IMAGINING A DIFFERENT WORLD: TRANSFORMING AND RE-VISIONING IN CHILDREN'S FANTASY NOVELS
Open Access
- Author:
- Tsai, Hsin-Chun Jamie
- Graduate Program:
- Curriculum and Instruction
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- June 02, 2004
- Committee Members:
- Daniel Dean Hade, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Miryam Espinosa Dulanto, Committee Member
Steven Herb, Committee Member
Reiko Tachibana, Committee Member - Keywords:
- transform
revision - Abstract:
- This study explored the function of fantasy literature and importance of stories. Fantasy was viewed as a means of bridging the visible and the invisible, while narrative as a means of making sense of lives. Reading fantasy through the lens of sociological imagination was considered as a social project which provided readers a way of inquiring social reality. Stepping in and out the separated world in fantasy novels, readers were invited to connect ourselves as subjects and characters with the society as settings in both the created and our own stories. We are offered opportunities to imagine beyond our limitations and discover possibilities for re-reading, re-telling, and re-interpreting our personal narrative. The study examined two novels by Lois Lowry, The Giver and Gathering Blue, to reveal how this method of reading helps readers to activate our sociological imagination. It also analyzed two other novels from Earthsea series by Ursula Le Guin, The Tombs of Atuan and Tehanu; through reflecting on my life story along with the analysis, it was demonstrated that how we as readers can take a further step to operate our capacity for sociological imagination to re-interpret our personal narrative. The finding of this study indicates that by experiencing the unfamiliar provided by fantasy literature through the lens of sociological imagination, readers could discover things we did not expect to uncover. This research transformed from a metaphor of journey as a beginning standpoint to one of weaving and composing. As a result, it leads me, as the researcher of this study, to recommend that this method of reading provides readers, both children and adults, with a good approach to extend our world of wonder. I would also invite educators to show this rich ground of metaphors offered by fantasy novels to guide children to imagine more possibilities for their own personal reality.