the real world. In doing so, I will look at how fantasy fiction borrows motifs and structure from folk narratives and merges them with the concerns of the real world. In order to give a sense of structure, I have divided this thesis into two parts : Part I (Chapters Two and Three), and Part II (Chapters Four to Six). Part I will focus on outlining and defining the key theoretical frameworks that I will be employing throughout my thesis. In Chapter Two, I will elaborate on the various creativity and intertextuality studies devised by David Eagleman, Anthony Brandt, Julie Sanders, and Mikhail Bakhtin. In addition to this, I will also look at the fantasy theories offered by Brian Attebery and J.R.R Tolkien. I ultimately aim to show in this chapter that fantasy fiction, rather than being a formulaic genre, is capable of variation and hybridity. In Chapter Three, I will delineate the differences between the three branches of folk narratives, and show how they influence the real world by using specific case studies. In Part II, I will apply my theoretical frameworks to my chosen text, J.K. Rowling’s children’s book, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (1993). In Chapter Four, I will examine how Rowling embeds the Proppian folktale narrative structure to signal Harry’s journey towards the truth about the Wizarding World and its inadequacies. Chapter Five will outline how Rowling reinterprets folk narrative representations of time-space unity (chronotopes) to open up conversations about change and society. In Chapter Six, I will explore how Rowling alters and complicates the folk narrative notions of heroism and villainy in her book.
