Roald Dahl: Realism and Fantasy :: essays research papers fc

&65279The Realism and Fantasy of Roald Dahls, Fantastic Mr. FoxThe delightful taradiddle of a fox who lives by poaching food from his three neighbours, Messrs.Boggis, Bunce, and edible bean, three lifters each one meaner than the other (Telgan, ChildrensLiterature Review, Vol. 41, pg. 27). Mr. Fox and his family endure the hardships of trymurder, being hunted, and starvation as the farmers resort to violence to rid themselves of Mr.Fox and preserve their livestock. Out of an undying will to survive, and out of love and concernfor his family and brother animal community, Mr. Fox, is able to valiantly burrow a subterraneantunnel into the store houses of the three farmers. The triumphant Mr. Fox invites all of thecommunity animals for a feed and propose that they build a little underground village (Dahl,Mr. Fox, pg. 88), that they may never have to contend with those farmers again. All the while,Boggis, Bunce and Bean still wait on the surface for the starving fox to surface. Ro ald Dahls Fantastic Mr. Fox is a fiction which employs devices of both realism and fantasy. Realism, in literature, is defined as a genre that attempts to persuade its readers that the createdworld is very like the world the readers inhabit (University of Victoria, 1995). Contrastingly,Fantasy is defined as a genre of fiction that pictures creatures or events beyond the boundariesof cognize reality (www.hearts-ease.org, 2001). The word, genre, refers to the types orcategories into which literary works are grouped according to form, technique, or, sometimes,subject matter (Brown, 2002). As it will be adduced in this essay, Dahl is able to utilizedconventions of realism and fantasy in complementary ways that make the existence andexperiences of Mr. Fox believable within a known reality, yet enable the human reader to closelyidentify with the animal-protagonist beyond the dictates of a known reality.Devices of Realism One device of realism in, Fantastic Mr. Fox, is the allusion to sp irit which conveys the life-struggle of wild animals, drawing upon all the faculties in their power to keep safe and fed. Mr.Fox creeps down into the valley in the darkness of night . . . approaching a farm with thewind blowing in his face . . . so that if man were lurking . . ., the wind would carry the smell ofthat man to Mr. Foxs nose from far away (Dahl, Mr. Fox, pg. 18). While Boggis, Bunce, andBean were attempting to dig Mr.