Literature of Horror, Fantasy, & Science Fiction

In Anansi Boy , songs are the eternal medium which immortalizes old legends. Fat Charlie's family name, Nancy, is an obvious nod to the Anansi of legend. The original Anansi is a spider god who plays tricks on humans; the character of Spider is no different, as he sees the people around him as ephemeral and, in the case of women, interchangeable. As an African folktale character, Anansi is less familiar to English audiences than figures such as Zeus and Hercules. Instead of choosing a more familiar subject, Gaiman chose to center the story on Anansi and his descendants, thus forcing uninitiated audiences to adopt at least a rudimentary grasp of the original story. Urban fantasy is often about humanizing the mythological figures addressed in their stories and reshaping them according to new, industrialized environments. Anansi's death is played out through hospital rooms and funerals; in stages that mortals can relate to. The family dysfunction is a human element that audien

Children's fiction has often been used to communicate adult themes to a young audience. Harry Potter is no different, though it disguises its themes of injustice, war, classism, and prejudice through a child-friendly allegory. It is commonly believed that addressing racism through a more literal perspective, such as having a black character be confronted with prejudice, is too disturbing of an exercise for children, but somehow when you use elves and dwarves it becomes an acceptable parable. The tension between pureblooded wizards and "mudbloods," or Muggle-borns, is an example of racism within the wizarding world. This hostility is so pervasive that it affects the background of the whole story and motivates the main conflict. (JK Rowling faced criticism for using white characters to represent racially marginalized demographics, which is an unchallenging and perhaps counterproductive way of telling stories about racism. Conversely, it could be considered an exercise in

Lord of the Rings isn't the first entry in the fantasy genre, but it was the fantasy story which defined the genre as a whole. Lord of the Rings and its predecessor, The Hobbit , adhere to the fantasy formula with devotion erring on cliche. Legendary stories can get away with cliches because they're considered the defining examples of their respective genres. The traditional storytelling outline of your average fantasy novel remains the same: an adventure is presented to the protagonist, Bilbo Baggins, who is reluctantly forced to accept it. He receives assistance through a cadre of supporting characters that offer a variety of talents. They travel across Mordor, introducing the audience to every facet of the encountering a variety of challenges which the party surmounts until they reach their final objective. The final adversary is usually a great, evil entity. Elves weren't a new storytelling convention either, but Lord of the Rings did make them a staple of fan