Well, it's done
My essay is finished and submitted. Several minutes before the deadline, at that!
Here it is. Copyright etc, obvs. Just over 3,000 words, too - be warned!
My title was self-selected, based on a quotation by Philip Pullman in the course materials, the original of which I couldn't find for love nor money.
“I'm trying to write a book about what it means to be human, to grow up, to suffer and learn […] Why shouldn't a work of fantasy be as truthful and profound about becoming an adult human being as the work of George Eliot or Jane Austen?” (Philip Pullman)
To what extent can this assertion be applied to Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones and the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer?
It can be argued that by definition, no novel can be an accurate replication of what its readers perceive as the “real world”; we see only selected moments from the lives of the characters, while the demands of the plot require that we accept that life itself has a structure. In the world of theatre Brecht and his followers demolished this concept with the introduction of “Epic Theatre”, challenging the audience to remember at all times that they are watching an artificial performance. In narrative literature, however, the highest respect has traditionally been accorded to those fictions which come closest to enabling the reader to forget this fact. Much of the terminology used about the great multi-volume novels of the nineteenth century, for example, could almost as well be applied to fantasy; “immersive”, indeed, Farah Mendelsohn’s term for high fantasy, is often applied to works such as Middlemarch (Eliot, G, 1881), in which the reader is invited to become so absorbed in the imaginary world of the small town that they forget that it is not, and cannot, be real. Ursula Le Guin, in her essay, ‘The Critics, the Monsters, and the Fantasists’, (Le Guin, 2007) relates her dislike of the school of criticism in which “no fiction is to be taken seriously except various forms of realism, which are labeled “serious.” The rest of narrative fiction is labeled (sic) “genre” and is dismissed unread.”
Realism in fiction is about mimesis - the attempt to create as faithful a portrait of “reality” as possible. Most fantasy writers use similar techniques; immersion into the “world” of the fantasy is generally an important aim of the writer. However, they are also able to deal with concepts and issues which may be in some sense “taboo” - uncomfortable for the reader to discuss, unusual within contemporary society or too challenging to current social mores to be appropriate for a mimetic novel. Fantasy, in other words, operates by means of metaphors, extended or otherwise, while realism operates by similes. In fantasy the reader responds “as if it were true” while in realism it is “like truth”. Writers and creators of fantasy are, however, insistent that “truth” is the main focus of their fiction. By this they tend to mean integrity in their handling of ideas and, in particular, a sort of emotional truth which follows a decision to its logical conclusion and can explore reactions in extremis by setting the story in a sort of artificial laboratory, the fictional universe. Certainly, possibly because of the long-standing link with writing for children, adolescents and young adults, fantasy seems to be particularly good at addressing those key moments when one’s life changes - growing up, dealing with death, accepting responsibility.
Diana Wynne Jones’ book Fire and Hemlock (Jones, 1985) shows us the growth from late childhood to young womanhood of the central character, Polly. The narrative technique is complex: we start not so much in medias res as near the end - Polly is nineteen, packing up her belongings ready to return to college, when she becomes aware of the strange double nature of her memories. The presentation of this opening sequence suggests the Wordsworthian view that adulthood is a time of fading joy, of the loss of the ability to share imaginative experiences. “The penalty of being grown up was that you saw things like this photograph as they really were.” (Jones, 1985 p4) A collection of short stories offers her the concept of the double memories, and we then follow her attempt to recall “what really happened”.
It is telling that it is a book which initiates this search for the truth, as a crucial element of Polly’s process of growing up has been her reading: Thomas Lynn has sent her packages of books from not long after their first meeting. The link between the imagination and the maturing process is thus made at a very early stage, and very many of the selected books are themselves fantasy. The implied function of these books is to educate Polly’s awareness of the possibility of an “other” world which is in contact with, almost but not quite part of her own, a world in which rules of ritual and magic dominate. As Brian Attebery says in his book, Strategies of Fantasy ’magic can bring embedded narratives up to the story’s primary level of reality’ (Attebery1992, p67), and the literary education of Polly allows this to happen; when the characters she and Tom have invented in their game become real people on their visit to Stow-on-the-Water (Jones, 1985, pp99-104) she is equipped to deal with their discovery.
In Buffy the Vampire Slayer(1997-2003), we are similarly shown the process of maturing, in this case from the age of fifteen to twenty-two, of a young woman. The use of metaphor here is very explicit and deliberate; Whedon stated that from the outset his purpose was to subvert common clichés of horror and fantasy, in particular that of the fragile blonde girl in the alley who is always the first victim. He does this superbly and, characteristically, twice, showing us Darla, not victim but vampire antagonist, then Buffy, not victim but strong, resourceful heroine, easily defeating Angel on their first encounter. We follow her to the end of her school career, on to college, and through many of the key liminal moments in adolescence - her first love; her first sexual experiences; the loss of her mother; her assumption of parental responsibility for her sister; her first attempts to navigate the employment market. All are shown both literally and metaphorically - her first sexual partner rejects her (as does her second), but does so by losing his soul and becoming literally a soulless monster. Despite the use of monsters, the quality of writing, performance and production make these wholly credible as an account of the transition to maturity.
Suffering is an inevitable part of human existence, one with which fantasy is particularly well-equipped to deal. In Fire and Hemlock, Polly observes the suffering of her mother, who creates a melodrama from life’s ordinary setbacks, and of Tom, building to the climactic confrontation with Laurel, and also experiences it in a variety of ways as she matures, from the acute embarrassment as she realizes she and Nina have intruded on an important formal event in Hunsdon House, through her terror in encountering the physical challenges of the giant and the runaway horse, to the deeper, more personal suffering as she grasps that her father lacks the will and the motivation to protect her in Bristol. Polly’s ability to deal with the mundane sufferings of her normal world is paralleled by her developing powers in coping with and confronting paranormal terrors, such as the monster created from street debris, itself arguably a powerful metaphor for the way an individual can be crushed by mundane life. Finally, Polly is forced to deny Tom in order to save him, to give him true freedom through what appears to be an act of betrayal.
Whedon shows Buffy’s progress into adulthood in part as a sequence of losses. During Season 5 it seems as everything she has in terms of love and support is stripped away from her; initially, simply the fact that her friends are moving on, as Willow and Xander both develop strong, monogamous relationships with their partners, inevitably excluding others, her mother’s illness and Giles’ wish to return to England. Steadily, however those losses become more and more serious: Riley turns to vampire prostitutes for excitement and satisfaction, then leaves(‘Into the Woods’), blaming her failure to engage fully in the relationship for its collapse; then the devastating loss of her mother, superbly explored in the episode ‘The Body’; then Tara experiences the equivalent of brain damage, a painful experience for Buffy and her friends and deeply traumatic for Willow in particular; Giles is seriously hurt by the attacking Knights of Byzantium (‘Spiral’) and temporarily unavailable to her; Dawn is abducted by Glory and threatened with human sacrifice; finally Buffy herself dies in order to save the world (‘The Gift’).
Such suffering parallels the sort of experiences a young person may encounter in late adolescence, as the ties of earlier youth loosen and support structures can no longer be relied upon. The relentlessness of Buffy’s suffering in the second half of this season, however, is essentially a precursor to the extreme darkness of Season 6, in which her return to life becomes a struggle to contain the death-wish. Marti Noxon, “show-runner” for this season, stated that they were moving away from metaphor, something accepted by many critics and bloggers; “One of the major problems with Season Six of Buffy The Vampire Slayer was the loss of metaphor in favour of a more realistic approach.”(‘Justin’ on EdPriceisHungry.com) The entire season, conversely, can be read as an extended metaphor, as Buffy is nearly defeated by severe depressive illness, finds her only support in Spike, a dead man, a symbol of death, and ultimately escapes the pressure and lures of death to rediscover a love of life, ironically while standing in a grave.
In both Buffy and Fire and Hemlock, then, actual physical and mental suffering is explored through metaphorical and symbolic re-enactment as well as through direct, mimetic experience. There is deliberate use of parallels and repetitions, a device which allows the reader/audience to play through a variety of responses and understand the inevitable complexity of adult problems. ‘The regular use of doppelganger plots […] is only one special case of the ways in which these patterns of doubling and opposition are used to enhance the show’s exploration of moral ambiguity…’ (Kaveny 2004)
As Kristina Straub says in her essay, ‘Love at the Hellmouth’, pedagogy and history are key themes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Not only do we observe Buffy and her friends negotiate the formal education system, we see a ‘depiction of learning as an embodied struggle’(Straub 2003, p56). While educational theorists may consider knowledge to be implanted in students, in Buffy the Vampire Slayer it becomes a discourse (Straub 2003) - the very nature of the past becomes a negotiated territory when, for example, Spike’s Victorian alter-ego is presented. “What can I say? I’ve always been bad” (Spike: Fool For Love, 2000) he tells her - and immediately we are invited to interrogate the meaning of the word “bad”, as we see a bad poet (“but a good man”) fail to sustain a role in Good Society. We see flashbacks of the Victorian William at several key points, almost always associated with what “good” and “bad” really mean. Throughout the series teachers and teaching are presented, parodied and critiqued - most effective teachers die horribly(Principal Flutie), turn out to be evil (Dr Walsh) or reveal themselves to be closed-minded (the history lecturer with whom Buffy attempts to discuss Rasputin). Two out of three principals of Sunnydale High are eaten alive, and the final incumbent’s last words on the school are “Welcome to Sunnydale High. There’s no running in the halls, no yelling, no gum-chewing. Apart from that, there’s only one rule: if they move, kill them.” (Wood, ‘Chosen’, 2003) - appropriate as his words are in context, they provide an ironic coda to the theme of education.
In Polly’s world, too, education is something that has to be negotiated. School is the setting for social interaction, development of sporting and theatrical interests, the “normal” process of adolescence. Polly is an active participant in school activities approved of by Authority - sport, theatre, dance - and, an avid reader thanks to Tom, is academically distinguished, securing a place to read English at Oxford, as Jones herself did. However, we also see the complex social hierarchies of school life and, through Nina, a different type of “normal” teenager. The process of growing up is that of negotiating a range of options, making choices, sometime with difficulty, sometimes virtually unaware. At the same time, Polly’s real education often occurs in the interstices of her life, in particular through her dangerous interactions with Tom. He directs her reading; only later do Polly, and we, become aware of a specific purpose in the books he selects for her. By subtle degrees she has been led through a cornucopia of literature, with a very marked stress on myth and fantasy. Beginning with The Wizard of Oz, Five Children and It and The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, Polly is introduced to range of vital concepts - the possibilities of parallel universes, the strong female central character, the absolute necessity for precision in dealing with magic - all of which she will employ in the climactic confrontation (Jones, p79). Later she is absorbed in The Golden Bough on her journey to visit her father; Frazer’s motifs of the Year King and the vegetation myth are crucial to the understanding of Tom’s relationship with Laurel (Jones, p184). The hinted link to TS Eliot’s use of Frazer in The Waste Land guides the reader to other associations; Jones herself confirmed this in her talk, ‘The Heroic Ideal: A Personal Odyssey’, given to Children’s Literature New England: ‘the organising overlay I chose was [ …]
The Four Quartets’ (Jones 1988). Polly’s rich and complex reading diet prepares her for life as much as it prepares her for the twin challenges of studying for a degree in Literature and her confrontation with Laurel, herself an archetypal figure foreshadowed in much of Polly’s reading.
The older generation is essential to the education of the central character in both works; Rupert Giles introduces himself to Buffy by presenting her with a huge, ancient book (‘Welcome to the Hellmouth’ 1997), and acts a guide and mentor (Willow even calls him “Dumbledore” at one point (‘Lessons’ 2002)) through seven seasons. When Buffy closes the door in his face at the end of Lies My Parents Told Me (2003), the end of her youth and dependence on this father-figure are symbolised - he, too, has told her lies, and now she has realised the truth she is ready to move on. Polly’s grandmother appears to have the role of protecting her from the worst excesses of the train-wreck of her parents’ marriage, purely as an element of Polly’s mundane world, but she is also an archetypal Wise Woman, who understands more than she admits. Granny gives her the opal pendant, “I think you could do with it now” and explains the double nature of the gem, but only much later do we learn that it is a protective talisman, “Better safe than sorry” (Jones, p312), when we also learn the full extent of Granny’s experience with Laurel and her kingdom.
By dealing with the non-human and the near-human, fantasy is able to explore in considerable depth what it means to be human and to become so. Polly is initially unaware that she has intruded into the world of the paranormal, and, superficially at least, her antagonists all seem to be human. Morton Leroy, in particular, however, becomes simultaneously increasingly sinister and alien, “sagging” as his time draws to an end (Jones, p325) and finally becoming a “grey lump” (Jones p335). Laurel, the Witch-Queen, has an even more superficial humanity; her amoral self-centredness leads her to use and discard young men and women, battening on them for their very life force. Polly is forced to recognise the natures of Leslie and Seb and reject them, finally renouncing her connection with Tom, stating the previously unsayable - “You took me over as a child to save your own skin.” - the truth which alone can set them both free, to operate as equals (Jones, p334).
In Buffy the Vampire Slayer monsters and demons are initially presented as unequivocally evil; it is the Slayer’s unarguable duty to destroy them as swiftly and efficiently as possible. Despite the ambiguity introduced in the figure of Angel, a human-souled vampire, in early seasons we see humanity as good, demonhood as evil, although humans may be readily seduced into joining the Dark Side, like Billy Fordham in Lie to Me (1997). As Buffy matures, however, and the series progresses, a much greater level of ambiguity is introduced; the Big Bad of each season seems to be more human - the Initiative, a human organisation doing monstrous things; Ben/Glory, where the human chooses to align himself with the demonic (‘The Weight of the World’ 2001); the nerdish Troika, human, self-infantilising, incapable of recognising a moral dilemma - until, finally, The First, the ultimate Evil made entirely from the human soul - Buffy confronts herself in the final battle, as Le Guin’s Ged does in A Wizard of Earthsea (Le Guin, 1968). As humans are shown to be capable of great evil, so the nature of demons and vampires is steadily blurred; not only does Angel have a soul, Spike undergoes considerable challenges to win one for himself (‘Grave’, 2002) - we are invited to accept that the soul endows an unfeeling, evil creature with a sort of moral awareness, a “moral compass” (Tara: ‘Crush’, 2001). However, Spike, at his most evil, is far from unfeeling, as his devoted care of Drusilla in Season 2 shows. Buffy, in the depths of her despair, may define Spike as “You don't ... have a soul! There is nothing good or clean in you. You are dead inside! You can't feel anything real!” (‘Dead Things’, 2002), but this is, ironically, her own self-definition as she, a human, pounds the unresisting vampire into a pulp. Spike with a soul seems little changed from Spike with a chip, in marked contrast to Angel/Angelus.
At the same time, demons become more ambiguous; the baggy-skinned demon, Clem may have an unattractive dietary preference for kittens, but he enjoys watching television with snacks (‘Seeing Red’, 2002), babysits Dawn (‘Villains’, 2002) and cheerfully helps Buffy educate her Potentials on their visit to a demon bar (‘Potential’, 2003). One of the great ironies of the final two seasons is that, ultimately, the non-human characters seem to have a firmer grasp of what it means to be human than many of the non-demonic characters; Warren Meers is far lower on any moral scale than Spike, or even Clem.
Both Polly’s and Buffy’s stories have complex endings - each has lost someone very precious, each has encountered unexpectedly difficult choices; each is now free to embark on adult life for which she has been fully prepared. Life is not simple, nor without grief, but something to be taken and fashioned by the individual, who makes and has to abide by moral choices. As Spike sings, thereby saving Buffy’s life:
“ Life's not a song
Life isn't bliss
Life is just this
It's living
You'll get along
The pain that you feel
You only can heal
By living
You have to go on living
So one of us is living.”
(Spike: ‘Once More With Feeling’, 2001)
Arguably all fiction deals ultimately with “what it means to be human”, sometimes by focussing on the minute detail of the mundane, sometimes by dealing with vast sweeps of history; Pride and Prejudice and War and Peace, both great works of art set in the same historical period are at different extremes of this dichotomy. Fantasy offers alternative ways in which the same concerns, deep and abiding as they must be, can be explored, subverting expectations and presenting the familiar in a new, even shocking, light. As part of literature for young people it offers the possibility of exploring serious issues in a safe context, while as literature for all readers it allows the imagination to be harnessed in order to find a deeper truth.
It's just possible you may find some of this a touch Spike-centred. Can't imagine why. ;-)
I am sparing you my long list of references and citations - one of them, however, was an acknowledgement of gabrielleabelle's series of meta on Buffy's depression in S6, and the discussions that followed and extended her posts. Thanks, Gabs!
I am now going to find some wine and wrap myself round it.
Comments and concrit very much encouraged, though please remember I was working to a strict word limit.
Here it is. Copyright etc, obvs. Just over 3,000 words, too - be warned!
My title was self-selected, based on a quotation by Philip Pullman in the course materials, the original of which I couldn't find for love nor money.
“I'm trying to write a book about what it means to be human, to grow up, to suffer and learn […] Why shouldn't a work of fantasy be as truthful and profound about becoming an adult human being as the work of George Eliot or Jane Austen?” (Philip Pullman)
To what extent can this assertion be applied to Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones and the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer?
It can be argued that by definition, no novel can be an accurate replication of what its readers perceive as the “real world”; we see only selected moments from the lives of the characters, while the demands of the plot require that we accept that life itself has a structure. In the world of theatre Brecht and his followers demolished this concept with the introduction of “Epic Theatre”, challenging the audience to remember at all times that they are watching an artificial performance. In narrative literature, however, the highest respect has traditionally been accorded to those fictions which come closest to enabling the reader to forget this fact. Much of the terminology used about the great multi-volume novels of the nineteenth century, for example, could almost as well be applied to fantasy; “immersive”, indeed, Farah Mendelsohn’s term for high fantasy, is often applied to works such as Middlemarch (Eliot, G, 1881), in which the reader is invited to become so absorbed in the imaginary world of the small town that they forget that it is not, and cannot, be real. Ursula Le Guin, in her essay, ‘The Critics, the Monsters, and the Fantasists’, (Le Guin, 2007) relates her dislike of the school of criticism in which “no fiction is to be taken seriously except various forms of realism, which are labeled “serious.” The rest of narrative fiction is labeled (sic) “genre” and is dismissed unread.”
Realism in fiction is about mimesis - the attempt to create as faithful a portrait of “reality” as possible. Most fantasy writers use similar techniques; immersion into the “world” of the fantasy is generally an important aim of the writer. However, they are also able to deal with concepts and issues which may be in some sense “taboo” - uncomfortable for the reader to discuss, unusual within contemporary society or too challenging to current social mores to be appropriate for a mimetic novel. Fantasy, in other words, operates by means of metaphors, extended or otherwise, while realism operates by similes. In fantasy the reader responds “as if it were true” while in realism it is “like truth”. Writers and creators of fantasy are, however, insistent that “truth” is the main focus of their fiction. By this they tend to mean integrity in their handling of ideas and, in particular, a sort of emotional truth which follows a decision to its logical conclusion and can explore reactions in extremis by setting the story in a sort of artificial laboratory, the fictional universe. Certainly, possibly because of the long-standing link with writing for children, adolescents and young adults, fantasy seems to be particularly good at addressing those key moments when one’s life changes - growing up, dealing with death, accepting responsibility.
Diana Wynne Jones’ book Fire and Hemlock (Jones, 1985) shows us the growth from late childhood to young womanhood of the central character, Polly. The narrative technique is complex: we start not so much in medias res as near the end - Polly is nineteen, packing up her belongings ready to return to college, when she becomes aware of the strange double nature of her memories. The presentation of this opening sequence suggests the Wordsworthian view that adulthood is a time of fading joy, of the loss of the ability to share imaginative experiences. “The penalty of being grown up was that you saw things like this photograph as they really were.” (Jones, 1985 p4) A collection of short stories offers her the concept of the double memories, and we then follow her attempt to recall “what really happened”.
It is telling that it is a book which initiates this search for the truth, as a crucial element of Polly’s process of growing up has been her reading: Thomas Lynn has sent her packages of books from not long after their first meeting. The link between the imagination and the maturing process is thus made at a very early stage, and very many of the selected books are themselves fantasy. The implied function of these books is to educate Polly’s awareness of the possibility of an “other” world which is in contact with, almost but not quite part of her own, a world in which rules of ritual and magic dominate. As Brian Attebery says in his book, Strategies of Fantasy ’magic can bring embedded narratives up to the story’s primary level of reality’ (Attebery1992, p67), and the literary education of Polly allows this to happen; when the characters she and Tom have invented in their game become real people on their visit to Stow-on-the-Water (Jones, 1985, pp99-104) she is equipped to deal with their discovery.
In Buffy the Vampire Slayer(1997-2003), we are similarly shown the process of maturing, in this case from the age of fifteen to twenty-two, of a young woman. The use of metaphor here is very explicit and deliberate; Whedon stated that from the outset his purpose was to subvert common clichés of horror and fantasy, in particular that of the fragile blonde girl in the alley who is always the first victim. He does this superbly and, characteristically, twice, showing us Darla, not victim but vampire antagonist, then Buffy, not victim but strong, resourceful heroine, easily defeating Angel on their first encounter. We follow her to the end of her school career, on to college, and through many of the key liminal moments in adolescence - her first love; her first sexual experiences; the loss of her mother; her assumption of parental responsibility for her sister; her first attempts to navigate the employment market. All are shown both literally and metaphorically - her first sexual partner rejects her (as does her second), but does so by losing his soul and becoming literally a soulless monster. Despite the use of monsters, the quality of writing, performance and production make these wholly credible as an account of the transition to maturity.
Suffering is an inevitable part of human existence, one with which fantasy is particularly well-equipped to deal. In Fire and Hemlock, Polly observes the suffering of her mother, who creates a melodrama from life’s ordinary setbacks, and of Tom, building to the climactic confrontation with Laurel, and also experiences it in a variety of ways as she matures, from the acute embarrassment as she realizes she and Nina have intruded on an important formal event in Hunsdon House, through her terror in encountering the physical challenges of the giant and the runaway horse, to the deeper, more personal suffering as she grasps that her father lacks the will and the motivation to protect her in Bristol. Polly’s ability to deal with the mundane sufferings of her normal world is paralleled by her developing powers in coping with and confronting paranormal terrors, such as the monster created from street debris, itself arguably a powerful metaphor for the way an individual can be crushed by mundane life. Finally, Polly is forced to deny Tom in order to save him, to give him true freedom through what appears to be an act of betrayal.
Whedon shows Buffy’s progress into adulthood in part as a sequence of losses. During Season 5 it seems as everything she has in terms of love and support is stripped away from her; initially, simply the fact that her friends are moving on, as Willow and Xander both develop strong, monogamous relationships with their partners, inevitably excluding others, her mother’s illness and Giles’ wish to return to England. Steadily, however those losses become more and more serious: Riley turns to vampire prostitutes for excitement and satisfaction, then leaves(‘Into the Woods’), blaming her failure to engage fully in the relationship for its collapse; then the devastating loss of her mother, superbly explored in the episode ‘The Body’; then Tara experiences the equivalent of brain damage, a painful experience for Buffy and her friends and deeply traumatic for Willow in particular; Giles is seriously hurt by the attacking Knights of Byzantium (‘Spiral’) and temporarily unavailable to her; Dawn is abducted by Glory and threatened with human sacrifice; finally Buffy herself dies in order to save the world (‘The Gift’).
Such suffering parallels the sort of experiences a young person may encounter in late adolescence, as the ties of earlier youth loosen and support structures can no longer be relied upon. The relentlessness of Buffy’s suffering in the second half of this season, however, is essentially a precursor to the extreme darkness of Season 6, in which her return to life becomes a struggle to contain the death-wish. Marti Noxon, “show-runner” for this season, stated that they were moving away from metaphor, something accepted by many critics and bloggers; “One of the major problems with Season Six of Buffy The Vampire Slayer was the loss of metaphor in favour of a more realistic approach.”(‘Justin’ on EdPriceisHungry.com) The entire season, conversely, can be read as an extended metaphor, as Buffy is nearly defeated by severe depressive illness, finds her only support in Spike, a dead man, a symbol of death, and ultimately escapes the pressure and lures of death to rediscover a love of life, ironically while standing in a grave.
In both Buffy and Fire and Hemlock, then, actual physical and mental suffering is explored through metaphorical and symbolic re-enactment as well as through direct, mimetic experience. There is deliberate use of parallels and repetitions, a device which allows the reader/audience to play through a variety of responses and understand the inevitable complexity of adult problems. ‘The regular use of doppelganger plots […] is only one special case of the ways in which these patterns of doubling and opposition are used to enhance the show’s exploration of moral ambiguity…’ (Kaveny 2004)
As Kristina Straub says in her essay, ‘Love at the Hellmouth’, pedagogy and history are key themes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Not only do we observe Buffy and her friends negotiate the formal education system, we see a ‘depiction of learning as an embodied struggle’(Straub 2003, p56). While educational theorists may consider knowledge to be implanted in students, in Buffy the Vampire Slayer it becomes a discourse (Straub 2003) - the very nature of the past becomes a negotiated territory when, for example, Spike’s Victorian alter-ego is presented. “What can I say? I’ve always been bad” (Spike: Fool For Love, 2000) he tells her - and immediately we are invited to interrogate the meaning of the word “bad”, as we see a bad poet (“but a good man”) fail to sustain a role in Good Society. We see flashbacks of the Victorian William at several key points, almost always associated with what “good” and “bad” really mean. Throughout the series teachers and teaching are presented, parodied and critiqued - most effective teachers die horribly(Principal Flutie), turn out to be evil (Dr Walsh) or reveal themselves to be closed-minded (the history lecturer with whom Buffy attempts to discuss Rasputin). Two out of three principals of Sunnydale High are eaten alive, and the final incumbent’s last words on the school are “Welcome to Sunnydale High. There’s no running in the halls, no yelling, no gum-chewing. Apart from that, there’s only one rule: if they move, kill them.” (Wood, ‘Chosen’, 2003) - appropriate as his words are in context, they provide an ironic coda to the theme of education.
In Polly’s world, too, education is something that has to be negotiated. School is the setting for social interaction, development of sporting and theatrical interests, the “normal” process of adolescence. Polly is an active participant in school activities approved of by Authority - sport, theatre, dance - and, an avid reader thanks to Tom, is academically distinguished, securing a place to read English at Oxford, as Jones herself did. However, we also see the complex social hierarchies of school life and, through Nina, a different type of “normal” teenager. The process of growing up is that of negotiating a range of options, making choices, sometime with difficulty, sometimes virtually unaware. At the same time, Polly’s real education often occurs in the interstices of her life, in particular through her dangerous interactions with Tom. He directs her reading; only later do Polly, and we, become aware of a specific purpose in the books he selects for her. By subtle degrees she has been led through a cornucopia of literature, with a very marked stress on myth and fantasy. Beginning with The Wizard of Oz, Five Children and It and The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, Polly is introduced to range of vital concepts - the possibilities of parallel universes, the strong female central character, the absolute necessity for precision in dealing with magic - all of which she will employ in the climactic confrontation (Jones, p79). Later she is absorbed in The Golden Bough on her journey to visit her father; Frazer’s motifs of the Year King and the vegetation myth are crucial to the understanding of Tom’s relationship with Laurel (Jones, p184). The hinted link to TS Eliot’s use of Frazer in The Waste Land guides the reader to other associations; Jones herself confirmed this in her talk, ‘The Heroic Ideal: A Personal Odyssey’, given to Children’s Literature New England: ‘the organising overlay I chose was [ …]
The Four Quartets’ (Jones 1988). Polly’s rich and complex reading diet prepares her for life as much as it prepares her for the twin challenges of studying for a degree in Literature and her confrontation with Laurel, herself an archetypal figure foreshadowed in much of Polly’s reading.
The older generation is essential to the education of the central character in both works; Rupert Giles introduces himself to Buffy by presenting her with a huge, ancient book (‘Welcome to the Hellmouth’ 1997), and acts a guide and mentor (Willow even calls him “Dumbledore” at one point (‘Lessons’ 2002)) through seven seasons. When Buffy closes the door in his face at the end of Lies My Parents Told Me (2003), the end of her youth and dependence on this father-figure are symbolised - he, too, has told her lies, and now she has realised the truth she is ready to move on. Polly’s grandmother appears to have the role of protecting her from the worst excesses of the train-wreck of her parents’ marriage, purely as an element of Polly’s mundane world, but she is also an archetypal Wise Woman, who understands more than she admits. Granny gives her the opal pendant, “I think you could do with it now” and explains the double nature of the gem, but only much later do we learn that it is a protective talisman, “Better safe than sorry” (Jones, p312), when we also learn the full extent of Granny’s experience with Laurel and her kingdom.
By dealing with the non-human and the near-human, fantasy is able to explore in considerable depth what it means to be human and to become so. Polly is initially unaware that she has intruded into the world of the paranormal, and, superficially at least, her antagonists all seem to be human. Morton Leroy, in particular, however, becomes simultaneously increasingly sinister and alien, “sagging” as his time draws to an end (Jones, p325) and finally becoming a “grey lump” (Jones p335). Laurel, the Witch-Queen, has an even more superficial humanity; her amoral self-centredness leads her to use and discard young men and women, battening on them for their very life force. Polly is forced to recognise the natures of Leslie and Seb and reject them, finally renouncing her connection with Tom, stating the previously unsayable - “You took me over as a child to save your own skin.” - the truth which alone can set them both free, to operate as equals (Jones, p334).
In Buffy the Vampire Slayer monsters and demons are initially presented as unequivocally evil; it is the Slayer’s unarguable duty to destroy them as swiftly and efficiently as possible. Despite the ambiguity introduced in the figure of Angel, a human-souled vampire, in early seasons we see humanity as good, demonhood as evil, although humans may be readily seduced into joining the Dark Side, like Billy Fordham in Lie to Me (1997). As Buffy matures, however, and the series progresses, a much greater level of ambiguity is introduced; the Big Bad of each season seems to be more human - the Initiative, a human organisation doing monstrous things; Ben/Glory, where the human chooses to align himself with the demonic (‘The Weight of the World’ 2001); the nerdish Troika, human, self-infantilising, incapable of recognising a moral dilemma - until, finally, The First, the ultimate Evil made entirely from the human soul - Buffy confronts herself in the final battle, as Le Guin’s Ged does in A Wizard of Earthsea (Le Guin, 1968). As humans are shown to be capable of great evil, so the nature of demons and vampires is steadily blurred; not only does Angel have a soul, Spike undergoes considerable challenges to win one for himself (‘Grave’, 2002) - we are invited to accept that the soul endows an unfeeling, evil creature with a sort of moral awareness, a “moral compass” (Tara: ‘Crush’, 2001). However, Spike, at his most evil, is far from unfeeling, as his devoted care of Drusilla in Season 2 shows. Buffy, in the depths of her despair, may define Spike as “You don't ... have a soul! There is nothing good or clean in you. You are dead inside! You can't feel anything real!” (‘Dead Things’, 2002), but this is, ironically, her own self-definition as she, a human, pounds the unresisting vampire into a pulp. Spike with a soul seems little changed from Spike with a chip, in marked contrast to Angel/Angelus.
At the same time, demons become more ambiguous; the baggy-skinned demon, Clem may have an unattractive dietary preference for kittens, but he enjoys watching television with snacks (‘Seeing Red’, 2002), babysits Dawn (‘Villains’, 2002) and cheerfully helps Buffy educate her Potentials on their visit to a demon bar (‘Potential’, 2003). One of the great ironies of the final two seasons is that, ultimately, the non-human characters seem to have a firmer grasp of what it means to be human than many of the non-demonic characters; Warren Meers is far lower on any moral scale than Spike, or even Clem.
Both Polly’s and Buffy’s stories have complex endings - each has lost someone very precious, each has encountered unexpectedly difficult choices; each is now free to embark on adult life for which she has been fully prepared. Life is not simple, nor without grief, but something to be taken and fashioned by the individual, who makes and has to abide by moral choices. As Spike sings, thereby saving Buffy’s life:
“ Life's not a song
Life isn't bliss
Life is just this
It's living
You'll get along
The pain that you feel
You only can heal
By living
You have to go on living
So one of us is living.”
(Spike: ‘Once More With Feeling’, 2001)
Arguably all fiction deals ultimately with “what it means to be human”, sometimes by focussing on the minute detail of the mundane, sometimes by dealing with vast sweeps of history; Pride and Prejudice and War and Peace, both great works of art set in the same historical period are at different extremes of this dichotomy. Fantasy offers alternative ways in which the same concerns, deep and abiding as they must be, can be explored, subverting expectations and presenting the familiar in a new, even shocking, light. As part of literature for young people it offers the possibility of exploring serious issues in a safe context, while as literature for all readers it allows the imagination to be harnessed in order to find a deeper truth.
It's just possible you may find some of this a touch Spike-centred. Can't imagine why. ;-)
I am sparing you my long list of references and citations - one of them, however, was an acknowledgement of gabrielleabelle's series of meta on Buffy's depression in S6, and the discussions that followed and extended her posts. Thanks, Gabs!
I am now going to find some wine and wrap myself round it.
Comments and concrit very much encouraged, though please remember I was working to a strict word limit.