Browsing by Subject "Fantasiakirjallisuus"

Objective. Maria Nikolajeva studied various works of children’s fantasy literature for her doctoral thesis The Magic Code, analyzing her material for recurring narrative elements occurring exclusively in fantasy literature. Nikolajeva named these elements fantasemes and described them in detail for her thesis, dividing them into four separate categories: the magic space, the magic time, the magic passage, and the magic impact. Fantasemes can be described as individual features introducing the extraordinary into the narrative and thus making it fantasy literature. The objective of this study is to find out which of these fantasemes appear in a modern young adult fantasy novel, and what forms do they take. The material for my study is the novel Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs, which I will analyze using The Magic Code as primary background literature. No previous studies on the material were found, so this bachelor’s thesis will introduce a new subject to the field of research in fantasy literature. Method. This study was carried out by using close reading as the method to analyze the material for fantasemes and their different forms. The Magic Code by Maria Nikolajeva, in which the term fantaseme was first introduced, was used as background literature for the analysis. Outcome and conclusion. It was found in this study that all the fantasemes introduced by Nikolajeva were also present in Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children: the magic space and the magic time, with various magical passages and impacts. These fantasemes took many of the same forms that Nikolajeva found in her material. In addition to these, a new form for the magical impact fantaseme was found in the material, concerning the meaning and consequences of introducing modern technology to people living in a historical secondary chronotope.