Varieties of The Fantastic in Fiction

The three assigned readings this week were about different kinds of fantastical transformations. Etgar Keret’s “Fatso” was about a man’s girlfriend turning into a large, hairy man every night. Samantha Hunt’s “Beast” presents a woman who becomes a deer once her husband turns off the light at night. Finally, Julia Armfield’s “Mantis” by Julia Armfield, was about an adolescent girl with a skin condition slowly losing parts of herself before transforming into a mantis.

All of these stories had an interesting occurrence where the transformations weren’t treated as if they were as extremely shocking as they would be in real life. The man in “Fatso” continues dating his girlfriend and spends his nights hanging out with her alternate self. The woman in “Beast” believes that her husband will be in disbelief about her nightly issue, but he just asks to see it. The girl in “Mantis” transforms at the end of the story, and she doesn’t seem to be a bit surprised. 

The man in “Fatso” was a bit shocked in the beginning, but as he grew to become good friends with the man his girlfriend turned into, he acted as if it were normal. They go out and eat and party and do things that I assume the girlfriend wouldn’t do. It’s interesting how the speaker seems to have a two-in-one deal. He has his beautiful, sweet girlfriend to love during the day, and his large, loud pal that she becomes during the night. It feels like a bit of a wild metaphor for loving someone no matter what weird baggage they might carry with them.

“Beast” involves a lot of disconnect between the speaker and her husband. She admits that she didn’t marry him out of love, although she did grow to love him. She admits that she cheated on him on a whim, and that she would never admit this to him. She also keeps her secret of turning into a deer to herself for a little while before finally telling him. In comparison to the transformation in “Fatso,” the main character here has a transformation into something beautiful and wholesome, as opposed to loud and wild. Deer are often skittish creatures, and even hunters will take their beauty home with them to mount on their walls. However, the speaker is still hesitant to tell her husband about it. There isn’t the same unconditional love in “Beast” as in “Fatso.” In the end of “Beast,” when the woman is going to show her husband her furry secret, she wakes to find that not only her husband, but many people have been transformed, as well. I think a possible metaphor here could be that since the main character came clean, she was able to become a wholesome being along with everyone else.

I believe the reason the transformation is unsurprising in “Mantis” specifically is because it could be representative of something else entirely. “Mantis” follows the main character through her adolescence, focusing on her and her peers’ changing bodies as they grow up. There is talk of acne and shaving legs and sweaty armpits. The girls also go through mental changes, as they start to take up interest in boys. In the end, the main character is led away by a boy, Mark Kemper at a party. Her skin condition is acting up horribly, and she talks of how she can feel her skin splitting and shedding worse than usual. The boy makes advances on her, and her body reacts by shedding her skin completely to reveal a praying mantis beneath it. The story does not directly state what her new form is, but the reader can gather from the title and a few detailed lines, such as: “A suddenness of mandibles and curving neck, eyes sliding into lateral position, long hands that bend straight down as if in inverted prayer.” 

The way the characters react to these different changes reflects on themselves. With “Fatso,” the reader sees the love the speaker has for his significant other. In “Beast,” it is revealed how little of a connection there is between the married couple. Lastly, in “Mantis,” the main character’s new form reflects her new status in the world following adolescence.