Monique Porteous week 4 - Fantasy

How does Attebery (1980)define Fantasy? Find at least five definitions.

1. "Fantasy, then, presupposes a view of exterior reality which it goes on to contradict." (Attebery, 1980, p.3)
2. "Any narrative which includes a significant part of its make-up violation of what the author clearly believes to be the natural law -- that is fantasy." (Attebery, 1980, p.3)
3. "And fantasy treats these impossibilities without hesitation, without doubt, without any attempt to reconcile them with our intellectual understanding of the workings of the world or to make us believe that such things could under any circumstances come true." this is in regards to the previous line above which states ideas about magical objects and proceeding through events. (Attebery, 1980, p.3)
4. "Fantasy is a game of sorts, and it demands that one play whole-heartedly, accepting for the moment all rules and turns of the game." (Attebery, 1980, p.3)
5. Fantasy invokes wonder by making the impossible seem familiar and the familiar seem new and strange." (Attebery, 1980, p.4) 

Can the genre legitimately be defined by examples? How do English and American constructions of fantasy diverge, according to Attebery?

The fantasy genre can not be defined by examples, the examples only aid in describing what can be contained within the genre. As much as Attebery (1980) comments on how his idealistic fantasy shelf would have titles such as The Lord of The Rings, Narnia, The Wind in The Willows and others such like these, they still cannot define the fantasy genre on their own, but as I say before, they do add to it. In regards to how English and American constructions of fantasy diverge, Attebery (1980) uses plenty of 'fantasy' authors in how he explains the constructions. Mentioned are authors such as C.S Lewis, the brothers Grimm and MacDonald, among other historical authors. All of these authors took real life examples turning them into a story, and in most cases a type of fairy tale. Attebery (1980) uses the example of fairy tale in commenting on how the fantasy genre constructions diverge, or in simpler terms - join ideas as well as grammars together. His use of examples is broad but it does leave enough to the readers imagination for one to form a view on how theses constructions diverge. Personally interpreted - I see Attebery's (1980) author and novel examples showing how the fantasy genre can be so many things while focusing on fairy tales also shows that it can have small sub-areas which help to develop the genre over all, causing the constructions of fantasy diverge.

How is science fiction different from fantasy, according to Le Guinn ( http://www.ursulakleguin.com/PlausibilityRevisited.html)?

Science fiction is different from fantasy, Le Guinn (2005) proves this with her writings. Science fiction is a genre which contains realism, as compared to fantasy which is more direct in the way it is written and told. While science fiction isn't strictly realism only, it does meet the requirements to have elements of it throughout the genre. "In general, science fiction proceeds just as realistic fiction does, meeting conventional expectations of how people generally act, and either avoiding events that will strike the reader as improbable, or plausibly explaining them." (Le Guinn, 2005). Besides realism, science fiction does also follow a realistic fiction structure as well. Le Guinn (2005) explains this beautifully in the quote above. To touch briefly on how Le Guinn (2005) describes the fantasy genre, she essentially comments on how fictive it is, but not in the most positive light, calling it "shamelessly fictive". Regardless of how Le Guinn (2005) describes and comments on the qualities of each genre, she does show the stark difference between the two. 

Note while you are reading A Wizard of Earthsea Le Guinn's (1993 ; 1968) depiction of race and gender. Is there anything surprising in this? Why?

In reading this novel there are some very sexist views in regards to women being seen as not equal in comparison to the men in the book. In the first say quarter of the novel the reader is introduced to many characters, the female ones however seem depicted in a lower class type of light. Taking from the book "There is a saying on Gont, Weak as woman's magic, and there is another saying, Wicked as woman's magic." (Le Guinn, 1993 ; 1968, p.16). It is clear from this piece of writing extracted from the novel that there is a very negative connotation towards women early on, in page 16 for that matter. The surprising thing about this is that the author is in fact a woman, which causes confusion as to why a female writer would in ways 'bash' her own gender, in her own novel. 
References:

Attebery, B. (1980). The Fantasy Tradition in American Literature: From Irving to Le Guinn. Bloomington: Indiana U P, 1980

Le Guinn, U. (1993 ; 1968). The Earthsea Quartet. London: Penguin.

Le Guinn, U. (2005). Plausibility in Fantasy. Retrieved 25, June, 2005 http://www.ursulakleguin.com/PlausibilityRevisited.html