UC Riverside

Currently, various types of fantasy literature are analyzed primarily as genres within the confines of national literatures. This thesis proposes a cross-cultural approach to fantasy, instead of one in which each "national" genre is analyzed in isolation, and often only with the critical tools and theoretical background of its respective tradition. It argues that there are undeniable parallels between different versions of the short fantasy tale as it has appeared in various traditions, and that studying them together can prove fruitful to our understanding of how fantasy works.

Taking up important collections of fantastic tales by Pu Songling (Liaozhai zhiyi), Barbey d'Aurevilly (Les Diaboliques) and Rod Serling (The Twilight Zone), as well as a number of similar contemporary works, I discuss the ways all of these works function through a similar set of mechanisms, despite their differences in language, provenance, and cultural significance. Each of these authors/creators made liberal use of what I call the "intrusion story," in which what is deemed strange or fantastic in each instance is the overwhelming focus. In the intrusion story, the strange includes the following: dissolved or destabilized boundaries (between categories that are seemingly mutually exclusive such as life and death, human and animal, inanimate objects and living beings, etc.), marginalized figures of society, and narrative subversion of readers' expectations. By using all of these elements, the goal is to maintain the reader or viewer's attention and to deliver the author or creator's moral message.

This inquiry contributes to our overall understanding of fantasy in two ways: First, it creates a framework for examining fantasy across cultures; second: it points to connections between a diverse array of literary creations, instead of abandoning each work to its traditional designation of either zhiguai (strange tale), conte fantastique (fantastic tale), or science fiction. The fox spirit, aristocratic coquette, and android model are from different literary traditions, but their common characteristics and purposes show that there are surprising similarities in the way fantasy stories are manufactured for our consumption and edification.