Problematic Issues in Fantastic Literature of Honore de Balzac

. . radically separate. They are non harmonized in optimistic or utopian schemes; their depressed confrontation, to the point of improbable exaggeration, is the pervasive tenor of his writing."2 To station it another way, the lecturer is drawn nimblely into the fantasy and recognises, on one hand, a new world along with the characters as the base unfolds. On the other hand, the reader may experience the ordinary world anew.

In "The Golden Pot," the borderline surrounded by fantasy and reality is defined by the student Anselm's doubled attraction to the Veronica (who lives in reality) and Serpentina (who turns out to be a snake woman whose existence derives from a netherworld). Much of the story is told from the point of view of Anselm, who experiences visions of beautiful, lustful eyes upon him, only to baffle the visions disappear as he shakes himself back into reality. But Hoffmann achieves a disjointed narrative effect by opening sealed backgrounds in the middle of an episode or conversation, then backtracking by means of narrative explanation or additional talk in order to explain the preceding action. For example, after Anselm collapses at Lindhorst's door when a vision warns him away from the archivist, the following scene does not open with an explanation of what happened to Anselm next but with a spirit story that turns out to be one told by Lindhorst during Anselm's job interview. The effect is that the reader begins to suspect, with Anselm, t

Nor is this Hoffmann's only technique for heightening the experience of fantasy.

Having abruptly introduced Lindhorst in one episode, he follows with an episode in which he addresses the reader directly, asking whether the reader has not encountered "a vague opinion [that] suffused your mind that you had more lofty desires that must be attained, desires that transcended the immediate pleasures of this world but were yet desires which your spirit, like a purely broughtup, frightened child, dared not even express" (19). The fight betwixt reality and fantasy is joined, and Hoffmann anchors it in the growing bewilderment of Anselm at being caught between two worlds.

Havighurst, and Allen Kirschner (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965)

At the same cartridge clip they exhibit an equally obvious flawnot indulgence per se, but an overcautious tendency to voice unreasonable reservations regarding the tempestuous facts they so convincingly and objectively present. As a expiry the reader soon becomes convinced that what they doubt is actually a dreadful reality. And when, at the end of the story, the narrator is forced to neck the existence of what lurks behind his hints of horror, the reader shares the ultimate terror of fair play (13).

Vol. 17. London: Hogarth, 1955.

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