A Fascinating Blend: The Familiar and the Fantastic in The Hobbit and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Part 2

For Tolkien and Lewis, and for many of their characters, home is closely associated with food. Meals in The Hobbit and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe are often moments of celebration, community, repose, and refreshment just as they are in the primary world. When Lucy Pevansie takes tea with Tumnus, all her favorite foods are on the menu: boiled eggs, sardines on toast, and sugared cake (116). Lucy feels happy and satisfied with the meal as she relaxes in Tumnus' cozy cave with its pictures and books and its glowing hearth.

Not all things, however, are as familiar as they seem. The post-tea conversation, for instance, takes a fantastic turn as Tumnus launches into a description of Narnia's residents and their activities: the Dryads and Nymphs who dance at midnight; the Red Dwarfs who seeks their treasures; Silenus and Bacchus who visit occasionally; and the white stag who grants wishes when he is caught (117). All of these tales are commonplace to Tumnus but quite unusual, even bizarre, to Lucy, who must also adjust to the unsettling fact that her teatime host is an umbrella-carrying faun.

Bilbo may have felt a similar unsettling sensation during his first meal at Beorn's house. The supper itself is nourishing and refreshing to Bilbo, Gandalf, and the Dwarves, all of whom are exceptionally hungry after their many adventures. The food Beorn offers, however, might seem a bit odd. Beorn, who does not eat meat, likely serves them his usual fare of cream, honey, nuts, dried fruit, cakes, and mead (115, 131). Although none of these foods is particularly peculiar, Bilbo would be accustomed to something a bit more “substantial,” at least in his mind, bacon and eggs, perhaps, or a nice ham.

Even stranger than the food, though, is the way in which the meal is presented. Beorn's servants are efficient in setting the tables and providing every comfort to the tired guests, but those servants are none other than four white ponies and several gray dogs who are quite adept at walking on their hind legs (124). Bilbo's host, too, is unlike anyone he has ever met before. Gandalf has already explained that Beorn is a skin-changer who transforms into a great black bear, and Bilbo, while fascinated by Beorn's supper table tales, cannot help but be a little nervous in the presence of the extraordinary man at the head of the table.

A Fascinating Blend: The Familiar and the Fantastic in The Hobbit and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Part 1

The Bilbo Baggins residence contains all the comforts of home and then some, but it is still a hole in the ground. The Beavers have a wonderfully cozy place to live, but it is precariously perched on a dam in the middle of a frozen river. Bilbo and the Dwarves enjoy a satisfying meal at Beorn's house, but the servers are dogs and ponies. Lucy Pevansie takes a delightful tea with Mr. Tumnus, but he is a faun who lives in a cave. In The Hobbit and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis present a fascinating blend of the familiar and the fantastic, and while their storytelling choices contrast on some points, their motives for such a synthesis converge as they encourage their readers to engage in a sense of wonder toward the world around them.

Throughout The Hobbit and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Tolkien and Lewis take up familiar, even comfortable, themes and give them fantastic variations. This paper will focus on two such themes: home and meals.

Home is a concept familiar to most readers, so familiar in fact that it might easily be taken for granted and ignored, but Tolkien and Lewis draw the theme of home into the foreground by mixing familiar elements with fantastic features. Bilbo's home, for instance, is remarkably comfortable with its fine set of “bedrooms, bathrooms, cellars, pantries (lots of these), wardrobes..., kitchens, [and] dining-rooms” (1). These are the kinds of rooms one might find in any house although perhaps in greater numbers at the home of the “well-to-do” Bilbo (1).

The hobbit's sitting room, too, is quite pleasant, with its warm hearth and the ticking clock on the mantelpiece (12). A reader might feel as if she could easily snuggle up for the evening there with a good book and a cup of cocoa. Bilbo's residence, however, is not as normal as it might first appear. After all, it is essentially “a hole in the ground,” not an earthy, barren hole to be sure, but still a hole dug back into a hill (1). Its entrance is a round door with a knob in the very center, and visitors come in to a “tube shaped tunnel” lined with more round doors (1). Although this tunnel is anything but dark and dirty, especially since it is paneled, tiled, and carpeted, it is a tunnel nonetheless and therefore strange and perhaps a bit jarring to readers. Tolkien awakens a sense of the fantastic in his description of Bilbo's hobbit hole, even as he depicts all the comforts of home.

C.S. Lewis does something similar when he presents Mr. and Mrs. Beaver's house. The scene inside is one of snug domesticity. When Mr. Beaver and the Pevansie children walk in, Mrs. Beaver is hard at work at her sewing machine. She has also started cooking supper, and “the potatoes are boiling and the kettle's singing” on the wood stove (142-143). The girls hurry to set the covered table, and as they do, Lucy notices Mr. Beaver's neatly-stored tools and the onions and hams that hang tidily from the roof (143).

Not everything about the Beavers' home is entirely familiar to the children or the readers, however. Lucy observes, for example, that the Beavers sleep in built-in bunks rather than beds. The exterior of the house proves even more fantastic. Perched somewhat precariously in the middle of a dam, the “funny little house” looks like “an enormous beehive,” and smoke drifts up from “a hole in the roof” (142). Mr. Beaver and the children must walk along a slippery path on the top of the dam to get to the house, and the children quickly become rather nervous as they peer over the side of the dam to the frozen river far below. Indeed, neither the children nor the readers have ever encountered a house like this before, and even for all its warmth and pleasures, it is extraordinary and even a bit disconcerting.

“Ozymandias”: A Poem in Motion – Part 2

As the poem moves in voice, it also moves through time. It opens in the narrator's present but quickly moves back into an undefined past as the narrator describes how he “met” the traveller who “said,” two past tense verbs (lines 1-2). We are now in the traveller's present as he speaks of the “[t]wo vast and trunkless legs of stone” that still “[s]tand in the desert” beside the place where “a shattered visage lies” with its “frown” and “wrinkled lip” and “sneer of cold command” (lines 2-5; note the present tense). These still survive, at least in the traveller's time.

We are then invited to travel further back through the ages as the traveller speculates on the sculptor who “those passions read” on Ozymandias' living face (line 6). We can picture the king posing, curving his lip into an expression of disdain as the sculptor etches his emotion into stone. Then we move forward once again, to the traveller's present as he reflects on the irony that such passions are now only “stamped on these lifeless things” (line 7). As the traveller shifts his attention to the words on the pedestal, we are once again transported back into the past to hear the voice of the king, who speaks his haughty words so the sculptor may capture them in stone for all time (lines 10-11). As the last word rings out – “...despair!” – we find ourselves once again in the traveller's present, and we stay there. “Nothing beside remains,” the traveller tells us, only a “colossal Wreck” and “lone and levels sands” (lines 12-14). Time has conquered Ozymandias, but in a way, we are also caught by it, for the poem does not return us to the present. We remain in that desert of the past, staring at the broken statue and wondering perhaps if time has conquered us as well.

The poem is almost cinematic in the way it moves through time, but it even more so in the way it moves through space. Again, the poem commences in the space of the narrator, about which we know nothing at all. We might imagine the place where he met the traveller, on board a ship, perhaps, in a busy railroad station, at a museum, but he does not tell us. The space is left blank. The traveller's immediate space is also empty, for the moment he begins to speak the “camera” shifts to a desert scene. It is a medium shot of the “[t]wo vast and trunkless legs of stone” with the arid wasteland forming a background (line 2). Then the focus moves downward to the “shattered visage” on the ground, “[h]alf sunk” in the sand (line 4).

The camera then zooms in on the expression and remains there as the traveller muses on the passions of a king and the sculptor who captured them; this is a close-up shot that mirrors the sculptor's own work of preserving a personality. Our attention then travels upward from the face to the pedestal and focuses in on its words. We can imagine a camera passing slowly over each word that we might ponder each letter, each chisel mark, so carefully inscribed in the stone. Then, suddenly, as we pass the exclamation point, the camera zooms back out to a wide shot. We see the entire “Wreck,” and “[n]othing beside remains...” only the “boundless and bare” desert, the “lone and level sands” that “stretch far away” (lines 12-14). We are left gazing across a vast space, all sand but for a pile of crumbled stone that was once a marvelous statue of a great king.

In the end, each of the three motions of “Ozymandias” fails to make a full circle. We never return to the voice of the narrator; he remains silent. We stay in the past, never coming back to the narrator's present or our own present. We continue to stare at the expanse of desert, never again thinking of the blank space in which the poem begins. The poem has drawn us out of ourselves, away from any familiar voice, away from our own time, away from any well-known space, yet in this quiet past, this vast waste, we are no longer focused on Ozymandias either. He is no longer the center of our attention. Like the traveller, we have journeyed far in this poem, moving through voice, time, and space, and we are left to reflect on voices that have faded yet still echo in our minds, on a past that is gone yet still remains within us, and on a space that points us into a distance where our imaginations can fly free.

“Ozymandias”: A Poem in Motion – Part 1

For many readers, Ozymandias stands at the heart of Percy Bysshe Shelley's eponymous poem. Indeed, this once-great king does command a certain pride of place, but to focus only on him is to risk missing another of the poem's key features: motion. In this essay, I will examine three patterns of motion in “Ozymandias,” voice, time, and space, before reflecting on how a close reading of the poem's motion might actually shift its center.

“Ozymandias” presents a series of voices in motion. The poem begins in the first person with the narrator's “I.” This “I,” however, performs only one act, meeting “a traveller” (line 1), and this action is fairly passive. The narrator does not seek or question the traveller; he just meets him, perhaps through a chance encounter. We learn no more about the narrator “I” or his actions before he fades into the background and becomes part of the listening audience.

The voice then shifts to the “traveller from an antique land” (line 1). We know very little else about him, and even this phrase does not tell us much. Is he “from” an antique land in the sense that he is a native of a foreign country, or has he merely traveled to some distant place and come back? We cannot tell, but unlike the narrator, the traveller has something to say, and his speech comprises the remainder of the poem, nearly thirteen lines. He describes a scene he has encountered in his travels, a “colossal” yet broken and decayed statue (line 13), once great but now only “lifeless” pieces of stone lying in a desert (lines 7, 3).

In the midst of the traveller's account, however, the poem's voice changes again. There are words inscribed on the pedestal of this crumbled monolith, and in them we hear a third voice, ringing out through time, the voice of an ancient king: “My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; / Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!” (lines 11-12). These are powerful words. A first person declarative statement names the man who desires to speak for all eternity. A superlative proclaims him to be the ruler of all kings. An imperative offers a challenge to look upon his Works (note the emphatic capital), but this challenge does not apply to everyone, only the Mighty, compared to whom he is even more powerful. Then these Mighty (again note the capital; these people are great indeed) must despair, for they shall never prove a match for Ozymandias.

Is this a threat? Is Ozymandias planning to conquer them all? We do not know, but his is a domineering voice, a sneering voice to match his statue's “sneer of cold command” (line 5). Suddenly, however, the king's voice fades, and we hear the traveller once again as he completes his description and the poem ends. We do not return to the narrator.

Eucatastrophe in Harry Potter, Part 8

We've discovered plenty of eucatastrophes in the Harry Potter series. Every book exhibits at least one, if not several, of the sudden, joyous turns that lead to a happy ending and leave readers almost breathless with delight at their beauty. We've been stunned and amazed, charmed and elated as darkness becomes light, near despair becomes unlooked for fulfillment, and the hardest roads leads to the greatest happiness. 

We're left asking ourselves, perhaps, what all these Harry Potter eucatastrophes have in common. Dumbledore would know the answer: love. Love protects Harry, ensuring that Quirrell cannot hold him. Love calls Fawkes to Harry in the Chamber of Secrets. Love sends Harry's Patronus across the lake. Love keeps Harry holding his wand steady in the golden cage of Priori Incantatem. Love expels Voldemort from Harry's body in the Ministry of Magic. Love encourages Harry to keep on seeking Horcruxes even when he might easily have given up. Love leads Harry to shout “Expelliarmus!” one last time to finally defeat Voldemort. 

Indeed, the eucatastrophes of Harry Potter are powered by love, the kind of love that wills the very best for another person and then does everything possible to help that person attain it, the love that chooses to give everything, even one's life, that others may live safely and happily, the love that sustains a person in the darkest of times, the love that Harry Potter has in such great abundance.

Eucatastrope in Harry Potter, Part 7

Oh the eucatastrophes in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows! For all its darkness and terror and pain, the novel is punctuated throughout by eucatastrophes that serve as high notes, reminders of hope, love, and peace, expressions of what Harry and his friends are fighting for.

Let's list a few of the eucatastrophes, those sudden, joyous turns that give us readers a strong sense of delight and hope for a happy ending.

* Dudley Dursley's goodbye to Harry – No, it's not that dramatic, but who would have expected Dudley to awkwardly admit what Harry had done for him and to shake his cousin's hand? Maybe he turns out all right after all!

* Kingsley's Patronous warning the Weasleys and their guests just in time to avoid disaster at Bill and Fleur's wedding

* Kreacher's sudden change of behavior after Harry gives him Regulus' locket – Who would have expected that Kreacher could cook delicious meals!?!

* The Silver Doe Patronous that leads Harry, seemingly miraculously, to the Sword of Gryffindor

* Hermione's voice unexpectedly issuing from the Deluminator to let Ron know his friends' location

* Dobby's surprising appearance at Malfoy Manor – Dobby, the free elf, returns to the place of his enslavement to save his friends and gives his life in the process.

* Harry, Ron, and Hermione's flight out of Gringotts on a dragon

* Harry not dying when he is hit by Voldemort's Killing Curse – In fact, he gets a chance to speak with Dumbledore in “King's Cross” and makes the decision to return to fight to the finish.

* Neville pulling Gryffindor's Sword out of the Sorting Hat

* Harry's final “Expelliarmus!” – Voldemort's Killing Curse rebounds and hits the Dark Lord himself. Harry catches the Elder Wand. The reign of terror is finally over thanks to one last eucatastrophe.

Eucatastrophe in Harry Potter, Part 6

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince ends on an especially dark note. The Death Eaters have entered Hogwarts. Dumbledore is dead. Voldemort seems sure to regain power now that his greatest rival is out of the way. The Wizarding World looks to the future with dread and almost despair.

There seems to be no eucatastrophe in sight. No one suddenly stops the Death Eaters from invading Hogwarts. No one miraculously steps up to prevent Dumbledore's death. There is no joyous turn this time, no happy ending.

Or is there?

Perhaps the eucatastrophe of this sixth installment of the Harry Potter series isn't especially noticeable because it happens within Harry. In the past, Harry has not always handled tragedy well. His response to Sirius' death, for instance, was a cross between searing anger and near despair.

But this time, Harry, quite unexpectedly, reacts differently. After Dumbledore's funeral, Ron, Hermione, and Harry are discussing whether or not Hogwarts will remain open. Harry says simply, “I'm not coming back even if it does reopen.” He goes on to explain that he plans “to track down the rest of the Horcruxes,” just as Dumbledore would want him to do. “I've got to find them and destroy them, and then I've got to go after the seventh bit of Voldemort's soul, the bit that's still in his body, and I'm the one who's going to kill him,” Harry continues. He speaks calmly and resolutely. He has made his decision, and he will carry out his plan even if it costs him everything, including his life.

What a change! This is a very different Harry from the one who railed at Dumbledore after Sirius' death. He has learned much, and he is ready to tread the path he knows he must take.

This may not be a typical eucatastrophe, but it is amazing and beautiful in its own way, and it may even give readers an unexpected pleasure and joy to see Harry face the apparently hopeless state of the Wizarding World and vow to rise above it with dignity and courage.