Masaryk University Faculty of Arts

Department of English and American Studies

Teaching English Language and Literature for Secondary Schools

Bc. Lenka Koudelková

Neil Gaiman: Myths in Postmodern Literature Master‘s Diploma Thesis

Supervisor: Jeffrey Alan Smith, M.A., Ph.D.

2015

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I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

……………………………………………..

Bc. Lenka Koudelková

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I would like to thank doctor Jeffrey Smith for his kind supervision of my work, his advice and endless patience.

Many thanks go to my parents, who have supported me throughout my studies; without them this would not be possible.

Last, but definitely not least, I want to thank all my friends who encouraged me and took care of my mental health during the last couple of months.

Special thankyou goes to David, whose comforting arms and shoulders to cry on were there. Always.

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Table of Contents 1. Introduction ...... 4 2. Myths, modern myths, and new mythologies ...... 7 a. Joseph Campbell’s theory of The Hero’s Journey ...... 8 2.1.1 Departure ...... 9 2.1.2. Initiation ...... 10 2.1.3. Return ...... 11 3. Neil Gaiman: The Prince of stories ...... 13 4. American Gods ...... 17 a. American Gods and The Hero’s Journey ...... 19 i. Departure ...... 20 ii. Initiation ...... 21 iii. Return ...... 22 5. The Sandman ...... 23 5.1. Storyline ...... 25 5.2. The Endless ...... 26 5.2.1. Dream ...... 28 5.2.2. Death ...... 31 5.2. Sandman and The Hero’s Journey ...... 38 6. Retelling fairy tales ...... 40 6.1. “Snow, Glass, Apples” ...... 41 6.2. The Sleeper and the Spindle ...... 47 7. Conclusion ...... 51 Bibliography ...... 53 List of picture sources ...... 56 Abstract ...... 57 Resumé ...... 57

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1. Introduction

Myths and old stories always fascinated me, and ever since I was little, I have liked reading in books of Greek mythologies, old folk tales, Brothers Grimm‘s fairy tales or even local ballads and legends.

After I first encountered Neil Gaiman‘s work, I was immediately drawn to it – both because he offered new retellings and perspectives on the stories that I already knew, but also because he created new worlds, some of which might have seemed familiar, but in the end always brought me to a whole new place.

I started to be interested in the connection between old myths and the work of my favourite author, and therefore decided to compare them and try to look into the process of Gaiman‘s writing in the present thesis. Even though some works have been written on

Neil Gaiman‘s usage of mythologies, they did not really explore the extent to which he preserves the original readings of myths and folk tales, and compare it to the times he denies them either partly or completely, and recreates them on his own accord.

His work is inspired by many writers he read as a child, such as Tolkien, Lewis,

Lovecraft or even Shakespeare, as well as myths, fairy tales and folk tales. Gaiman follows and continues the tradition of his fellow contemporary postmodern writers and retells classic stories, offering new aspects to them, new points of view – whether we talk about gender, sexuality or questioning the ―right and wrong‖. He is standing out, though, as a male re-teller of these stories, since they are more often retold by women writers, such as

Angela Carter, Margaret Atwood or Jeanette Winterson, who offer new, women-centred versions of old tales. In this respect, Gaiman does not make an exception, for he also delivers strong female characters with strong voice.

His work is a mixture of both old and new mythologies and legends, and he very often uses the old to create the new.

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His versatility precedes him in the literary circles, and he is praised by many. In the introduction to Hanging out with the Dream King, journalist and editor, Joseph McCabe says:

Neil Gaiman stories have always crossed boundaries. The boundaries

between life and death, between reality and dream, between male and

female, and between humans and gods. And the forms these stories take

refuse to adhere to any strict boundaries of genre or medium. If an idea

doesn‘t quite work in one medium, Gaiman does not abandon it like an

unwanted child, but instead lifts it up and carefully examines it to see if it

could work in another – be it a comic book, a movie, a novel, a short story,

a poem, or a song. (McCabe, 1)

To show his versatility and his usage of myths and folk tales in his work, this thesis will deal with three of the many genres Neil Gaiman engages himself in – a novel (American

Gods), a graphic novel1 (The Sandman), and two of his short stories - namely Snow, glass, apples; The Sleeper and the Spindle – both being retellings of classic fairy tales.

Since American Gods is a very complex piece of fiction, referencing to poetry, prose, popular culture but also myths, stories and legends from all over the world – including

African, Native American, Irish, Norse, Slavic and many other mythologies – the focus will be narrowed to the character of Shadow, and his journey, comparing his adventure to

Campbell‘s pattern of the Hero‘e Journey.

The next part of the thesis will focus on Gaiman‘s graphic novel – The Sandman.

Again, the work is very complex, since the main character can travel through all time and space, and through real and imaginary, and the series consists of seventy-five issues.

However, it is also a great example of Gaiman creating a whole new mythology, this time based on old ones, but recreating them to a great extent. I will discuss two of the main

1 For the purposes of the thesis, The Sandman is understood as a series of 75 individual comic books,that together form a graphic novel. Another understanding of ‗graphic novel‘ in this case might be the ten volumes, sometimes called graphic novels, in which the individual issues were collected and published. 5 characters of the series in term of their origin in old mythologies, and their comic representation.

Soon after the introductory chapter, I will also the theory of The Hero‘s Journey developed by Joseph Campbell, who claimed that all the myths share some common features and developed a pattern. I will introduce this pattern, and try to apply it on both

American Gods and The Sandman, seeing if this pattern is truly universal.

In the last part of my present work, I will focus on two retellings of classic Grimms‘ fairy tales. The first story, ―Snow, Glass, Apples‖, is Gaiman‘s version of ―Snow White and the Seven Dwarves‖, the second being ―The Sleeper and the Spindle‖, a story published in

2014, merging ―Snow White‖ and ―The Sleeping Beauty‖. I will compare and contrast

Gaiman‘s versions to the ones written by brothers Grimm, and also to popularised and children-friendly adaptations by Disney.

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2. Myths, modern myths, and new mythologies

Myth is by the Oxford English dictionary defined as ―a traditional story, typically involving supernatural beings or forces, which embodies and provides an explanation, aetiology, or justification for something such as the early history of a society, a religious belief or ritual, or a natural phenomenon.‖ (OED)

Even though myths and mythologies still have an important place in most of the world cultures and are somehow embedded in people‘s minds, there are some voices arguing against them, referring to science and asking the question whether now, when science can provide all the explanations of natural phenomena, we still need them.

But Karen Armstrong, British author interested in comparative religion, argues that myths were and are not only about explaining something we don‘t understand, but about the human experience of life, which can be more intense thanks to myths:

The myths gave explicit shape and form to a reality that people sensed

intuitively. They told them how the gods behaved, not out of idle curiosity

or because these tales were entertaining, but to enable men and women to

imitate these powerful beings and experience divinity themselves.

(Armstrong, 5)

Gods and mythical figures, whatever their function or shape was, were therefore often given characteristics close to people‘s, and that is probably why they stay in people‘s subconscious as a cultural heritage.

Moreover, the argument that the modern society, having the hold of science, does not need myths, is strongly opposed to by the constant creation of new myths. People still explain phenomena they cannot comprehend by creating and spreading urban legends, or try to find explanations for mysteries such as Bermuda Triangle and others. Having said that, the creation of whole new mythologies, whether based on the old ones or not, seems only one small step away. And Neil Gaiman took that step, as it will be discussed.

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When taking interest in myths and mythologies, one can hardly miss the name of

Joseph Campbell, widely acknowledged American comparative mythologist, who in the mid-twentieth century developed many theories concerning myths that are highly regarded to this day, including the theory of Monomyth or establishing the four functions of myth.

Since this work deals with Gaiman‘s work with and production of myths, Joseph

Campbell‘s theory of Monomyth will be introduced and applied on the texts focused on in this thesis.

a. Joseph Campbell’s theory of The Hero’s Journey

The Monomyth theory, also called The Hero‘s Journey, is a pattern that Joseph

Campbell developed for comparing myths from different cultures and to outline features the mythologies have in common. He worked with myths from all around the world, as well as with dreams of patients with mental problems, as he connected his research of myths with Jung‘s and Freud‘s theories of collective unconscious and dream analysis respectively. Concluding his findings, he claims that all the mythological systems share certain archetypal figures that will emerge in different shapes, but will always have the same features and follow similar patterns. The pattern he came up with is adaptable and consists of seventeen stages divided into three categories – Departure, Initiation and Return, which he calls ―the nuclear unit of the monomyth‖ (Campbell, 23). It is common for the myths not to include all the stages, and for the stages to be in different order.

Gaiman‘s stories arguably very often correspond to Campbell‘s theory. When it was pointed out by Tim Ogline in an interview, he reacted:

I like Campbell — but, I sort of met him second. And the truth is, the stuff

that I‘ve always really enjoyed most of all is the primary influences. It‘s

always interesting to see what people say about things. But I tend to be

more interested in the actual myth. I think I got about half way through The

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Hero with a Thousand Faces and found myself thinking if this is true — I don‘t

want to know. I really would rather not know this stuff. I‘d rather do it

because it‘s true and because I accidentally wind up creating something that

falls into this pattern than be told what the pattern is. (Quoted by Ogline,

n.p.)

This would actually only confirm Campbell‘s findings, particularly his claim that even though mythologies were created individually both in different parts of the world and different eras, and not influencing each other, there is still a pattern that all of them have in common. It would not be surprising then that while retelling or recreating old mythologies and creating new ones, Gaiman would not have to intentionally follow the pattern, but in the end creating stories that correspond it. This essay is briefly going to compare

Campbell‘s theories to the stories discussed, and examine to what extent they actually resemble the pattern. Short and simple summary and description of each of the stages in

The Hero‘s Journey follows2.

2.1.1 Departure

The first part of the hero‘s journey consists of five stages, first being ‗The Call to

Adventure‘, in which the hero is approached by some sort of herald that disrupts the hero‘s calm life and challenges him to undertake a quest.

In the next stage, ‗Refusal of the Call‘, the hero is usually reluctant to accept the challenge, and some other change in their life has to occur for them to accept the challenge.

The third stage is called ‗Supernatural Aid‘. The hero is guided by a wise, older figure, a crone, old man or a fairy godmother that usually has some supernatural powers.

2 The next three sections summarizing The Hero‘s Journey are based on The Hero With Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell, pages 45 - 227 9

In the next stage called ‗The Crossing of the First Threshold‘, the hero finally crosses some kind of a boundary to enter a different reality. This boundary can be both abstract of physical, and the hero often encounters troubles crossing it in form of some sort of guardian whom they need to defeat.

The fifth and last stage of the Departure is ‗Belly of the Whale‘. It represents a period in which the hero ―Instead of conquering or conciliating the power of the threshold, is swallowed into the unknown, and would appear to have died.‖ (Campbell, 83). The hero therefore spends some time outside his adventure, and in the imaginary belly he undergoes a transformation of some sort. The belly represents a womb and the period spent in there a new birth.

2.1.2. Initiation

During Initiation, the hero finally sets off to his journey, must pass through trials, and be correspondingly rewarded with whatever they sought. This section has six stages, the first being ‗The Road of Trials‘. There the hero faces different obstacles in the new world they entered and must face a series of trials. Also, ―the hero is covertly aided by the advice, amulets, and secret agents of the supernatural helper whom (…) or it may be that he here discovers for the first time that there is a benign power everywhere supporting him in his superhuman passage.‖ (Campbell, 89).

The next stage is called ‗The Meeting with the Goddess‘, when after overcoming all the obstacles, the hero enters a mystical marriage with the goddess of the world. This represents the hero‘s relationship to life, and its mastery. At this point, Campbell differentiates between the male and female heroes. While the male hero conquers life by conquering the goddess, female one is conquered by a male god:

And when the adventurer, in this context, is not a youth but a maid, she is

the one who, by her qualities, by her beauty, or her yearning, is fit to

become the consort of an immortal. Then the heavenly husband descends

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to her and conducts her to his bed – whether she will or no. And if she has

shunned him, the scales fall from her eyes; if she has sought him, her desire

finds its peace. (Campbell, 109-110)

Follows a stage ‗Woman as Temptress‘ in which the hero suddenly realises his own biological needs, and is momentarily disgusted by all the temptations and needs of the body that are, according to Campbell, often represented by women.

Then comes ‗Atonement with the Father‘, in which the hero confronts anything that has power over him, here represented by the figure of a father, in order to achieve his reward for the quest. This stage should resolve in the hero‘s self-understanding.

If the hero reaches a state of unity, they can enter ‗Apotheosis‘, an enlightened state in which they hold divine knowledge: ―What is understood is that time and eternity are two aspects of the same experience-whole, two planes of the same nondual ineffable‖

(Campbell, 140).

The last stage of Initiation is ‗The Ultimate Boon‘, which is the hero‘s quest reward he originally set off to find. It is usually something with mystical powers. There are different ways to acquire the boon – violence, cunningness or to actualy receive it as a reward for their deeds – which determines the last part of his journey – the return.

2.1.3. Return

This final section consists of 6 stages, in which the hero returns to the ordinary world, bringing his ultimate boon home with him. However, there often occurs the stage of

‗Refusal of the Return‘, when the hero feels that they cannot return to their normal life after everything they went through, and decide to stay in the world of wonders they lived their adventure in.

‗The Magic Flight‘ is defined by the way the hero obtained their Boon. If it was with the blessing of gods or other supernatural entity, these will help him. However, if he

11 stolen the Boon, those who wish the Boon back will try to stop them and the hero will encounter numerous dangers.

Sometimes, the hero is not able to return of his own, because he is too weak, or, as in the first stage of the Return, he refuses to go back. This is dealt with in ‗Rescue from

Without‘. In cases like this, ―the hero may have to be brought back from his supernatural adventure by assistance from without. That is to say, the world may have to come and get him. (Campbell, 192).

In the next stage, ‗The Crossing of the Return Threshold‘, the hero returns to their home in the ordinary world. Once home, they have to make use of their boon and also teach it to others.

After finishing their quest, the hero is now able to move between worlds, or rather understand the physical and spiritual, which makes him ‗Master of Two Worlds‘.

In the very last stage, ‗Freedom to Live‘, the hero learns to live their life without feeling self-righteous and exceptionality, but also without fear of the future: ―He does not mistake apparent chalengelessness in time for permanence of Being, nor is he fearful of the next moment (or of the ‗other thing‘), as destroying the permanent with its change.‖

(Campbell, 225)

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3. Neil Gaiman: The Prince of stories

Neil Gaiman is one of the most celebrated contemporary writers who receives almost unlimited praise from both readers and critics. To name all of his work, and awards won for it, would by itself take up many pages. He is a prolific and versatile artist, engaging in many genres and media, including short stories, films, TV and radio series, graphic novels, children books and adult books. Awarded by various (not only) literary awards, including Hugo, Bram Stoker Award or Newbery Medal, he is one of the most successful living writers, and Contemporary Authors Online describes him as ―the most accomplished and influential figure in modern comics as well as one of the most gifted of contemporary fantasists‖ (Literature Resource Centre).

Born in 1960 in Portchester, England, Gaiman has loved reading from his early childhood, and was indulged in this hobby by his parents. By the age of seven, he discovered the worlds of such authors like J. R. R. Tolkien or C. S. Lewis, and claims to have known already that he wanted to become a fantasy writer as well. In many an interview and speech, he mentions the fact that when he was about fifteen, he made a list of things he wanted to do professionally. The list included writing a novel, a comic, a film, an episode of Dr. Who and many other things. He then simply did everything to get to do these things and move from one to another through the list (―Edinburgh interview‖).

Gaiman started his career, or rather ticking off the items on his list, in the early 80s when he became a freelance journalist and a non-fiction writer, which he perceived as something that enabled him to write, to learn to write, and to discover the world of publishing from inside. As he often admits, he lied to editors of different papers about his experiences to get the first jobs (―Make Good Art‖). He took every opportunity to write, especially when there was a chance to be paid for it, which resulted in writing a biography of British rock band. Duran Duran is a book he is not particularly proud of, but as he says, he would take any work that came to him: ―There‘s only one book I‘ve ever written that

13 was written solely for the money. And is wasn‘t even very much money, but when you‘re very young and very hungry, and somebody‘s just offered you the opportunity to write a book, you take it.‖ (quoted in Cambell, 58). The other non-fiction book, which he actually enjoyed, writing, was Don’t Panic, a biography of Douglas Adams and his Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

In the late 1980s, he got together with Terry Pratchett, who was already an established author, and co-authored a novel called Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate

Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Which, published in 1990. By that time, he had already been working with his friend and colleague Dave KcKean on a comic book mini-series Black

Orchid for DC comics, and while doing so, he was offered to work on a new monthly comic book, reviving one of the older comic heroes from the 70s – The Sandman3. Both Good

Omens and The Sandman were huge successes that opened many doors for Gaiman. And in both, the influence of myths and his inclination to re-tell and re-create them is more than obvious. His4 take on the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in Good Omens is truly unconventional. For example, War is a woman called Scarlett riding a red motorcycle and selling guns; Pestilence was driven out of his ―job‖ by penicillin, and replaced by Pollution

– a completely new character.

In other works, such as American Gods, focused on later on in this thesis, he does not change the original mythical or religious characters completely, but keeps their features and qualities, while putting them in a new, modern environment – the readers can then meet gods of old Nordic mythologies driving cars in contemporary America, fighting for their place there.

Once again we can mention the fact that almost every piece of Gaiman‘s writing – whether it is a graphic novel, children‘s book or an adult novel - starts with a myth. And

3 See chapter ―The Sandman‖ 4 As Gaiman is credited for these characters by Pratchett (Words from the Master, http://www.lspace.org/books/apf/words-from-the-master.html) 14

Gaiman himself often admits that he considers myths an inexhaustible source of inspiration, stories, and characters:

Myths are compost.

They begin as religions, the most deeply held of beliefs, or as the stories that

accrete to religions as they grow. (…)

And then, as the religions fall into disuse, or the stories cease to be seen as

the literal truth, they become myths. And the myths com- post down to dirt,

and become a fertile ground for other stories and tales which blossom like

wildflowers. Cupid and Psyche is retold and half forgotten and remembered

again and becomes Beauty and the Beast. (…)

New flowers grow from the compost: bright blossoms, and alive.

(―Reflections‖, 76-77)

However, it is not only myths and mythologies that Neil Gaiman draws his inspiration from. Traditional fairy tales and folk tales have undisputable place in his writings. He retells stories of Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Hansel and Gretel and others, offering a different perspective and raising one question: ―What if it all happened differently?‖ He tells stories about trolls, vampires and other creatures from tales both told and retold every day and long forgotten. He goes back to the tradition when the tales were not told to entertain children, and therefore almost all violence was omitted from them, and tells the stories honestly and with all their brutality (which sometimes may be added by himself).And so, in the two texts that are to be discussed - Snow, glass and apples and The

Sleeper and the Spindle - the readers are presented with the story of Snow White, told differently from what the modern tradition teaches us. We are offered new perspectives and asked questions that no one else thought of asking before. And the answer are given by characters that never, or almost never, get voice.

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Moreover, as it was already mentioned, Gaiman enjoys creating completely new mythologies. Apart from The Sandman, in his first solo novel, Neverwhere, the main character

- Richard Mayhew – helps an injured girl called Door which takes him to the London

Below, a mystical world of the London underground, full or Rat people and other creatures, invisible to the ordinary Londoners. He unwillingly becomes a part of this hidden world, invisible to people from ‗London Above‘. Gaiman here created a completely new urban legend, which is a kind of modern mythology, and can be based on old myths as well as become a basis for new ones.

Other examples of newly created mythologies can be found in Coraline, or Gaiman‘s latest novel, The Ocean at the End of the Lane. The first, one might argue, is a retelling of Alice in Wonderland – only much darker; it is a story that, as Gaiman points out, ―children experienced as an adventure, but which gave adults nightmares‖ (Coraline, 156). It‘s a story of Coraline, a girl unhappy because her parents are not paying her enough attention and are just too busy all the time. Coraline discovers a mysterious door to another world in their new house. Behind that door, she finds a seemingly ideal world full of wonders and fun, controlled by the ―Other Mother‖ – a spidery, witch-like character, who lures lonely children to her wondrous world and offers them life full of beauty, fun and delicious food.

In exchange, they need to give up their eyes and sew black buttons on their place. The

Other World, as well as the Other Mother, share similarities not only with Alice in

Wonderland, but to some extent with Hansel and Gretel as well – in the respect that the heroine finds herself a ‗shelter‘ seemingly wonderful, but later realising its cruelty. The story is, however, not just merging two classic tales together – it creates completely new realm, with characters unlike any other typical witches, and therefore a space for mythology of its own.

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4. American Gods

One question that has always intrigued me is what happens to demonic

beings when immigrants move from their homelands. Irish-Americans

remember the fairies. Norwegian-Americans the nisser, Greek-Americans the

vrykólakas, but only in relation to events remembered in the Old Country.

When I once asked why such demons are not seen in America, my

informants giggled confusedly and said, "They're scared to pass the ocean,

it's too far," pointing out that Christ and the apostles never came to

America.

 Richard Dorson, ―A Theory for American Folklore‖

(University of Chicago Press, 1971)5

This the prologue used in American Gods suggests where Gaiman got the idea to write such a story; and after reading it, one realises that he does not agree with the statement that the supernatural figures never travelled to America. The novel suggests that they all actually travelled there, in the minds of people going there and still believing them.

But now, after decades and decades, almost everybody forgot about them, any they lost their powers, because no one worships them any longer and they are far away from their home, fighting for their place with newly emerging pantheon of modern gods – of television, phones, the internet, cancer and many others.

The postmodern feature of this novel , aside from the complexity of putting gods from different cultures and pantheons all over the world, are the ―intermezzo‖ chapters that take the reader back in history, and tell stories about how each of the gods and mythical creatures got to America, in the head of some immigrant.

5 Quoted as a prologue in American Gods 17

The complex story of the novel begins when the main character, Shadow Moon, is about to be released from prison. He is looking forward to going back to his life with his beloved wife Laura, and to getting back to his job. However, he soon finds out that Laura is dead, and therefore he is released early. On his way back home, crushed by the bad news, he is forced to take a detour on which he meets a man called Wednesday6, who obviously knows who Shadow is and offers him a job as his bodyguard, errand-boy and driver. While sealing the deal with mead, Shadow receives a golden coin from Mad Sweeney, a leprechaun, which he later drops into his wife Laura‘s grave. The same night, Laura visits him in his room – walking and talking, but still cold and dead

The next morning, Wednesday and Shadow set off to a journey across the America, on which they meet many people, and Shadow slowly realises that these ‗people‘ are not normal mortals. On their travels, Shadow and Wednesday visit a man called Czernobog and his three sisters – Zorya Utrennyaya, Zorya Vechernyaya and Zorya Polunochnaya7.

Apparently, Wednesday tries to recruit them for some endeavour that Shadow has no idea about, nut tries to stay out of it. During this meeting, Shadow gets another coin – silver this time – to protect him. The two continue The House on the Rock, where they meet Mr.

Nancy8.

The house serves a gateway to Valhalla, where the Wednesday‘s/ Odin‘s guests reveal their true forms to Shadow. During this convention, Shadow learns that the gods are dependent on people‘s belief in them, which is fading seemingly unstoppably. All the gods gathered there were incarnations created by people who came to America and kept worshipping them. But these people died of stop believing, and the gods are now losing their powers.

6 Odin, head of the Norse pantheon 7 Slavic gods 8 Caribbean trickster figure Anancy 18

In the next part of the novel, Shadow spends time in Lakeside, a small town where he needs to stay out of sight, according to Odin. He lives by the name Mike Ainsel and quite enjoys the break from the crazy events of the past days. Lakeside seems to be idyllic small town with its own customs, until Shadow discovers that a child goes missing every winter. Nevertheless, he stays there on Wednesday‘s order, unless he is helping him with his trips and errands. While staying there, he finds out more about the myths in America.

There is an opposition to the old gods, led by Mr. World, or new god of media and television. Media then report Odin‘d death.

Shadow, Anancy and Czernobog travel to retrieve his body and Shadow decides to fulfil his wish and hold his vigil, for which he is tied to the branches of Yggdrasil (the

World tree of Norse/Teutonic mythology) for nine days and nine nights without food or water. During that time he has many visions, and at the end he has the choice of his next fate. He chooses to cease to exist; but is brought back from the oblivion by Eostre. Then he is brought to the place of the final battle between new and old gods, only to find out that there is no such thing – the whole conflict was plot devised by Odin and Loki, who gains life energy from chaos, while Odin would regain his life from the battle itself: ―After all, what could be more powerful than a battlefield full of gods?‖ (American Gods, 562).

Shadow reveals the truth and the battle is stopped.

a. American Gods and The Hero’s Journey

Even though the Campbell‘s theory was developed for actual mythologies and not for novels, it will be interesting to see if it can be applied to a novel that is actually loaded with myths. The three parts of Hero‘s Journey will be applied to Shadow‘s adventures, seeing if his story can fit this pattern.

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i. Departure

Before being called to his adventure, Shadow lives a relatively normal life. Even though he is in prison, his time there was calm, and he is looking forward to getting back to his ordinary life. His ‗Call to adventure‘ is then very straightforward – a man he had never seen offers him a job9.

At first, he refuses the job thinking that he still has a job waiting for him, until he finds out that his friend he was supposed to work for is dead too, and actually had an affair with his wife. This sends him on his journey.

As for the supernatural aid, Shadow receives help more than once. At first, Mad

Sweeney gives him the golden coin as an amulet10 which he throws away. As a replacement for the gold coin representing son, Zorya Polunochnaya provides him with a silver liberty dollar representing the Moon. These two aids appeared only at the beginning, however,

Shadow is helped quite a lot – from Ganesha, Anubis, and he is resurrected by Eostre and so on. In his dreams, he is visited and guided by the Land – a personification of America itself.

Shadow‘s Crossing of the first Threshold, it starts with Shadow entering the world of freedom after three years of prison. Other crossings follow, one of them being accepting

Wednesday‘s job offer, and therefore metaphorically entering the new world of gods.

Lastly, at the House of Rock, he enters the world of gods physically by following Odin to the halls of Valhalla.

Shadow‘s stay in Lakeside could definitely be considered being the next stage.

Moreover, throughout the novel‘s story, Shadow is captured and held hostage, only to be saved by Laura11, which puts him outside of the events for a period of time, and therefore

9 As the readers learn later on in the story, this call was forceful, since the events leading to his acceptance werWe constructed by Odin and Loki 10 Only later, after he tossed it to Laura‘s grave, Shadow finds out i tis a very powerful amulet taken from the Sun, being able to resurrect dead (thus, Laura visits Shadow, even though still a corpse) 11 Who becomes another supernatural hepler 20 in the imaginary belly of the whale. The second time this happens is when he dies after his time on Yggdrasil, and decides to cease to exist completely. Once again, he needs to be saved, this time by Eostre. While on the tree, he also undergoes a spiritual journey needed for his shift to the next stage of the journey and decides that instead of ceasing to exist, he is going to start living fully.

ii. Initiation

Generally, Initiation in the form defined by Campbell, is very hard to be applied on

Shadow.

The stage of Initiation called the Road of Trials is hard to define for Shadow, since it seems he is undergoing difficult situations and trials and challenges almost constantly.

After having to deal with his wife‘s death and infidelity, he is constantly tested by

Wednesday who wants him to proof his loyalty. Shadows has to make quick and good decisions, while staying the man he wants to be. The biggest trial probably comes after his death, when in the afterlife he must choose between ―the way of hard truths‖ and ―the way of fine lines‖.

To pick one of the Goddesses that Shadow meets during his adventures, Bast is probably the closest to the Campbell‘s description of someone representing ―the hero‘s mastery over life‖. Shadow and Bast do enter in mystical marriage by making love to each other, and Bast initiating a spiritual process that Shadow undergoes.

While Shadow does not really experience the physical revulsion as it is described in

The Hero with a Thousand Faces, this stage will be skipped, and the thesis will move to

‗Atonement with the Father‘.

As Shadow finds out that Odin is his father and about the plan to massacre gods, he prevents it, and therefore prevents Odin‘s resurrection. They never actually have a physical fight, but after Shadow‘s ordeal on the tree, he has overcome his own passivity,

21 which definitely redefines him, and actively stopped the gods from drowning the World in chaos.

The enlightenment in the next stage is represented by Shadow‘s stay at Yggdrasil, which is a crucial part of his whole journey that transforms him completely.

In the last stage of initiation, Shadow gets his reward, which is not physical, but it the saving of the world, both physical and mythical.

iii. Return

While given the choices on his afterlife, Shadow refuses to go on in any form and want to permanently disappear from existence, so Eostre must intervene (perform the Rescue from

Without) and bring him back from the dead. Shadow undergoes a big change, which is actually the result of this intervention: ― 'You called me back.' He said it slowly, as if he had forgotten how to speak English. There was hurt in his voice, and puzzlement. … 'I was done. I was judged. It was over. You called me back. You dared.'‖ (American Gods, 545)

This ―you dared‖ is very strong and new for Shadow. He was teased for never standing up for himself, and now, for the first time, he did.

After everything, Shadow definitely becomes some sort of master of two worlds, having experienced the divine ordeal at Yggdrasil, and being in daily contact with gods – he simply cannot stay the same.

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5. The Sandman

The Sandman is a series12 of comic books, written by Gaiman as a flagship comic of

Vertigo, an imprint of DC Comics, and published monthly between 1988 and 1996, having

75 issues in total. Gaiman was offered to work on a monthly comic in 1987 when he and

Dave McKean were working on Black Orchid for DC Comics. The publisher was afraid

that a new comic by two unknown authors would not sell, so they assigned Gaiman with a

new monthly comic reviving one of old DC characters in order to make his name. Gaiman

and his DC editor Karen Berger decided to go back to a character called Sandman that had

already had several incarnations in the DC comics‘ history. The character was first created

in 1939 for Adventure Comics #40, and was called Wesley Dodds, who could see the future,

and used a gun with sleeping gas to put criminals to sleep, leaving a small amount of sand

on them to let the police know who helped them. In 1941, the character of Sandman

returned, this time carrying a small pouch of dream dust. He protected sleeping children

from the monsters in their heads. This version appeared again in 1974 in another short

Sandman series (Campbell, 96). Gaiman and Berger decided to keep the name, but to

come up whit a completely new character. They did not want the new Sandman to

continue as a classic pulp superhero, and were rather to follow a new path, which later lead

to a major breakthrough in the comic books world. The Sandman is in many ways a rarity,

and definitely a ground-breaking series that changed the shape of comic books.

12 The individual issues of The Sandman were collected and published in ten volumes. For that reason, it is quite complicated to cite each issue, because the issues themselves do not have individual pagitations. The citations will therefore be made referencing the volume, and number of the issue. Following there is a list of volumes and issues that each volume consists of: Volume 1: Preludes and Noctures, issues #1 - 8 Volume 2: The Doll’s House, issues #9 - 16 Volume 3: Dream Country, issues #17- 20 Volume 4: The Season of Mist, issues #21 - 28 Volume 5: A Game of You, issues #32 - 37 Volume 6: Fables and Reflections, issues #29 - 31, #38 - 40 and #50 Volume 7: Brief Lives, issues #41 – 49 Volume 8: Worlds’ End, issues #51 – 56 Volume 9: The Kindly Ones, issues #57 – 69 Volume 10: The Wake, issues #70 - 75

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Starting with the things that were not common in comic books at that time, The

Sandman featured major women characters, and characters of colour – that brought many

women readers to the comic book shops all over America, and comic started to become a

genre no longer defined by a specific audience. This, and also the fact that one of the

issues – ―A Midsummer Night‘s Dream‖ – won the World Fantasy Award for Best Short

Fiction (―Edinburgh interview‖) resulted in the literary critics‘ discussion on whether

comic books should be ‗promoted‘ from the generally acknowledged opinion that they are

not ‗real literature‘.

Another atypical feature of The Sandman is that it is highly focused on individual

characters, even the minor ones that did not last more than one issue. Gaiman is interested

in the characters‘ motives, relationships and actions. His hero is not a typical comic

superhero saving the World from villains that want to either destroy or control it.

Morpheus does not protect the mortal World, but takes a spiritual journey and tries to find

and come to terms with himself. Moreover, Dream is not present in all the stories and

issues, and even when he is, he is often just a minor character appearing only as a cameo at

the end of the story.

This focus on detail and on the character also leads to the fact that from the

beginning, Gaiman saw The Sandman as a story with an end. So far, comic book heroes

were flat, and individual episodes were not really connected. When an author of an

ongoing series left, another one took their place. But since Gaiman had a fixed idea of the

story, including an ending, he managed to persuade13 DC comics to make an exception

and stop the project once he would be done with it.

13 Gaiman basically made DC to come to terms with him after taking every possible opportunity to publicly declare that The Sandman is a finite series, and that if DC continues after he leaves, he will never work for them again (―Edinburgh interview‖). 24

5.1. Storyline

Even though The Sandman is more of a graphic novel than a typical comic series, there are many storylines, some of which does not even include Dream as a character. It would be impossible to talk about all of them, and since the stories themselves are not in the main focus of this thesis, only the storyline concerning Dream will be outlined, adding descriptions of other events significant for the thesis when needed..

Sandman‘s story begins in 1916 when an organisation called The Order of Ancient

Mysteries lead by Roderick Burgess, a millionaire who calls together other members of his order to perform a ritual in order to summon and capture Death. However, instead of

Death they capture Morpheus - the Dream Lord – Death‘s younger brother. Burgess decides to keep him hostage nevertheless, and takes away his tools – a pouch of sand, a helm and a ruby. His capture causes a worldwide ‗sleeping sickness‘, during which some people sleep without waking while others are unable to fall asleep again. This sickness, as well as Dream‘s imprisonment, lasts for seventy two years, after which he manages to escape. During the seventy-year period, many events occur, and their consequences keep emerging throughout the whole series.

Following his capture, his escape also sets a chain of various events. Dream swears to get his revenge, and starts with the quest of reclaiming his three tools, which in the meantime fell to the hands of various characters using them for their own benefit, and to recreate his kingdom – the realm of Dreaming.

One might argue that the event in the following issues always lead us back to the events caused or started in the time of Dream‘s imprisonment in some way, and therefore we can state that his capture sets off a chain of events that changes Dream‘s personality immensely, take them to a sort of spiritual journey and, ultimately, lead to his death and replacement as the lord of the Dreaming by a human called Daniel.

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Lastly, the setting of the series is unlike any other comic books. Since Dream can move through his realm of Dreaming, it enables him to travel in time and space, in the mortal world, and in the worlds of gods and supernatural beings. That gave Gaiman the infinite number of possibilities to retell the world history and recreate old myths, and enabled him to examine the role myths in the contemporary culture: ―Sandman is intentionally a – hopefully valid – mythic structure, and one that is inclusive. (…) one of the things I wanted to specifically look at was, what does the twentieth century do with, to, and about myth?‖

(quoted in Campbell, 96).

And so he revives mythical characters and creatures from old and new cultures and religions all over the world, and reminds their existence to the twentieth century audience, who replies to his work by enthusiastically taking interest in both the myths long forgotten and newly created.

5.2. The Endless

As stated before, The Sandman introduced a whole new mythology, partly based on events and characters from myths, legends and real historical events from all over the world, but treating them in an unusual fashion. In The Sandman, Gaiman put aside the deities commonly encountered in world mythologies, and developed a whole new pantheon of The Endless, a dysfunctional family of seven god-like beings, each representing and ruling one aspect of the world/ human life – and thus becoming a personification of the aspect. These are Death, Dream (The Sandman), Despair, Destiny, Delirium, Destruction, and Desire.

From what we get to know in the series, it is clear that the Endless were there even before the people created their gods, and unlike the gods, they are immortal, as it is stated

26 by Mousai Titanides14 in Calliope: ―Many gods have died, my daughter, while aspects of other gods have been lost forever. Only the Endless will never die15.‖ (Dream Country, #1)

Even though from this description it might seem that the Endless are perhaps creatures beyond divinity, and therefore standing above gods, it would not be entirely correct to make this assumption. Gods are generally believed to control peoples‘ lives and to influence world‘s affairs. The Endless, however, are primarily not entitled to take control of peoples‘ lives, on the contrary, as Dream tells his sibling Desire: ―We of the endless are the servants of the living – we are NOT their masters. We exist because they know, deep in their hearts, that we exist. When the last living thing has left this universe, then our task will be done. And we do not manipulate them. If anything, they manipulate us.‖ (The Doll’s

House, #16).

This can be explained in the context of American Gods. There Gaiman states that gods are only powerful as long as people believe in them and worship them. And since people who worship gods believe that they have power over their lives, this belief gives the god the power. However, even though the Endless are omnipresent, people do not worship them, but take their functions as common aspects of life. Therefore, they ―deep in their hearts‖ know that they are there, but do not believe that they can influence, let alone control their lives.

Having said that, when we approach mythology in the traditional way, meaning that mythologies were created to understand the events in a person‘s life and give them a reason, the new pantheon of the Endless seems to be backwards: The humans in the comics dream, but only when they get involved in the stories find out about the existence of the Endless. So not only is the pantheon Gaiman created new, but also very unconventional.

14 ―The Titan Muses‖ – Aiode (Song), Melete (Practice) and Mneme (Memory) – considered to be the elder muses, mothers of the nine Greek muses (Falkner, 178) 15 Although this has been proven wrong, since in The Wake, Dream dies 27

Two members of the Endless family – Dream and Death - will be now examined more closely from the point of view of mythology, specifically the features they share (or are different) with personifications of dreaming and death respectively in other cultures, as these other personifications were the basis for creating the characters.

5.2.1. Dream

Dream is a very complex and multi-faceted character, who is known by many names, which by itself suggests that he is based on different mythological figures. The names include Dream, Sandman, Morpheus, Oneiros, Kai‘ckul and many others.

Since most of the time, he is called Morpheus, the connection to the Greek mythology is undisputable. Morpheus mentioned in Ovid‘s Metamorphoses, and is the son of

Hypnos, the god of sleep.

But Father Sleep, out of the multitude of his thousand sons, raises

Morpheus, a skilful artist, and an imitator of any human shape. No one more

dexterously than he mimics the gait, and the countenance, and the mode of

speaking; he adds the dress, too, and the words most commonly used by

any one. But he imitates men only. (Ovid)

It is true that he is a great shapeshifter, being able to travel through people‘s wildest imagination. His appearance stays most of the time the same though, perhaps with the exception of clothes.

Moreover, Dream seems to have influence on not only the Dreaming – understood as the realm where people travel in their sleep – but also in the physical world. In Greek mythology, Morpheus, the god of dreams, can only appear in people‘s dreams, after they were under control of his father Hypnos, the god of sleep (Zamarovský, 313). However, in

Gaiman‘s version of this mythology, Dream is one of the Endless who have no parental figures in their heritage, and suddenly seems to be the master of sleep as well. It is him who

28 can put people to sleep, and when captured, the ‗sleeping sickness‘ spreads all over the world.

Dream as a character, after his long capture, is sort of melancholic figure, closed to himself, re-evaluating his previous actions, and trying to come to terms with himself. The imprisonment sets of a transformation of his character; Dream gradually begins to realize that he ―[cannot] go back to the way he was, but he [cannot] move all the way forward either‖ (Bender 189). This realisation lead to a set of decisions and actions that lead to

Dream‘s humanization.

Picture 1: Dream

5.2.1.1. Sandman in folk tales While the character of Dream is mainly based on old Greko-Roman mythologies, former incarnations of Sandman, and even Morpheus to some extent, have their origin in northern European folk tales. Hans Chritian Andersen‘s story Ole-Luk-Oie introduces the character of the same name, who visits children at night, sprinkles dust in their eyes and brings them dreams:

There is nobody in the world who knows so many stories as Ole-Luk-Oie,

or who can relate them so nicely. In the evening, while the children are

seated at the table or in their little chairs, he (…) throws a small quantity of

very fine dust in their eyes, just enough to prevent them from keeping them

open, and so they do not see him. (…) But Ole-Luk-Oie does not wish to

hurt them, for he is very fond of children, and only wants them to be quiet

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that he may relate to them pretty stories, and they never are quiet until they

are in bed and asleep. (…) Under each arm he carries an umbrella; one of

them, with pictures on the inside, he spreads over the good children, and

then they dream the most beautiful stories the whole night. But the other

umbrella has no pictures, and this he holds over the naughty children so

that they sleep heavily, and wake in the morning without having dreams at

all. (Andersen)

This mostly correspond to the descriptions of 1941 and 1974 embodiment of Sandman, caring about children‘s dream and using dream dust to influence their dreams, whereas the character from 1939 has not that much in common with Ole-Luk-Oje. Even though there is the feature of sleep when he puts the criminals to sleep, and the sand left with their bodies, but otherwise there is no connection with stories or dreams. As for Neil Gaiman‘s character, that is once again much closer to Andersen‘s. Dream carries a pouch of dream dust as well, and is often called ―the prince of stories‖, because he is the one who gives people dreams. In this respect, the influence of Ole-Luk-Oie is clear.

Picture 2: Sandman or Ole-Luk-Oje

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5.2.2. Death

Even though Death, Dream‘s elder sister, is not the main character of The Sandman stories, she is a very significant one – for both the graphic novels and as an example of

Gaiman‘s work with myths for this thesis. Both his approach to and interpretation of death and its embodiment is very unusual, as it will be shown in the forthcoming paragraphs.

5.3.2.1. Personification of Death16 in different cultures

In most of both ancient and modern cultures, Death is usually personified in a form of deity or other supernatural figure. And, in most of these cultures, Death is perceived as a universal negative. Following are examples of personification of Death in some of them – those that were the most influential to the development of Western culture and therefore the most important ones for Gaiman himself.

5.3.2.1.1. Hellenic mythology

Even though ancient Greeks and Romans were reconciled with death and took it as a part of life and therefore nothing negative, the appearance of Death is far from positive.

Death is brought by Thanatos (Mors in Roman), the god of death and Death itself. In his encyclopaedia of ancient mythology, Zamarovský describes him as a figure with ―iron heart and black cold wings, who doesn‘t know either sympathy or mercy17‖. (Zamarovský, 414)

His appearance and his qualities then imply his cruelty and negativity.

16 Here, Death (capitalized) represents the character/personification, death (not capitalized) the phenomenon 17 Translated by L. K. 31

Picture 3: Sculpture of Thanatos in Tepmle of Artemis, Ephesos

5.3.2.1.2. Norse mythology

The goddess of death in Scandinavian mythology is Hel. She is one of three offspring of Loki, god of evil, and a giantess Angerboda, whom H. A. Guerber describes as the ―portender of ill‖. (Guerber) It is stated in the Younger Edda18 that together, they had three children (monsters) – ―The first was the Fenris-wolf; the second, Jormungand, that is, the Midgard-serpent, and the third, Hel.‖ (Snorre). The gods knew that nothing good would come from the offspring of this union, and when they were deciding what to do with them they resolved that Hel ―should appoint abodes to them that are sent to her, namely, those who die from sickness or old age19.‖ (Snorre) Her looks are described as follows: ―One-half of her is blue, and the other half is of the hue of flesh; hence she is easily known. Her looks are very stern and grim.‖ (Snorre)

18 Also known as ―Snorre‘s Edda‖ or ―The Prose Edda‖ 19 Warriors fallen in battles were taken by Odin or Freya (Lindow, 126 and 247) 32

Picture 2: The offspring of Loki and Angerboda, Hel on the right

5.3.2.1.3. Slavic mythology

In Slavic culture, the goddess of death is called Morana20. She is associated with winter, and according to the tradition, her reign ends with the arrival of spring, and there are rituals and traditions to celebrate that. These celebrations differ in various regions. In

Bohemia and Moravia, for example, each spring a figure of Morana is made of twigs and hay, dressed in white or black, sometimes decorated with empty eggshells and ribbons (as pictured below). The dummy is then carried away from the village; the villagers set fire to it and throw it in a river for it to carry it away. The ritual is called Vynášení smrti‖ which could be translated as ―Taking the Death out‖.

20 Different spellings and variations of the name possible, according to the region/country. ‗Morana‘ is the name in Czech. 33

Pictures 5: Morana

5.3.2.1.4. Christian/ modern western societies

From Middle Ages onwards, Christian Europe and western societies mostly agree on one specific portrayal of Death. He21 is commonly represented as a ―Grim Reaper‖, and has a form of a hooded skeleton, or sometimes just an old scrawny man or woman, carrying a scythe. This personification of Death is widely used in literature, film, and other genres and media of popular culture in more or less the same form.

5.3.2.1.5. Ole-Luk-Oie

Death is mentioned also in the folk tale collected and written by Andersen, and which is one of mythological influences on the character of Dream. Unlike aforementioned cultures, Andersen‘s story does not picture Death as a grim, scary figure or a skeleton.

Death is, as well in The Sandman, brother of Sandman/Ole-Luk-Oie, sharing even his name:

21 The sex of the Grim Reaper varies according to the gender of the word for ―death‖ in different languages. For example, Czech word ‗smrt‘ is feminine, and so is ‗Smrtka‘, the word for Grim Reaper. 34

I will show you my brother. He is also called Ole-Luk-Oie but he never

visits anyone but once (…)You perceive he is not so bad as they represent

him in picture books; there he is a skeleton, but now his coat is

embroidered with silver, and he wears the splendid uniform of a hussar, and

a mantle of black velvet flies behind him, over the horse. Look, how he

gallops along. (Andersen)

This portrayal of Death is the closest, from the ones mentioned before, to Gaiman‘s character. Not in the appearance, but in the notion that both Death and death is nothing to be scared of, and that the generally acknowledged perception of it is wrong. Death is actually a graceful and fair character – much like in Gaiman‘s interpretation.

Ole-Luk-Oie or Death

5.3.2.2. Gaiman’s Death of the Endless

As it was stated and shown in the examples above, the cultures and mythologies discussed earlier portray Death in a very cold, cruel or ugly manner. And whether death is perceived in a neutral was and as a necessary part of life or something absolutely negative, it almost never has a positive connotation. This is what Gaiman changed in The Sandman.

As he said, Gaiman liked the idea of Death being something unexpected. When

Death is first mentioned in The Sandman, Dream calls himself Death‘s younger brother.

Gaiman wanted to evoke the idea of Death being the ―big scary brother‖ (―Edinburgh interview‖) in his reader, only to prove their assumption wrong.

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Gaiman‘s Death is not big, not scary, and, last but not least, it is not a man.

Originally, Gaiman imagined her pale, blonde and sort of cold looking, ―like Nico from

Velvet Underground‖, but then the artist working on the issue of The Sandman Mike

Dringenberg suggested the looks of his friend Cinnamon. After seeing a sketch, Gaiman immediately agreed (―Edinburgh interview‖). As a result, Death‘s appearance is of a sixteen-year-old girl with black curly hair and an Ankh22 necklace around her neck, wearing black Goth clothes, beautiful and cheerful. Gaiman‘s goal with Death was to create a sympathetic character, not a scary phenomenon: ―I want Death to be the kind of Death I would like to meet. I want my Death. [When I die] I want somebody really nice to be there‖ (Edinburgh interview‖). Gaiman‘s Death seems to be not only nice, but also compassionate and emphatic, when in ―Façade‖, the twentieth issue of The Sandman, on her way from retrieving a woman, she visits Urania Blackwell23, who wants to die, but can‘t.

Death takes a time out from her schedule, just to talk to her: ―The door was open. I heard you crying. I‘m sorry if I disturbed you. You just looked like you might need someone to talk to.‖ (Dream Country, 104) As they talk, Death explains that she didn‘t come for

Urania yet, but comforts her, telling her that her time will come. She takes pity on her and advises her what to do to end her misery. She acts charitably, and the readers also learn that she does not take pleasure in what she does; she seems to be quite dispassionate about it:

―I‘m not blessed or merciful. It‘s just me. I‘ve got a job to do and I do it.‖ (Dream

Country, 108) This statement not only shows us her attitude towards what she does, but also her fairness and the habit of not making differences or exceptions – qualities shared by different incarnations of Death across world cultures and mythologies.

However, there is something that sets Gaiman‘s Death aside. She probably was not always so warm, positive, and one might say even humane. To understand what she does

22 A cross with round top, symbol of eternal life in ancient Egypt (Ruiz, 137) 23 Urania is based on a DC comics character Element Girl, who was exposed to radiation, and became a ‗metamorph‘ with superpowers, and almost unable to die (ComicVine) 36 and to make sure she does it well, once in every hundred years, she takes a mortal body for a day24: ―One day in every century Death takes on mortal flesh, better to comprehend what the lives she takes must feel like, to taste the bitter tang of mortality: And this is the price she must pay for being the divider of the living from all that has gone before, all that must come after her.‖ (Death: The High Cost of Living, #3) This experience is what makes

Death capable of empathy with people she takes with her – she experiences living and dying every century.

The question remains, however, whether she actually gains the real experience, since she knows that once she dies as Didi, she is going to continue as Death. To some extent, we might argue that her experience is limited, but that does not make it less valuable. Didi lives her day to the fullest – she enjoys food, meeting people, the little things

– even when she gets into dangerous situation.

Didi: I had a good time today.

Sexton: You like being locked up in warehouses and being threatened by

loonies, and…

Didi: No, I didn‘t like that. But... it‘s part of the whole thing. And there is a

whole thing out there. And it‘s all part of living. The good bits and the bad

bits and the dull bits and the painful bits. (Death: The High Cost of Living, #3)

She appreciates being alive, and her last exchange after she meets Death, herself, only confirms it:

Death: How was it?

Didi: Oh, it was wonderful. It was filled with people. I got to breathe and

eat and… all sorts of stuff. I wish I could go on forever… I wish it didn‘t

have to end like that…

24 This is a subject of The Sandman’s 1993 spinoff mini-series Death: The High Cost of Living 37

Death: It always ends. That‘s what gives it value. When you get to be alive,

even for a day… Well, there‘s only one way to stop living. Was it worth it?

Didi: I… I don‘t know. I think so. I hope so. I met such neat people… I

wish it could have gone on forever. (Death: The High Cost of Living, #3)

To conclude, Death‘s looks, cheerfulness and kindness are not the only things that makes her different from other perceptions of the same figure in different civilizations. This experience Death gets every century makes her special among other incarnations and personifications not only because she is probably the only one known to do it, and therefore it makes her the only one who knows the feeling of actually living and dying. It also makes her the only one who knows the feeling of not wanting something to end, but not being able to stop it.

Picture 6: Neil Gaiman‘s Death of the Endless

5.2. Sandman and The Hero’s Journey

Since the storyline of The Sandman series is so complex and not always chronological, it will be difficult to apply Campbell‘s theory of the Hero‘s Journey.

However, The Sandman is undoubtedly a hero myth, and some of the stages and features of the pattern can be found there, which will be examined now, since Campbell himself admitted that no myth contains all of the stages.

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The claim that applying the Hero‘s Journey on the character of Dream, as a mythical hero, is supported by Stephen Rauch, who says that ―Dream is closer to a god than a man, there is no denying his more-than-any-human powers, or his travels into strange and mystical worlds‖ (Rauch, 39).

However, the journey the hero undertakes does not always have to be a physical quest, and the ultimate Boon, should the hero obtain it (for he can still fail), does not have to be an object. Dream‘s journey is more of the spiritual kind. For that reason, the story will not be discussed in the context of all the stages the Hero‘s Journey should have.

While the traditional pattern suggest that the hero on his journey meets supernatural figures unlike to anything he‘s met before, and becomes a god-like hero himself, in the case of Dream, the dynamics are reversed.

―Dream starts as more than any god, and over the course of the series, becomes a man. And this process of humanization turns the hero myth on its head.‖ (Rauch, 40) And what is more, this process of humanization is not only metaphorical or spiritual, but literal.

In The Wake, Dreams dies, and his place is taken over by a human called Daniel, who becomes the master of the realm of Dreams.

However, since in the Campbell‘s point of view the hero is supposed to get his reward, one must ask the question, whether Dream‘s death and transformation into, or rather replacement by a human is the ultimate Boon, or a failure.

Judging from the fact that what lead to Dream‘s death was a series of events caused by some unlucky decisions of various characters, one could conclude the latter.

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6. Retelling fairy tales

―When I was growing up, I wanted to read something that was unapologetically a fairytale, and just as unapologetically for adults. (…) A fairytale, intended for adult readers.

It was a form of fiction I loved and wanted to read more of. I couldn't find one on the shelves, so I decided to write one.‖ (―Happily ever after‖) Here Gaiman talks about his then upcoming novel Stardust, but this approach can be applied to his work with fairy tales in general. Stardust is a new story created by Gaiman, but he also writes fairy tales for adults by simply retelling the stories that are today read to children before bed time. And it very possible that his retellings are closer to the original stories than the ones published in contemporary fairy tales collections. As he point out in the very same article, fairy tales were not meant for children at all:

Children listened to them and enjoyed them, but children were not the primary

audience, no more than they were the intended audience of Beowulf, or The

Odyssey. JRR Tolkien said, in a robust and fusty analogy, that fairytales were like the

furniture in the nursery - it was not that the furniture had originally been made for

children: it had once been for adults and was consigned to the nursery only when the

adults grew tired of it and it became unfashionable. (―Happily ever after‖)

It is a common knowledge that the original versions of fairy tales were much more violent.

When Cinderella‘s step-sisters wanted to fit in her tiny glass slipper, they cut off their toes and heels. Hanzel and Gretel did not get lost in the forest, but were taken and left there by their father, who obeyed his wife and their mother – it was a period of famine and she decided to sacrifice the children in order to safe some food; they could always make new children when the hunger is over. In her sleep, the Sleeping Beauty is raped and gives birth

40 to twins25 during the hundred years of sleep. As the fairy tales became told to children more often than among adults, parents, and later on also writers and collectors of those stories, started to regulate the amount of violence to protect their children from nightmares, and in time the violence disappeared completely.

With pleasure, Gaiman often reminds his readers and listeners of the words of G. K.

Chesterton: ―Fairy tales are not true. They are more than true. Not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be defeated." What Gaiman does brilliantly is not only to question who or what actually represents the dreaded dragon. He also points out that the ―stories are told by survivors‖ (―Reflections‖, 82), and therefore questions the plausibility of such stories by offering different points of view – the one of the defeated. ―The ornamentation, the act of retelling, is often where the magic occurs.

Like any form of narrative that is primarily oral in transmission, it's all in the way you tell

'em.‖ (―Happily ever after‖) Once again this confirms that it is the point of view that matters and what shapes the story and its outcome.

Two retellings of classic fairy tales will now be examined. The versions considered original are for this thesis taken from bother Grimm‘s collection of stories Household stories.

However, Gaiman‘s retelling are not going to be compared only to the original stories collected and written by brothers Grimm, but occasionally also to the popularized children‘s versions, specifically the Disney adaptations od ―Snow White and the Seven

Dwarfs‖ and ―The Sleeping Beauty‖.

6.1. “Snow, Glass, Apples”

This strory was first published in 1999 in Gaiman‘s collection of short fictions Smoke and Mirror, and retells the story of ―Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs‖. He follows the tradition of his fellow postmodern writer Angela Carter, who retold the story in 1979,

25 This story is also revived to a certain extent in The Sandman. During Dream‘s capture, a character called Unity Kinkaid sleeps for years, and is impregnated by Dream‘s sibling Desire who plots against him. She also gives birth to a girl in her sleep. 41 going probably even further back than to the Grimms‘ version, making it more of a horror story. Gaiman continues this fashion of retelling, and offers a disturbing tale. Gaiman also adds elements of horror to the story, making it disturbing and unsettling for many readers.

―I like to think of this story as a virus. Once you‘ve read it, you may never be able to read the original story in the same way again.‖ (Smoke and Mirrors, 32).

He achieves this by telling the story from a different perspective, and from the point of view of the aforementioned imaginary dragon – the Wicked queen. As Leslie Drury point out, that is one of the reasons why the story has such a strong impact on the readers:

―Crucial to this reworking is a shift in the narrative voice. Like most fairy tales, ―Snow

White‖ is classically represented in the third person with narrative favouring Snow White herself as the (passive) protagonist. (…) The way that Gaiman has shifted some of the central signifiers in the plot is crucially linked to his choice of narrator: This is the Queen‘s story‖ (Drury). This is definitely true, since Gaiman does little changes to the original story.

The princess‘ looks are the same, she is an orphan, the queen sends her to the forest to be killed and have her heart brought back. The princess is saved by dwarves and lives with them in the forest, the queen finds out and decides to take the matter in her own hand and poisons the princess with an apple. The princess seemingly dies, and is put into a glass coffin, spotted by a passing prince, who immediately falls in love with her and brings her back to life with a kiss.

It is exactly the point of view that changes everything. Starting with the looks of the princess. ―Her eyes were black as coal, black as her hair; her lips were redder than blood.

She looked up at me and smiled. Her teeth seemed sharp, even then, in the lamplight. ‖

(―Snow‖, 372). Comparing this description with the one offered by Grimms, ―a skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood, and hair as black as ebony‖ (Grimm and Grimm), the only thing that is different is the mentioning of Snow White‘s sharp teeth. Even though this might be looked over and takes as simply stating the fact about just another feature of

42 the princess‘ appearance. It might be the fact that human teeth are not usually sharp, or the

―even then‖ inserted in the sentence that evokes feelings of uneasiness in the reader, making him suspect something terrible to come. In the queen‘s voice, the features that in the original story were a sign

The reader‘s suspicion is soon confirmed when the queen is bit by the princess who instead of eating the apple offered to her. The queen continues to describe how her husband, the king, was slowly loosing strength and scars – very similar to the one the bite left on the queen‘s finger - appeared all over his body. The king soon dies, and the queen is left alone with the princess, dreading her and locking her door.

She also does have her men to take Snow White to the forest and cut out her heart. But unlike in the original Grimms‘ story (as well as in every popularized contemporary reading, including Disney‘s), they truly bring her the princess‘ heart:

They say I was fooled; that it was not her heart. That it was the heart of an

animal — a stag, perhaps, or a boar. They say that, and they are wrong.

And some say (but it is her lie, not mine) that I was given the heart, and that

I ate it.

(…) They brought me her heart. I know it was hers — no sow‘s heart or doe‘s

would have continued to beat and pulse after it had been cut out, as that

one did. (―Snow‖, 374 – 375)

The queen hung the beating heart above her bed, and had the feeling that the kingdom is finally safe. As years went by, though, the kingdom suffered from lack of visitors who, to get there, had to pass through the forest:

Spring Fair followed Spring Fair: five of them, each sadder, poorer,

shoddier than the one before. Fewer of the forest folk came out of the

forest to buy. Those who did seemed subdued and listless. The

43

stallholders stopped nailing their wares to the boards of their stalls. And

by the fifth year but a handful of folk came from the forest — a fearful

huddle of little hairy men, and no-one else. (―Snow‖, 376)

She was asked for help by the Lord of the Fair, and through her mirror she found out that the princess, still alive, lives in the forest with dwarfs and feed on the people of the forest and anyone who passes. She takes the matter in her own hands, and prepares a poisonous apple. In disguise, she travels to the forests and trick the princess into eating the apple – which stopped her beating heart in the queen’s chambers, leaving the princess dead in the forest.

After two years, a prince came into the palace and offered to join their kingdoms in marriage. The queen agreed and the same night, lead the prince into her chambers:

At first the prince seemed excited. He bade me remove my shift, and made me stand in front of the opened window, far from the fire, until my skin was chilled stone-cold. Then he asked me to lie upon my back, with my hands folded across my breasts, my eyes wide open – but staring only at the beams above. He told me not to move, and to breathe as little as possible. He implored me to say nothing. He spread my legs apart. (…) As he began to thrust inside me, I felt my hips raise, felt myself begin to match him, grind for grind, push for push. I moaned. I could not help myself. His manhood slid out of me. I reached out and touched it, a tiny, slippery thing.(…) He left early the next morning, with all his men, and they rode off into the

forest. (―Snow‖, 381-382)

This already suggest the prince‘s preferences in the bedroom, which was apparently necrophilia. It is no wonder then that when he set off to the forest, and saw a pale dead looking girl, he wanted to take her home with him. As well as in the Grimms‘ story, once

44 the prince kissed the princess, or rather once he started to approach her sexually, the apple fell from her throat, and the heart in the queen‘s room started beating once more.

As the story finishes, we get to know that the queen was captured, and now recapitulates the events in her head while being roasted for the midwinter feast, covered in goose-grease26.

The queen, however, is not entirely innocent and pure, as readers might expect from a character they are supposed to choose to sympathise with over the evil vampiric Snow

White. Mathilda Slabbert argues that she is actually a very unreliable narrator. Her story is complicated, because she often cannot distinguish between reality and lies, and is motivated by power struggles and jealousy, as the princess could claim the throne after her father‘s death. She also points out the queen‘s capability of violence27 and sexual manipulation, as well as admitting that she used her supernatural charms not only to lure the king into her bed, but also later on in the story with the prince (Slabbert). These are all valid arguments, but one can object that Gaiman was not trying to write an objective narrative. He intentionally offers a subjective, first person narrative, which by itself suggest a certain amount of unreliability. His point is clearly to simply pinpoint certain ambiguities and ask questions that raise from them.

These questions are of simple sorts:

It asked questions like, "What kind of a prince comes across the dead body

of a girl in a glass coffin and announces that he is in love and will be taking

26 In the Grimms‗ story, the queen suffers a similar fate – ―they had ready red-hot iron shoes, in which she had to dance until she fell down dead.‖ (Grimm and Grimm) 27 The queen vividly describes what she would have done to the princess had she known the outcome of the events: If it were today, I would have her heart cut out, true. But then I would have her head and arms and legs cut off. I would have them disembowel her. And then I would watch, in the town square, as the hangman heated the fire to white-heat with bellows, watch unblinking as he consigned each part of her to the fire. I would have archers around the square, who would shoot any bird or animal who came close to the flames, any raven or dog or hawk or rat. And I would not close my eyes until the princess was ash, and a gentle wind could scatter her like snow. (―Snow‖, 374) 45

the body back to his castle?" and for that matter, "What kind of a girl has

skin as white as snow, hair as black as coal, lips as red as blood, and can lie,

as if dead, for a long time?" (―Reflections‖, 82)

Even though one might agree with Slabbert‘s arguments and proclaim the queen an unreliable source of information, and probably a liar who twits the story to her advantage, these questions are still relevant – for Gaiman‘s retelling, for Grimms‘ original, and also for

Disney‘s innocent, cheerful and colourful adaptation.

In conclusion, whether the reader decides to trust the queen or not, their perception of the original children‘s fairy tale is disrupted forever – just as Gaiman intended.

It is now clear that in his retelling of the story of Snow White, Gaiman relies on and references the original story written by brothers Grimm28. Many element in the popularised adaptation by Disney were changed to serve as a true children‘s story. The dwarves that helped Snow White were made into a parody of the serious and protective group of men they were in Grimms‘ reading. They were of course still protective, but somewhat ridiculed by being given a strongly distinctive characteristics represented in their names. The poison in Snow White‘s apple didn‘t cause her to choke on it, but just put her to sleep, from which a true love‘s kiss can wake her. The queen was not brutally and publicly executed (let alone eaten), but the breakage of her spell made her disappear into thin air. The retellings therefore fulfil one significant function – whether the reader accepts this side of story or decides to favour the original regardless of the queen‘s point of view, they are reminded of the original version of the story, and are introduced (or re-introduced) to the folk tale for adults behind the bed time story for children.

28 Or other early version of the same story. 46

6.2. The Sleeper and the Spindle

This story was originally written for an anthology Rags and Bones: New Twists on

Timeless Tales. Neil Gaiman was approached bz the editors, Melissa Marr and Tim Pratt, and told to pick one of his favourite classic stories and retell it. (Trigger Warning, xxxiii)

Gaiman decided to work with not one, but two stories he loved: ―When Melissa and Tim asked me for a story, I had been pondering what would happen if two stories were happening at the same time. And what if the women who were already the subjects of the stories had little more to do, and were active and not passive…?‖ (Trigger Warning, xxxiii – xxxiv).

And so Gaiman took the story of Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, and merged them together, creating a feminist retelling of the two stories, with dark atmosphere and twists, so typical for his work. This time, Gaiman works with the traditional, popular version of Snow White – thus the one where Snow White is the beautiful innocent and cheerful girl, and the queen truly is wicked.

A week before their queen‘s wedding, the dwarves travel through mountains to the neighbouring kingdom for gifts, only to find out that there is a sleeping plague spreading all across it. People seem to be aware of the sleeping castle covered in roses in the capital, but suddenly, panic spreads across the kingdom, as well as the sleep.

When the dwarves tell their queen about what is happening in the kingdom beyond the mountains, he immediately turns to action, and cancels the wedding, which by the time the Dwarves get back to her is supposed to be the next day.

The queen accompanied by the dwarves, travels to help the cursed kingdom. While she is on her way, the readers encounter another character. An old, bitter woman who laments about basically everything, especially about having to go up to the tower where the beautiful girls sleeps. When she arrives there, she picks up a spindle from the floor and apparently is tempted to kill the girl with it, but for some reason is unable to do it. This

47 character seems to be guarding the castle, which is confirmed when the queen and the dwarves arrive to the castle and she tries to prevent them from entering. They seize her, and the queen kisses the beauty on the bed29. After she wakes up, the queen recognizes that she is some sort of a witch, who by putting the kingdom to sleep to suck their youth and beauty from it; and the woman guarding the castle is actually the princess. Being experienced in dealing with withes – ―I slept for a year in a glass coffin. And the woman who put me there was much more powerful and dangerous than you will ever be.‖

(―Sleeper, 253) – the queen was able to defeat the witch and save the kingdom from its curse.

Putting the two fairy tales together and providing a twist including, again, the questioning of who is actually good and who is bad in the story, is not only retelling of two classic stories, but very much creating a whole new fairy tale completely. Unlike ―Snow,

Glass, Apples‖ though, this story seems to work with the tales already rid of the unnecessary violence that occurs in the early versions of the tales. When the dwarves ask about how to wake the sleeping princess, the reply is ―The usual method.‖ (―Sleeper‖, 235), suggesting that in this reality, breaking curses by the true love‘s kiss is a common practice.

On the other hand, the story is far from typical. As stated before, in the original reading of ―Snow White‖, she was very passive, whereas in ―The Sleeper and the Spindle‖, the queen is strong and active character. It might seem to some readers from the promptness she sets off to the rescue of another kingdom, as well as from her pondering a week before the wedding, that she does not even want to get married. After realising it, she started to think:

It seemed both unlikely and extremely final. She wondered how she would

feel to be a married woman. It would be the end of her life, she decided, if

29 The picture of this act was released before publishing the illustrated edition of the story, and caused uproar in some circles, excitement in others. Most of the readers were disappointed, though, since the kiss in not a true love‘s kiss – its mechanical and without any feelings. 48

life was a time of choices. She would reign over her people. She would have

children. Perhaps she would die in childbirth, perhaps she would die as an

old woman, or in battle. But the path to her death, heartbeat by heartbeat,

would be inevitable. (―Sleeper‖, 232)

Obviously she felt that marriage would somehow restrict her and everything she would do after getting married would be controlled by something or someone else. Therefore, the message about the neighbouring kingdom in trouble seemed to be a blessing for her.

On the other hand, it does not seem that she did not love her future husband. After telling him that the wedding is cancelled, she ―told him that they would still be married

(…), and she chucked him beneath his pretty chin and kissed him until he smiled.‖

(―Sleeper, 238). She was playful with him, and showed him her affection with her kisses.

The conclusion one can draw from this is the fact that she is truly independent, and doesn not want to be otherwise – even when she is getting married to a man she loves.

As for the second story, that is in Gaiman‘s tradition changed from the roots. As well as in ―Snow, Glass, Apples‖, the basic features are similar to the story commonly known and acknowledged.30 There is a castle covered in a hedge of thorns, in which rests a beautiful sleeping girl, who has been there for dozens of years, nearly one hundred. The castle sleeps with the beauty, no one aging a day in their magical sleep.

What is missing in Gaiman‘s version is the events that happened before the castle fell in the deep sleep. Understandably, considering the unravelling at the end, the classic story of a wise woman who wasn‘t invited to the celebration an as a revenge she cursed the whole kingdom would not correlate with it.

30 The Grimms‗s reading used for the thesis is not different from the versions in any other children‘s books. The one mentioned at the beginning of this chapter that includes rape and giving birth is known, but I did not manage to find the original source. 49

Picture 8: the kiss

50

7. Conclusion

In the previous chapters of the thesis, I have discussed various works by Neil Gaiman which I have found to be based on different mythologies, and evaluating to what extent he kept the original readings of myths, and to which he changed them. Since he is an author creating his own, new mythologies – both based on the old ones and completely new – I also examined this aspect of his work. The thesis is a comparative work, putting the old myths from original texts of Nordic Edda or classic Hellenic myths next to the myths and characters from them in Gaiman‘s work. In the first part of the thesis, I also introduced the theory of Monomyth or The Hero‘s Journey developed by American mythologist Joseph

Campbell, and argued whether Gaiman‘s stories fit in the patter Campbell introduced in

1949. In the conclusion, I am going to summarise my findings.

Because Neil Gaiman is not just a novelist, but takes interest in many genres and media,

I have chosen to analyse a novel, a graphic novel and two short stories to emphasise his versatility as an artist, and yet finding some common features in his various works – these features usually represented by myths.

American Gods, the novel discussed as first, is a complex postmodern text, which, with the number of cultural, mythical and religious references, could be a subject of a thesis on its own. However, after working with the text, since the focus of this thesis was to see how

Gaiman works with myths and mostly discussing their original readings, the danger of such approach would be that the thesis would become just a list of deities and supernatural creatures that appear in the novel. For that reason, only some of the deities were discussed, and then the focused moved on, on the Hero‘s Journey and how American Gods correspond to the pattern of the hero myth.

Next, I analysed Gaiman‘s graphic novels, specifically his series The Sandman. The series is based not only on mythology, but also on folk tales, historical events and religions. As I stated in the thesis, Gaiman created a whole new pantheon of supernatural, god-like beings

51 who each rules over different aspects of human life. I chose two of the seven Endless and compared the character created by Gaiman to their mythical equivalents in one predominant, or more different cultures. Then I moved on to applying Campbell‘s pattern for hero myths to the storyline of The Sandman, which was not easy, but there are features and stages that can be proved to correspond the story. Especially, though, The Hero‘s

Journey is also a spiritual one, and for that matter, the character of Dream might be able to fit in the pattern. I, however, concluded that as an archetypal hero, he failed in his journey.

That does not necessarily mean, that the series cannot be compared to the pattern, but it would require more in-depth analysis of the whole series – something there is no space for in the present thesis.

In the last chapter, I discussed the retelling of classic fairy tales about Snow White and

Sleeping Beauty, ―Snow, Glass, Apples‖ and ―The Sleeper and the Spindle‖ and compared them to the original stories. The first retelling is very different from the original, specifically because it offers the point of view of the queen and demonises the character of Snow

White. The second one is a feminist retelling of both the stories, blended in together, making an active heroine, who sets off to a quest of rescuing a kingdom in trouble, of the former passive Snow White.

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_lukc3b8je_ubt.jpeg

Picture 3: Thanatos, picture taken from Zamarovský, 414

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Abstract

In my thesis I focus on various works by British-American author of fantasy Neil

Gaiman. I examine his usage of mythology in his novel American Gods, graphic novel series

The Sandman and two of his retellings of classic fairy tales – Snow White and Sleeping

Beauty - ―Snow, Glass, Apples‖ and ―The Sleeper and the Spindle‖. In these retelling he recreates the stories into a new shape, suitable more for adults rather than children.

Resumé

Ve své diplomové práci se zabývám univerzálním umělcem a spisovatelem Neilem

Gaimanem, který se vyznačuje svou prací s mytologií – rád ji používá ve svých dílech, přetváří a zároveň vytváří novou. Rozebírám jeho román Američtí bohové, grafický román

Sandman a dále dvě nové interpretace klasických pohádek pro děti Sněhurka a sedm trpaslíků a Šípková Růženka, které Gaiman přetváří do netradiční podoby vhodné spíše pro dospělé, než pro děti.

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