"The Uncanny and the Marvelous" by Tzvetan Todorov - Chapter Summary

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Todorov, Tzvetan. "Chapter 3: The Uncanny and the Marvelous." The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre. 24-57. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1975. Print.

 The evanescence of the fantastic genre means that a work may change genre mid-reading. The first part constitutes the marvelous or uncanny- the reader thinks there is either a natural or supernatural explanation to the events. The second part is the fantastic genre, in which the reader hesitates over his explanation of the events. The part that follows the decision contains a shift – there reader realizes his primary explanation of the events was wrong, and the genre shift again to either marvelous or uncanny- the opposite from the first part. Texts which are unresolved are fantastic in their entirety.

The transition between genres is not sharp. If a story begins as uncanny, it will transition through fantastic-uncanny and fantastic-marvelous before becoming marvelous. The fantastic-uncanny is "the supernatural explained" by natural means- coincidences, illusions etc. There are stories that fall into this genre specifically. Likewise with marvelous-fantastic. The marvelous-fantastic genre is that in which events are presented as fantastic- that is of undecided origins- and end with a supernatural explanation.

There are also narratives that belong to just the genre of the uncanny, where there is no doubt that the events are caused by supernatural sources. The genre is characterized by the attitude of its readers- in the uncanny the reactions of the characters (fear) are always expressed.

There is also the marvelous genre, where there is no supernatural element. In the marvelous genre it is not the reactions of the characters that are important but the rational nature of the events. There is the hyperbolic marvelous, in which details are exaggerated but do not "do excessive violence to reason". There is the exotic marvelous in which details are further exaggerated, but are believable due to the characters' easy acceptance of the events. And there is the instrumental marvelous, in which there are instruments whose functions are not explained by technology within the narrative, such as flying carpets. There is the scientific marvelous, or science fiction, in which the function of marvelous instruments is explained by rules that apply to that fictional world but not to ours.

Tzvetan Todorov


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