Varieties of The Fantastic in Fiction

All through modern literature there has been several stories and folktales about people walking around as humans during the day and being someone or something completely different by night.To name a few there are: Werewolves, Skinwalkers, and Vampires. These are still some of the most common creatures that we hear of today because they are so popular. But what do these transformations symbolize?

The three stories we read Fatso, Mantis, and Beast all have the common theme of people being able to transform but they don’t turn into any of the common creatures we would usually expect but very unusual and unexplainable things. In Fatso, the protagonist’s girlfriend ,who is  a beautiful woman by day, confesses that a night she turns into a fat man who wears a ring on his pinky. At first he protagonist didn’t believe it but later that night there was a man in his apartment with a ring on his pinky. During this time they both go out to a bar and hang out like they were old friends. This eventually become a routine, the protagonist being with his girlfriend during the day and  then hanging out with the fat man she becomes during the night. This story is probably one of the weirder stories because you don’t expect a beautiful woman to turn into a fat man and we get no background to why this might be happening to her but rather we and the protagonist take this as a fact and keep it moving. I think the lack of shock expressed is what is most shocking.

Mantis is definitely my favorite story out of the three we read. It starts with the protagonists, a teenage girl, talking about how she has problematic skin all of her life and that this a genetic trait passed on from her Grandmother. She is a “late bloomer” just like her mother and her grandmother. Throughout the story she starts to notice her body making small but unusual changes: her teeth and hair start falling out, her eyes seem to be moving further apart, and her fingers start looking longer. At the peak of the story she finally gets to hang out with a boy but while they are together her skin completely starts to shed off her revealing her new form as a Praying Mantis.She then proceeds to eat the boy.This story was really interesting to read because at first we have no idea what is happening but little clues come  when she talks to her mother like when her mother says ” Your Grandma used to be a party animal” (when she usually says party girl) or “Grandpa wasn’t around much then” foreshadows what her transformation would be like. To a certain extent I understand why the author chose a Praying Mantis because the protagonist is a catholic school girl and the women of her family eat men after mating but still I think Black Widow is more well known for doing this so why not use them but maybe the point of it was to be more original but it was still a great read.

Beast was also an interesting read and I like that it gives somewhat of an explanation to why the Wife turns into a deer. We get the explanation that ever since the Wife cheated on her husband she has turned into a deer every night. My main question is why a deer? It’s said that deer symbolize innocence, kindness, grace, and good luck. So my theory is that since she cheated she lost some of her innocence (since her and her husband had only been with each other) and her kindness; so by becoming a deer maybe that will help her go back to being in touch with those traits. The fact that she was afraid of the song Hernando’s Hideaway because they sang about “adult things” kind of reinforces this in my mind. But the fact that her husband also turns to a deer and seems to have been turning for a long time kind of tells me he isn’t as innocent as we thought he was which is like double whammy of plot twists. I think the joining of other deer symbolized that maybe they both have cheated  before but in the end come home to each other.