Analysis Of The Creature Recants By Dale Bailey

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“Fantasies express a ‘longing for an absolute meaning’, for something other than the limited ‘known’ world…the modern fantastic…focuses upon the ‘unknown’ within the present…” (Jackson 158). This message means that a fantasy story should be able to encourage the readers to immerse themselves in the story, and take the readers’ minds from the real world to the fantasy world. In other words, the readers must be able to suspend their disbelief when reading a fantasy story. According to our online course glossary, suspension of disbelief “occurs when a reader willingly forgets that they are reading a fictional story and get caught up in the plot, narrative, characterization, etc., to the point where they temporarily believe that it is all real” …show more content…

Jackson’s concept of the ‘known’, the ‘unknown’ and the ‘longing for an absolute meaning’ was expressed in the story by the Creature’s character. The Creature is like a human being because he talks like a human and acts like a human even though his looks is different from a real human being. For this reason, the Creature seems to be real, so I was able to suspend my disbelief and think that the Creature is real while reading the story. The Creature looks like half man and half fish, so maybe that is the reason why some people call him “Fish Man”. However, according to him, “he’s not a fish, but an amphibian” (Bailey). It is unknown if he really is an amphibian, and “he’d never known another of his kind” (Bailey). The unknowns in the story caused me to immerse myself more. As I read, I was looking forward to find out more information about the Creature. I wanted to know where did he come from, and I was hoping to find a happy ending for him. Thus, I think I was able to feel what the author wants the readers to feel. Through the whole story, the Creature was searching for happiness, and I too, as the reader, was looking for something or someone that will help improve the Creature’s life after all the wrongs he had suffered. One of the Creature’s co-actors, Karloff, gave him an advice and said, “Underwater, my friend. Water is your natural milieu” (Bailey). I think this message is the absolute meaning that the Creature was looking for, and as a result, he finally knew where he can find happiness. “The Creature strikes off for home, knowing now how fleeting are the heart’s desires, knowing that Julie too would ebb into memory” (Bailey). From the beginning until the end of the story, I was able to understand the Creature’s feelings, and it caused me to willingly suspend my

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