Fantasy as Belief and Its Happenings in Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather

Huang, Minwen

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-67298-4_10

Fantasy as Belief and Its Happenings in Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather

Minwen Huang⁴

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First Online: 13 February 2018

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Part of the book series: Critical Approaches to Children's Literature ((CRACL))

Abstract

Reflecting on the existential crisis of fantasy and belief in our contemporary world, in Hogfather (1996) Terry Pratchett addresses a philosophical conception regarding the essential existence of fantasy and belief to define our being human. Probing into their shared ‘unreal’ immaterial nature, he illustrates their potential actualisations into fantastic characters in the textual reality of the Discworld. Employing Text World Theory, this chapter will investigate fantasy as belief through analysing three ‘happenings’ of fantasy that explain the formation and nature of belief. This analysis can help to re-evaluate the meaning of fantasy and belief as well as the role of fantasy as a literary genre.

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Notes

1.
Originally developed by Paul Werth during the 1980s and 1990s, the Text World Theory adopted and adapted here is mainly based on Joanna Gavin’s Text World Theory: An Introduction (2007), with revisions and simplifications that benefit analysis clarification. Joanna Gavins, ‘About’, Text World Theory, accessed 23 August 2016, https://textworldtheory.org/about-2/.
2.
Ernestine Lahey, ‘Stylistics and Text World Theory’, in The Routledge Handbook of Stylistics, ed. Michael Burke (London: Routledge, 2014), 287.
3.
Joanna Gavins, Text World Theory: An Introduction (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007), 8.
4.
Peter Stockwell, Cognitive Poetics: An Introduction (London: Routledge, 2008), 136.
5.
Paola Trimarco, Digital Textuality (London: Palgrave, 2015), 100.
6.
Gavins, Text World Theory, 111.
7.
Ibid., 112.
8.
Terry Pratchett, Hogfather (London: Corgi Books, 1997), 12.
9.
Ibid., 243.
10.
Pratchett, ‘Notes from a Successful Fantasy Writer: Keep it Real (2007)’, in A Slip of the Keyboard: Collected Nonfiction (London: Doubleday, 2014), 80–81.
11.
Pratchett, Hogfather, 205–206.
12.
Ibid., 205–206, 14.
13.
Ibid., 208, 209.
14.
Ibid., 209.
15.
Ibid., 215.
16.
Ibid.
17.
Gavins, Text World Theory, 56.
18.
Pratchett, Hogfather, 215.
19.
Ibid., 12.
20.
Ibid., 288.
21.
Ibid.
22.
Ibid., 224.
23.
Ibid., 208, 220.
24.
Ibid., 243.
25.
Ibid., 245.
26.
Pratchett, ‘Imaginary World, Real Stories’, Folklore 111 (2000): 166.
27.
Pratchett, Hogfather, 400.
28.
Ibid., 276.
29.
Ibid., 392.
30.
Ibid., 107.
31.
Ibid., 102.
32.
Ibid., 155.
33.
Ibid.
34.
Ibid., 400.
35.
Ibid., 165.
36.
Gavins, Text World Theory, 43.
37.
Pratchett, Hogfather, 165.
38.
Gavins, Text World Theory, 128.
39.
Pratchett, Hogfather, 166.
40.
Ibid., 166–167.
41.
Ibid., 166, 168–169.
42.
Ibid., 171.
43.
Ibid., 172, 174.
44.
Ibid., 172.
45.
Ibid., 344.
46.
Ibid., 394.
47.
Ibid., 366.
48.
Ibid., 399.
49.
Ibid., 365, 366.
50.
Ibid., 409.
51.
Ibid., 410.
52.
Ibid., 417–418.
53.
Ibid., 418–421.
54.
Ibid., 422.
55.
Ibid.
56.
Pratchett, ‘Notes’, 82.
57.
Farah Mendlesohn, Rhetorics of Fantasy (Middletown: Wesleyan UP, 2008), xiii.
58.
This term is borrowed from Paul Ricoeur’s From Text to Action, a book that explicates his theory of hermeneutic phenomenology concerning interpretation and ethical actions. It was originally published in French in 1986. Paul Ricoeur, From Text to Action: Essays in Hermeneutics, II, trans. Kathleen Blamey and John B. Thompson (London: Continuum, 2008).
59.
Pratchett, Hogfather, 423.

Bibliography

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Department of English, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany
Minwen Huang

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Minwen Huang
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Interjuli, Lorch, Germany
Marion Rana

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Huang, M. (2018). Fantasy as Belief and Its Happenings in Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather . In: Rana, M. (eds) Terry Pratchett's Narrative Worlds. Critical Approaches to Children's Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67298-4_10

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67298-4_10
Published: 13 February 2018
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-67297-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-67298-4
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