Phantastes: A Faerie Romance for Men and Women

The Hero’s Journey depicts the archetypal “woman” as the hero’s “object” and inspiration. Symbolically, the feminine represents mystery, knowledge, power, and emotion. She represents the all-mother and the all-destroyer. She is the promise of perfection and the incarnation of the ideal, and her power is so great and terrible that to look on her spiritually unprepared is disaster.

The encounter with the Marble Lady takes place in a cave containing a flowing spring. Archetypally, caves, underground spaces, and water are all associated with the feminine. In turn, the feminine is associated with emotion, unreason, chaos, sexuality, the earth, and fertility. In the Hero’s Journey, caves, wells, springs, and other dark places in the earth may represent a descent into chaos from which the hero must seize some representation of order, like a sword, or of fertility, like a cup. In the first grotto, the feminine cave and spring represent emotion and beauty—enlightenment and emotion, which is the path to enlightenment. There, Anodos uncovers and releases beauty (truth and enlightenment) which he must pursue. This is a spiritually uplifting episode depicting purely spiritual love.

Anodos’s encounter with the Alder woman has a sexual undercurrent that MacDonald doesn’t explicitly explore. The Alder woman is depicted as a huldra, a forest spirit from Scandinavian folklore. The huldra looks like a beautiful woman, but from the back is seen to be a hollow log or tree. She has an insatiable sexual appetite, and if she captures/seduces a man and he can’t satisfy her (insatiable) appetite, she will kill him. She represents the stereotype of the destructive and devouring aspect of the feminine that destroys reason. Throughout the story, physical love between a man and a woman is depicted as degrading and damaging.

The Alder woman takes Anodos to her grotto with its flowing spring just like that of the Marble Lady. In this case, the grotto is a specifically sexual setting. Another indication that this is a sexual encounter is the farmwife’s explanation of the Alder woman as one who can’t love but craves to be loved by every man she encounters. Most of the women in the story are archetypes or symbols, but this is a very concrete explanation of a certain kind of woman in the real world.

MacDonald avoids explicitly depicting a sexual encounter, substituting the fairy tale that seduces Anodos to sleep. Any direct reference to sex would be inappropriate for a juvenile audience, and an adult audience could read the sexual encounter into the scene or not as they preferred. The implication of a sexual seduction changes the interpretation of the Alder woman scene and its aftermath. Anodos wakes feeling depressed and violated. In the Hero’s Journey, sex or marriage with the feminine symbolizes the hero’s integration of the enlightenment and healing powers of the feminine—as might be seen in the unnamed knight’s tender healing of the injured child. The meaningless sexual encounter with the huldra, rather than being an initiation into manhood for Anodos, is a violation.

The farmwife and the mother in the first cottage represent wisdom and fertility, not sexual reproduction. The farmwife, in particular, represents fertility in that she is responsible for caring for the livestock and the young creatures of the farm—including her young daughter. The feminine is the generative aspect of nature, and the Romantics sought enlightenment in nature, which is the feminine realm. Nature is thus a source of authentic truth. The farmwife and the mother in the first cottage both offer Anodos wisdom.

The maiden whose globe (heart) Anodos breaks is a different sexual encounter, though not overtly physical. Some readers have interpreted the breaking of the globe as a breaking of virginity. However, given MacDonald’s depiction of physical relations as degrading, the fact that the girl is ultimately glad the globe was broken suggests heartbreak but no physical contact. Nevertheless, Anodos’s sexual initiation with the Alder woman and the encounter with the maiden suggest a sexual violation.

The ogress in the Church of Darkness is another representation of the stereotype of the devouring and destructive feminine. Her home is cavelike, described as dark and earthy. The closet is another dark, enclosed space. This is another example of the peril of approaching the realm of the feminine without sufficient spiritual preparation.