Varieties of The Fantastic in Fiction

I read “Husband Stich” by Carmen Maria Machado. It was a story within a story and to me it was like a romance/porn book. It tells the reader when and how the narrator meets her husband and on their sexual journey before marriage and during marriage. The narrator has a green ribbon around her neck and her husband is always trying to untie and see what is underneath. She keeps telling him until the end when she finally lets him untie the ribbon and her head falls off.

A man always wants to know everything about their woman. A woman can never keep secret from her husband, but a husband can keep secret from their wife. As I am reading the story the narrator tells me about the old wives’ tale that has been passed down through generations about marriage, sex, labor, raising a child and feeling desire for another human being.

The men in my family has to know everything about the women in my family and I do not understand that. What we do and talk about with our friends and other people is none of their business. I do not tell them what I talk about because it is none of their business and that is including the other females in my family. But my mom, grandma and sister tell everything to their male partners about everything and that is why I have to watch what I say to them because they will tell them what I say.

As a writer: 

The writing style of this story was very different from the others we have read so far. The skipping back and forth between present, past, and a hypothetical future created a disorienting and confusing impression that reflected the way the narrator was feeling. In the end, the reader is left wondering what is real and what is imagined. I was also interested in Machado’s choice to name the narrator’s ex “Bad.” From the very beginning it created the expectation that things in their relationship were going to go awry. 

As a reader: 

I am relatively sure that, near the end, the narrator had entered somebody else’s house under the delusion that it was the home from her fantasies (and that those fantasies had been real), and falsely identified the children as her own. This also calls into question whether the baby, Mara, exists at all in a literal sense. It seems obvious in retrospect that the baby may not be literal, since two women cannot conceive in the first place. I think Mara may be a representation of the trauma that Bad left the narrator with after their relationship ended; something that the narrator has to learn to live with and take care of. This also fits in with the narrator’s ex being a woman, since abuse in lesbian relationships can be underrepresented / not taken as seriously as abuse of women by men. The narrator automatically assumed that because her ex was a woman, they couldn’t make a baby, and she automatically assumed that because her ex was a woman, she couldn’t be an abuser.

“Mother” is fantastic in a simple way: two women had biological children. In today’s society, it’s seemingly impossible. Yet the fantastic doesn’t just reside in the seemingly impossible.

When I was first told what motherhood entailed – caring and loving for a child for your lifetime and everything in between – I resolved to never be one. I told myself, I will not continue the generational trauma of abuse that my maternal grandmother started. I am third in the line of this trauma and abuse – and it’ll end with me. This is why I couldn’t relate to “Mother”, a story where a woman comes to learn to love motherhood – but I could appreciate the language and theme of the story, which is a mother learning to care for her children and know what’s best for them. I never had that in a mother, so it seems foreign to me. When I first read this story, I couldn’t see what the fantastic was beyond the same-sex couple having a child. To me – there was no fantastic beyond that. When I read it a second time though, the personally fantastic – in other words, what we personally find fantastic compared to others – was the idea a mother could love.

Trigger warning: The next part of this post describes emotional abuse and toxic family. Please skip to bolded “Fin” if you are triggered by these topics.

Not to go too much into my personal life (yes JGB I have to, to make my point. Yes I know but hear me out) but my mother did actually seem to care once. My earliest memories are of her playing with us sisters, being happy then laughing. Then something happened. I went from being played with to my entire room being emptied out over an autistic meltdown. Then it was constant arguing, screams that sent me into tears, and purposefully (by her) on-set tantrums and spying. Not long after, the parentification of watching my ten-year-old sister and six-month-old brother. Then the outright emotional abuse.

I only just ended it. I will not be continuing it.

Fin triggering content.

All this to say that the fantastic in this story is a mother who cares to me – in this world, there are plenty of them, but not enough. Personal fantastic is amazing – in a way, it’s how we bond with the story, turn it into our escapism. I did it with several books – Warriors, Harry Potter, The King’s Men (Book 3 of the “All For the Game Trilogy) and “Mother” proves to be joining that list. It’s intoxicating to me – how much this woman despises, then comes to love her children. It’s the story I wish I had instead of my horrid one. It’s personally very fantastic to me – I can’t imagine this, my brain won’t allow me.

The personal fantastic presents itself in everyday life – we daydream, read, create. “Mother” strikes my personal fantastic in such a way I went back and read it five times in two hours of my own accord (seven total, twice for this assignment) because it’s escapism. It’s the mother I wanted but never got. And isn’t that fantastic, that something as simple as a story of a woman taking in her biological child and loving her, can be escapism for a generation that may not have its mothers?

This weeks stories consisted of many things that will make readers squirm in their seats uncomfortably, but also find voice and relatability in the text as well. Out of all the stories that we read “The Husband Stitch” was my favorite. The amount of detail that the author gave about the woman’s life throughout all of these stages she went through was amazing to me.

She began with this want and need for the man that she eventually would marry and give her entire life to (literally). I feel as though many women could relate to feeling like they have to give into their men and be this sexual figure. She really enjoyed pleasuring him which felt as though it benefited her and him, but it also could have become unhealthy very quickly.

The things that she was going through with her husband did not seem to ultimately have an affect on her relationship with her son. There was an instance where her son asked about her ribbon and she had to distract him from questioning further, something she had to keep doing with her husband until she gave in and eventually died from it.

This story quickly became one of my favorites because of the voice and the way it was explained. There was so much detail which made it very enjoyable to me.

I found “The Husband Stitch” and “Inventory,” both by Carmen Maria Machadoz, to be compelling in their own ways. I started “The Husband Stitch” with an air of caution, having heard the title before, only used in different contexts. I was surprised to find its protagonist to be such a bold woman for the time she seems to be set in. “Inventory” started off strong as well, with a similarly bold protagonist of its own.

Both stories use great foreshadowing to hint at their endings. The narrator of “The Husband Stitch” mentions stories in which sexually liberated women meet unpleasant ends. From the start, it is clear that she is the same type of woman as those in her tales. She relays her own story of meeting and marrying her husband, and of raising the child she has with him. In between her descriptions of her sex life with her husband, she drops in stories of women who have done similar things and been punished for them. It gave me a sense of building anxiety, feeling that it was hinting at what was to come. When she finally meets her own end, it is both satisfying to reach what has been foreshadowed and upsetting to see that her story had to end that way. 

The narrator of “Inventory” writes about the lists she makes when she’s anxious, and the reader comes to understand that the story itself is one of those lists. It was interesting to see how her list of sexual partners slowly morphs into the tale of how a rampant plague has affected her life. Just as the plague took over the world, it takes over her list, which by all means should have had nothing to do with a deadly illness. Admittedly, I didn’t make the connection between her listing of partners and the other lists she creates until the end of the story. When I noticed it, however, it felt like everything fell into place. I felt that it ended the story by wrapping it up in a neat, slightly horrifying, sad, little bow.

Another interesting, shared concept between “The Husband Stitch” and “Inventory” is that of sexually active, unashamed women having sad endings to their lives. It is common to see women like these protagonists suffering for their sexual behavior in media. Machadoz, however, does not vilify these women but uplifts them as the real, living, breathing, human beings they are meant to be. There is such a cliche among sexy women in movies, books, and the like as being portrayed as evil. Over and over, the protagonists are pretty, and the villains are sexy. Examples can be seen in mainstream titles such as the new Godzilla movie, Godzilla vs. Kong, or, arguably, No Time to Die. Machodoz challenges this with her much more realistic characters, showing the reader that women, even sexually liberated ones, are people, too.

The “Room in the Attic” is a story about a teenager named David who is excelling in his high school classes, when during the schoolyear; he befriends a young boy named John “Wolf” & gets to know Wolf’s sister. Wolf’s sister, Isabel is a mysterious girl with an illness that is not explained. Throughout the story, David plays guessing games and begins to wonder more about her. David is attracted to a girl he knows little about nor what she looks like. He longs to see her face and often fantasies about what she could look like.

As I was reading this story, I had some observations about the interactions between David and Isabel. As mentioned in the story that Isabel had a “breakdown” that led to her being homeschooled; isolated from the outside world in her dark room. Though never explained how the breakdown took place or what led to it, I believe she has agoraphobia–an anxiety disorder that causes a fear of public, crowded spaces. Agoraphobia can come on suddenly and I believe this is what she developed. Along with this, she rarely leaves her room and goes downstairs.

Another observation I had consists of the fact that I believe David would not have fantasies and feelings for Isabel if she was not a walking mystery. For example, he fantasies about her face and body at the beach. It is stated towards the end of the story that he decides to not see what she looks like– covering his eyes. He had a chance to see her face yet decided against it. I believe this was due to not wanting to ruin the image he had of her and smash the mystery she is. After this, he begins to question reality and her existence. Later, he begins to move on in life and forgets details of her.

This weeks reading were interesting to say the least. The most interesting and chaotic one to me is “Dangerous Laughter”. During the boredom of the summer kids are forced to make up their own fun and this leads to them doing a lot of weird stuff. The idea of having laughing competitions is normal and innocent fun but I thought it was strange for kids to come up with “laugh parlors” for some people to feed into their laughing obsessions. Like how do you even come up with that? The character ,Clara, was the main part of the story I thought about even after reading it. Clara started of as a shy girl who didn’t talk much and barely even moved and during the course of the story she becomes the queen of laughter but slowly she gets addicted to these parties and parlors. This leads me to believe that this laughter let her get out all of the the emotions she had never said or expressed and while this is a good thing its never good to do anything excessively. With great pleasure there can also be great pain. When she brought all of the kids to her attic and started laughing the narrator said “no one would forgive her for this” this line struck me because he probably thought that she had brought them there to endure and feel all of the emotions that she was letting out by laughing and this is kind of like “trauma dumping” but he stayed until he couldn’t take it anymore.

“The Room in the Attic” by Steven Millhauser has the theme of turning a blind eye to something. The main character and narrator David meets a girl who lives in a pitch-black room in her attic. As David grows closer with this girl, Isabel, he wonders constantly about her appearance. He even starts dreaming about what she might look like. He starts spending every hour he can afford with her in her room. When he isn’t with her, he is collecting items and descriptions to bring to her. His sleeping schedule even changes to reflect hers. David’s behavior seems obsessive, but he doesn’t seem to think so. The choice to tell this story in first person makes it feel as if his behavior is nothing out of the ordinary, because David acts like it is.

When David finally has the chance to see Isabel in the light after months of visiting her, he prevents it last-minute. He wants to stay in the bubble he’s created, where everything is familiar and safe. Instead of learning what could be a beautiful or an ugly truth, David backs out entirely. It could be metaphorical for someone wanting to “stay in the dark” about something they enjoy, because the possible downsides could ruin its status of perfection.

Another metaphor I thought could be present through my first readthrough of this story was that of addiction. Isabel’s brother Wolf has an infatuation with books. He talks about them differently than others do, like they are much better than everyone else thinks. David becomes infatuated with Isabel and her dark room. She decides she wants to very suddenly come into the light, instead of bit by bit. This feels similar to someone stopping their bad habit all at once instead of quitting it slowly. David’s refusal to look at Isabel once she’s revealed herself could be him realizing he isn’t ready to give up his addiction, after all, and refusing to quit it.

“Dangerous Laughter” by the same author also seemed to have the theme of addiction. The narrator and his fellow teenagers in his town start the summer by looking for something new and interesting to get involved in to pass the time. They all turn to laughing as a hobby, and eventually create clubs revolving around it. It becomes competitive, with everyone yearning to laugh the hardest and longest. They tickle one another to get the most intense laughs. Clara Schuler comes along, and she outdoes all of them. Laughing transforms her into someone new, someone people pay attention to. As the laughing trend turns to crying, Clara sticks with her original talent. This could be compared to others moving on from their obsessions or possible addictions while Clara cannot quit. Eventually, much like a dangerous addiction will do, Clara’s knack for laughing kills her.

I read “The Room in The Attic” and “Dangerous Laughter” by Steven Millhauser. In both of these stories, being restless and wanting more was a common theme. In “The Room in The Attic” a boy in high school is living a secret life. In school he acts normal and hangs out with his friends but when he is at the library or home, he is secretly reading books. One day he meets a new boy at the school who reads too but out in public. The new boy is Wolf and takes the boy. Dave to his house. There he meets Wolf’s sister Isabelle who sleeps in the attic. Every time Dave hangs out with Isabelle, he craves more into the unknown. Her room is completely dark, and Dave can see Isabelle, but he does not care.

He starts thinking that he is living in two parallel worlds. One with Isabelle and one without Isabelle. I love to read and the books that I read take me to different places then the one I am at. Books take me to another so I can escape from reality.  I want to know more on what is happening next but at the same time I don’t want to know. When I read, I imagine on what the characters look like in real life, but I know that they will look different than what I have imagine.

Dave wants to know what Isabelle looks like at first but then he changed his made but that did not stop him from imaging on what she looked like and what she was wearing. At the end when she was going to show herself to him, he ran away and did not come back until he realize that Wolf did not come to school for a while. He did not want to know the truth of want she looked like because he did not want his image of her destroyed.

When we are stuck in our world, we do not want to see things differently than what we have imagined. We are in a bubble that fits arounds us and expands when we want to know more but when somethings happen, we do not want to believe then the bubble closes around us.  We want to know more about a bout the world but when we see dark and bad things happening, we run away and try our best to forget the bad memorious and focus on happy things.

At some point, a fair assumption can be made that we –collectively– have all idealized a person to the extent that the way we have crafted them in our heads does not correlate with the person they are in real life. We create an image of this person in our minds, oftentimes with unreachable standards. The disappointment that can be felt when we acknowledge that these people are simply just people, and not the romanticized version, is justifiably heartbreaking. So, when our narrator decides to not see Isabel for who she is and instead leaves with the fantasized version still intact, it almost seems warranted. What if her physical appearance does not live up to his standards? What if this completely changes how he perceives her as an individual? He has an unmatched connection to a girl he has never seen before and knowing that seeing her would significantly humanize her, he decides to opt-out.

Perhaps he is aware of the fact that Isabel is, in some ways, nothing more than a fantasy. He thinks about her constantly, always eagerly awaiting the next time he can talk to her. While Wolf begins as the centerpiece of our narrator’s obsession, it’s obvious that Isabel soon becomes his secret pipe dream. His fixation on her causes her to become something not obtainable, and the moment that she is, he doesn’t want that non-obtainability to cease. The chase ends. The magic is lost.

And when she ultimately leaves and he loses his one chance at uncovering what she really looks like, his fantasy of her can continue She is still unknown to him, still unreachable. She is still a dream that he can disappear to.

In The Room in the Attic, David, the protagonist, is infatuated with his friend’s little sister. David befriends a guy named Wolf, who spends most of his time reading or contemplating the nature of people. Over time David and Wolf become close friends. Wolf invites David over to meet Isabel, Wolf’s sister who lives in the dark. On David’s first visit to Wolf‘s, Wolf introduces David to Isabel. Later, David starts to visit Isabel regularly. During their visits, Isabel plays games where David has to trust her. David begins to imagine what Isabel might look like. He thinks random women could be Isabel. Why does David spend so much time with a girl he can‘t see, just hear? David covers his eyes so he won’t see Isabel when the chance arises to finally see how she looks; he turns and leaves to never return. 

One can find examples of the fantastic in fiction in Millhauser’s The Room in the Attic, in which he explores the idea of imagination and wonder, and how they can affect one’s life. Some may view this story as a metaphor for addiction. David depended on Isabel. It is his habit to visit her house, talk to her, and think about her constantly. David’s addiction would have ended if he had looked at her when she opened the curtains. It is impossible to separate addiction from imagination. David spent a lot of time imagining how Isabel could have looked: everything from the color of her hair to how she would have worn her dress. Our imagination provides us with the opportunity to think what if? People tend to flee from reality when confronted with it.  Without a sense of wonder, there is nothing left for the imagination, which can lead to disappointment or despair. So was David scared to see Isabel because he would be disappointed? 

In Dangerous Laughter, the story focuses on these laughing clubs. Kids came together to laugh at their amusement. A cult-like feeling is created by the constant laughter in the story. Following this introduction, we learn of Clara. Clara is a bit of an oddity among her classmates; she is described as a stiff character who seems to act like those around her as well as maintaining a stiff outer appearance. Likewise, her socks and shirts are neatly tucked in. The other children are shown to find it remarkable that Clara can laugh for long periods of time and loudly. This makes her popular with them. She dies after spending too much time laughing at the end of the story. When adolescents are a part of group, they tend to mimic those around them; inevitably, if they find something which impresses those around them, they risk losing a part of themselves in it.

“The Room In The Attic” is told by the main character David, who becomes obsessed with his friend’s sister. His friend, Wolf, is already an interesting character that does not care for the things school has to offer. After his initial encounter with David, Wolf introduces him to Isabel. David never sees her due to the darkness of her room. He plays with her in the dark, games that test his imagination and challenge him to pay attention to the little things that happen in everyday life. She becomes an invisible presence in his life, intruding on his thoughts as well as his daily schedule, and he falls in love with the idea with her. When Isabel decides that she wants to bring herself into the light, David shields his eyes to avoid seeing her, and he leaves. This results in him never visiting or seeing her again, as she leaves to visit her aunt and attend school elsewhere.

Millhauser’s “The Room In The Attic” demonstrates another example of an imagination or an idea of someone, and the impact that they have on others. That being said, it is possible that Isabel herself is a figment of David’s imagination. Before he meets Isabel, Wolf talks about how a book is a “dream-machine” and its purpose is to “take you out of the world” (39). Isabel tends to do this exact thing to David, especially when he is no longer in the same room as her. It is very similar to the feeling you get when reading a book that has grabbed your interest, and you want nothing more than to continue reading it, but you are not allowed to read it all day. However, in this case, David does not want to see her face, because it takes him back into reality. He likes his ideal version of her, and doesn’t want to ruin that image. It is also possible that he is scared that if he tries to see her, he will find nothing at all, and she never really existed. Isabel is his dream-machine; when she leaves, his life goes back to a sense of normalcy and boring interactions, wondering if he anything he had experienced ever really happened.

There were two stories to read for class, “The Room in the Attic” and “Dangerous Laughter.”

The Room in the Attic
In “The Room in the Attic,” it starts the story by introducing Wolf, who isn’t even the main protagonist. However, we learn that Wolf befriends a boy named David, and the story follows him and his interactions between himself and Wolf’s sister, isabel. The audience learns that Isabel must live in darkness, as she lives in the attic in complete darkness. David starts to go to the attic to interact with Isabel, which causes him to create these illusions of what isabel might look like. David becomes almost obsessed with what Isabel might look like, even going as far as turning a flashlight on to look at her. However, I think the big reason why David didn’t want to see Isabel when he had the chance was because he didn’t want to destroy the curiosity that she held. It’s the same idea as to where ‘a magician doesn’t reveal his secrets’ the magic trick would lose the feeling of being magical.

Dangerous Laughter
In “Dangerous Laughter,” the story follows the idea of these laughing clubs. Children would congregate into these laughing parlors and laugh away. The story gives an oddly eerie vibe about the constant laughing like it was slowly creating a cult. Then the audience is introduced to a girl named Clara. She’s almost like an odd egg to the school. Clara is described as a very stiff character, who seems to make all of her actions exact, as well as maintaining a stiff outer presence. Her socks are straight, not a hair out of place, and her shirts tucked in. Clara is shown to have an amazing ability to these other children that she is able to laugh loudly, and for long moments of time. Clara gains popularity by her weird ability to laugh. In the end of the story, she ends up dying from spending too much time laughing. The things children due to be a part of the group.

This week we were given another round on stories to analyze and dissect. “Cat N Mouse”, “The Disappearance of Elaine Coleman”, “The Room In The Attic”, and “Dangerous Laughter”. The story that stood out the most to me was “The Room In The Attic”. This story had me hanging onto every word and I found it very enjoyable.

The story starts off describing a character named Wolf. We are already aware that the story is  not about him, but the author chooses to start off describing him because of his importance in the story. The story is actually about a boy named David, and we start out by describing their dynamic as friends. Something that I noticed in the story was that Wolf and David did not really hang out with one another when David’s other friends were present. Their friendship was very odd to me because it seemed so different, they were an unusual but usual pairing in my opinion because they had so many things in common, but Wolf was not the type of person that David usually surrounded himself with. It makes me wonder if David’s “regular” friends (Ray and Dennis) knew that he liked to read and how he was often caught in deep thought as the story progresses.

The story continues with David meeting Wolf’s sister, Isabel. This part of the story was very intriguing to me and is the main reason I chose to write this blog post about it. The dynamic between Isabel and David was confusing at first to me. He was allowed to meet her, but it was in complete darkness. It gave me the impression that Isabel was very fragile, there was something that must be wrong with her. My other impression was that she must be some sort of creature that is not of this world, or, like our other stories, she turned into some animal or beast. I was afraid that his first couple of times meeting her would result in Wolf or Isabel herself feeling disrespected by something he did and this story taking a dark turn. The story does give off a certain vibe that there is much that we do not know about this family, the father was rarely brought up and the mother brought up many questions in my mind. There was a lot of suspense whenever David would go to meet Isabel and I think that’s something the author wanted. You never knew what was going to happen next and that is exactly what kept me reading and waiting for the moment that David actually got to see who Isabel was or what she wasn’t. I was nervous to see wha would happen to David when he did see Isabel and what that would mean for him.

The end of the story was something that I was not expecting. David was given the choice to see Isabel, but he did not take it. He allowed it to continue being a mystery which I understand, but why? It was something that he had questioned for so long, something he daydreamed about. He seemed to be almost obsessed with the idea of Isabel, but when he was finally able to see her especially in a moment that seemed very important to her, he left her. At the end of the story David continues his life and he continues living as if this was not something that was major in his life, almost forgetting about the details that took place as a whole. It made me think about David’s character and what the author wanted to portray here. Did he want the reader to see David as selfish or was it really just the need for mystery?

The Room in the Attic

The short story “The Room in the Attic” is about a teenage boy who becomes infatuated with the sister of his friend, who he only ever interacts with in her darkened bedroom in the attic. At first he is understandably curious about what she looks like and plans to reveal her with a flashlight, but decides against that as it would have been an invasion of her boundaries. As time goes on, however, he comes to conflate her with the darkness. He talks about two worlds: the world of the light and the world of the dark. Isabel is a creature of the latter, and as he becomes infatuated with her he seems to become engulfed in the dark as well. The world of the dark is mysterious, unburdened by appearances, it is in a way richer. In the dark, he can imagine Isabel to be anything or anyone, while in the light his image of her fades and becomes unclear. He comes to much prefer the dark. 

Before meeting Isabel, David says: “In a murky sense I felt that my secret reading was a way of burrowing down to that underplace, where a truer or better version of myself lay waiting for me.” It seems to me that the world David imagines to exist in the dark of Isabel’s room is another manifestation of this mindset. She and the dark she inhabits are vessels that he uses to carry him to a “truer or better version of [himself].” The dark is a place for him to explore himself, a world of his own mind.

Wolf, on the other hand, sees a book as a “dream-machine” whose purpose is escapism. I think that this view can also apply to David’s perception of Isabel and the world of the dark. After all, the thousands of Isabels that he imagines, the idea of her as a semi-formless being who exists only in the dark, are not true in a literal sense, they are just his subjective ideas. He imagines Isabel in a brightly lit airport and sees this concept as somehow antithetical to her, but this is a reality that she can inhabit just as easily as a darkened bedroom. The dark allows David to exert his imagination to levels he had never accessed before, but it is a dream. 

When Isabel is ready to reveal herself to David, he flees because he is unwilling to give up this dream. He says: “No, far better for me to have turned away, to have understood that, for me, Isabel existed only in the dark. Like a ghost at dawn—like the princess of a magic realm—she had to vanish at the first touch of light.” David views Isabel as an extension of his own imagination, and compares her to the fictional figures of his books. At the first touch of light, she “vanished.” Of course, she didn’t really vanish. She probably stood in her room and watched him run out of the house, and may have felt hurt by this rejection. From David’s subjective point of view, though, she did vanish. He does not see her as a person as much as a tool for his own intellectual exploration, like a book. In the end, he chose to preserve the figure of his imagination that he called “Isabel” rather than meet the real person.

Dangerous Laughter

I read ”Dangerous Laughter” as a story about teenage angst. The children in this story long for a way to express their emotions, and this manifests as long, intense bouts of laughter. It becomes obsessive and strangely mystical, with people competing to see who can laugh the longest and the best. They form secret clubs where they come to laugh, and consider this laughter to be “a part of the kingdom of forbidden things,” along with sex. One character, Clara, has always been extremely quiet and reserved, but she can laugh longer and more intensely than anyone else, and she becomes a sort of celebrity for it. When the fad passes and most people move on to weeping as a form of expression, Clara calls the others to her house for a sort of last hurrah, where she laughs for so many hours straight that she ends up dying. I viewed the laughter as a kind of metaphor for other, more realistic “forbidden things” that teenagers take part in which can result in travesty.

The short story of “The Room in the Attic” by Steven Millhauser was extremely interesting and engaging. The story revolves around a young kid, named David, that seems to become obsessed with his friends sister, who he meets but does not see. As he gets to know more about Isabel he starts to imagine what she would be like and his, “brain was so filled with false Isabel’s that I pressed my hands against the sides of my head, as if to crush them to death (9).” Most of the times he though of Isabel he would simply imagine and have fantasies of what she would look like, as he always meet her in the dark. He also would, ” [try] to imagine her in the world of light (9),” which could indicate that at this point he did not see Isabel as a person, but a figment of his imagination and maybe even desires. To David, Isabel could be a beautiful young girl, or as he also describe she could end u being deformed and hiding. Also, this separates Isabel from much of David’s everyday ‘world’, and puts a barrier between Isabel and David. As, David seems to put Isabel in a specific area in which he does not have any desire to remove her from. Then, when David has the opportunity to see Isabel for the first time he runs away, which seems to imply that he was afraid that his dream, fantasies, or desires would end. It could also imply that Isabel was only interesting to David in the midst of the mystery, and that as soon as he uncovered the mystery he would no longer be interested which could of been something which he feared. Lastly, when David went back to see Isabel after running away she had already left. This to me seems to tie to the idea that as long as Isabel stayed in the dark David’s ideals of her would remain pure and untouched in his mind.

Then, there was the short story of “Dangerous Laughter”. I also this was interesting and compelling in the way it allowed for the readers to feel a sense of alienation from the craze of the laughing parties like the narrator themselves were experiencing. The way the story is told really allows for the reader to feel as if they are looking outside in. Something that caught my attention as I read was how Clara was described as somewhat of an outcast, and that as she was in the laughing parties she seemed, “as if she were being punished in some humiliating way (10).” This made me think of how people go out of their comfort zone in order to fit in and do stupid and out of character things in order to be able to be a part of a group. Clara who seemed like the type of character to not be interested in these types of activities seemed to indulge in them in order to make herself a part of the crowd. When Clara died I thought of it being a warning of how this could have happened to the narrator if she had tried hard to fit in as Clara had done.

“No, far better to have turned away, to have understood that, for me, Isabel existed only in the dark.” (74).

Millhauser does an interesting concept in “The Room in the Attic” on not confirming or denying if Isabel is real. Even at the very end of the story, David still isn’t 100% on if Isabel was real or his mind had made it all up with Wolf’s slight manipulations. After meeting the supposed Isabel, David seems to be pulled into an almost fantasy realm and comes over to just sit in the dark and talk to Isabel and it begins impacting his life. He comes over to Wolf’s house not to spend time with his friend but rather sit in the dark talking to a girl who may not even be real. Wolf on his end seems oddly chill with his friend coming in and sitting in the attic.

David seems so wrapped up in the allure of Isabel to the point that when she goes to show herself to him that he turns away not wanting the illusion of her he’d built in his reality that the potential of it to be broken was something he didn’t want. This really brings into the question of if Isabel is real or not. David might have been an overactive mind and created Isabel with prompting from his friend. There could be the argument on if Wolf was really real but based the fact rumors about him flunking out of his previous school that Wolf might actually be real.

Wolf brings up that the difference between animals and humans is that humans were able to dream while awake (42). Millhauser seems to be dropping hints that Isabel could possibly be all part of an experiment done by Wolf on his friend David to see if David was a dreamer, and if Isabel truly isn’t real, David would seem to be.

Steven Millhauser’s “The Room in The Attic” immediately led me down a train of thought of how literature itself is a representation of the fantastic, and acts as a fantastical object in day-to-day life.

The introduction of Wolf, and his opinion that “books weren’t made of themes, which you could write essays about, but of images that inserted themselves into your brain and replaced what you were seeing with your eyes” is a sentiment that comprises the whole of the story (3). David’s entire experience with Isabel is absent of visual representation, but rather he uses his other senses to compile imagery of Isabel. The imagery goes through different forms, “blue-eyed Isabels and smiling Isabels, Isabels in red shorts, Isabels in faded jeans…” pleasant imagery of the playful adolescent following disturbing imagery as well (11). The variety of forms Isabel takes up in David’s imagination is similar to how the imagery of a story or novel can manifest in different ways, at different times, in both the same individual’s mind, as well as between separate individuals. 

The fantastic part of David’s experience “is [in] the dark room, the realm, the mystery of Isabel-land” where “the other world dissolved in a solution of black” (18). The darkness of the attic, while shutting out the outside world, is itself a world for David. Similarly when indulging in literature oftentimes the curtains of the outside world can be drawn shut, while the curtains of an imaginary, fantastical realm can be drawn open. David highlights that “the real division was between the visible world and that other world, where Isabel waited for [him] like a dark dream,” giving way to the notion that Isabel herself is not the other world herself, but a manifestation of a part of that world, a vessel for which the world comes to exist (15). Parallel are characters in literature, though they are the vessel in which the world is introduced, literature allows the entrenchment into the ‘other world’ outside of its own narrative and plot.

Most interesting to me, and important to this train of literary thought, is that David runs away from Isabel when she is ready to be revealed to the light. This, for me, indicates the importance of agency when interacting with art of any kind. Art, and therefore literature, is meant to evoke a response, a feeling, and intellectual introspection. David’s running away made me think of how I approach perusing an art museum, or observe a piece of art. I look at the physical aspects of the painting, take note of my emotional reaction, and try to piece together what it all may mean. If I am particularly curious about the artist or piece, I may look up the intended meaning (if the artist has revealed such). However, there is always a shift in my perception of the painting once I read an analysis or historical interpretation of the art. David fleeing from Isabel’s true form is synonymous with me leaving the piece of art unexamined, letting it remain in my brain and memory influenced only by imagination, and the medium the artist used. David’s imagination of Isabel is a sacred piece of art, and an experience he wishes to keep untainted. However, I also divulge that literature and art can be equally fantastic with varying perspectives, and may just reveal a little more magic.

Picture Sources:

https://www.istockphoto.com/photos/creepy-attic

https://dna645design.com/portfolio/mansion-attic-witches-of-east-end/

This week’s reading we read “The Metamorphosis” by Frank Kurtz, “Mantis” by Julia Armfield, “Fatso” by Etgar Keret, and “Beast” by Samantha Hunt. This stories are about physical change, but also about the messages that lie underneath.

While reading”The Metamorphosis”, many metaphors became apparent about self realization and realizing what components make a human being. After Gregor transformation, his love for art, life, and culture still thrived. He lived off the fact that his family needing him. Once that need disappeared and his family began to slowly forget about him, his need to live slowly began to disappear. The family also went through a transformation by being forced to find means of living. They once again to begin to find a purpose through their meaning for life changes. A change mainly happens between Emily. In the beginning, she begins to help Gregor, but as time goes on she begins to treat Gregor as this inhuman object instead of a human being. Once Gregor dies, the family begins to realize that he was a human and not so much as a burden.

 “Beast“ was a a transformation of a married women into a deer. The story is an explantation of what happened to turned this women into a deer. The wife cheats on her husband, and turns into a deer at night. When a person thinks about a deer the idea of it being unsure and unfaithful is not one that comes to mind. Deers represent the innocence, kindness, grace, and luck. I believe that her turning into a deer is there to reminds her of who she use to be before committing an act of sin. Hernando’s Hideaway was a song that scared her. The song stalked about doing adult things which gives me the idea that she does not like to reminded of the acts that she commits.

“Fatso” is a short story about a man’s girlfriend who transform every night into this fat, hairy man who likes to go out to bars and watch soccer. At the beginning, the story did not lead me to the conclusion of a women turning into a man’s best friend. I thought he was going to be a cheater. Instead it showed that he loved her no matter what or form.

“Mantis” is a story about a young girl who attends an all girls catholic school. As a child growing up her mother tells her that she has a severe skin condition passed down through genetics. Throughout the story, she describes her experience with her friends and her personal journey. Some things that came up where her emotions towards her flaws, insecurities, and her dating life. As the story goes on, the author pays close attention to her peeling skin and the details about her grandmother. The mother focuses on her daughter beauty and looks more than her daughter does. Eventually, she turns into this praying mantis and proceed to eat the boy she was talking too. Her transformation has a lot of self hatred and anger. While she tries to forget about what makes her different or standout everyone else is focused on it.