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Sadie McDonald
Dr. Monika B. Hilder
ENGL 392
21 November 2024
“He That Will Be a Hero, Will Barely Be a Man”:
Other-Worldliness as the Ascent to Spiritual Maturity in Phantastes
Before George MacDonald became the ‘grandfather’ of Modern Fantasy,1 he served as a
minister at the Trinity Congregational Church in Arundel; however, influenced by German
Romanticism and the works of Novalis, MacDonald’s place at the pulpit was scrutinized by
doctrinal anxieties steeped in the tenets of predestination and limited atonement. According to
Michael Phillips, MacDonald’s spiritual vision was “unsettling” to the working-class population,
leading them to accuse him of heresy. Their inability to awaken to the loving God MacDonald
preached about resulted in his resignation in 1853.
MacDonald was no stranger to ethereal concepts, expressing his unorthodox theology in
his fiction, as seen in his 1858 novel Phantastes. Subversive in nature, MacDonald’s otherworldliness plays on gendered concepts, alluded to in the novel’s subtitle: “A Faerie Romance
for Men and Women.” Phantastes is what John Pridmore calls ‘transfiguring fantasy,’ work
which “cross[es] the frontiers into faerie, promising an end which it holds in abeyance, engaging

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While some refer to MacDonald as the Father of Modern Fantasy, many scholars attribute this title to J.R.R.
Tolkien. Kirsten Jeffrey Johnson calls MacDonald the ‘grandfather’ of Modern Fantasy in her biographical
introduction, and I have elected to use this title to consider Madeleine L’Engle’s designation of MacDonald as “the
grandfather of us all.” (See back cover of the Wm. B. Eerdmans edition of Phantastes published in 2000).

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the subject of the narrative and the reader of the narrative alike in a common quest of the coming
good” (54).
As such, MacDonald’s bifocal vision permeated his works,2 evoking the dual existence of
the temporal and the eternal. For G. K. Chesterton, MacDonald was “a true mystic to whom the
supernatural was natural” (qtd. in Gabelman 38), and MacDonald’s mythopoeic other worlds
famously baptized C. S. Lewis’ imagination. At the beginning of the novel Anodos embodies a
(traditionally masculine) rationalist worldview. As Anodos leaves Victorian England to journey
through Fairy Land, which functions as MacDonald’s other world and Anodos’ secondary one,
he must be awakened by childlike wonder, a stereotypically feminine image of humanity’s
submission to Christ. In order to return to his Primary World as a true man,3 one “that will be a
hero, [but] will barely be a man,” (Phantastes 166) Anodos must hold the nature of his
Secondary World above his Primary, effectively coming of age to the cosmic reality. According
to MacDonald, for Anodos to rise or to be fully human, one must not only be morally educated,
but spiritually mature. In Phantastes MacDonald represents other-worldliness in the
transformative power of childlike imagination as the ascent to spiritual maturity.
From the outset, Fairy Land immerses Anodos in a world where even time is ordered by
the cosmos, as “night is the fairies’ day, and the moon their sun” (12). Not only does Anodos
begin to accept the existence of fairies and believe in their power, but Anodos learns that he must
have fairy blood in him to be in Fairy Land. The Victorian rationalist is concerned with the

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“Bifocal” is a term literary critic Stephen Prickett uses to describe MacDonald’s vision. See page 20 of “The Two
Worlds of George MacDonald” for more information.
3
MacDonald scholar Kirsten Jeffrey Johnson—who is quoted later in this essay—capitalizes “Primary World” in her
PhD thesis on MacDonald, citing Tolkien’s utilization of capitalization to distinguish the term from the common
noun. See page xxiii (“Primary World”) and page 8 (“Secondary World”) of Rooted in all its Story for further details.

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material concreteness of reality, devoid of the fluidity in the cosmos. At the beginning of chapter
9, everything in Anodos’ undertaking to the palace of Fairy Land “existed for [him] in its relation
to [his] attendant” (58). His attendant, the shadow influence of rationalism, directly changes
Anodos’ worldview from the first day of their journey together. When a tired Anodos lies down
on the grass, crushing flowers beneath him, the ones he crushes will rise again in the sunlight,
but the flowers under his shadow will die, and be “hopeless of any resurrection” (59). Influenced
by Wordsworth, MacDonald believed in the connection between God and His creation found in
Nature. The shadow’s destruction of the flowers warns of rationalism’s ability to stunt spiritual
growth.
Anodos does not heed this warning, only “shudder[ing], and hasten[ing] away with sad
forebodings, and instead falls prey to his shadow’s disenchantment of Fairy Land (59). Before
Anodos reaches the palace of Fairy Land, he encounters four individuals—the fairy-child, the
knight, the host’s daughter, and the little maiden—all representing the childlike wonder
MacDonald held in high regard. Like Fairy Land itself, Anodos’ shadow has a transformative
effect on the one inhabited by it, and this is most evident in Anodos’ meeting with the fairy-child,
who in the darkness of Anodos’ shadow turns into a “common-place boy,” his “wonderous toys”
now a “multiplying-glass and a kaleidoscope” (60). Furthermore, Anodos’ shadow misleads his
intuition as in addition to altering the appearance of the host’s daughter, it makes Anodos feel
that he can no longer trust the knight. A significant precursor to Anodos’ moral education is his
meeting with the maiden and her glowing globe. Unlike the others, the shadow did not change
the maiden, but it did possess Anodos to grab the globe with both hands in a desire to know more
about it, thereby breaking it. This destruction is symbolic: “Put simply, how a man reacts to art
reveals the quality of his manhood: … if he seeks to take possession of the art, whether

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intellectually of [sic] physically, then he is equally foolish and also overcome by his own pride”
(Pionke 34).
This pursuit of possession continues to be displayed in the intellectual greed and erotic
obsession in Cosmo’s story. In the palace of Fairy Land’s library, Anodos is introduced to Cosmo
von Wehrstahl and the lady in the mirror. Cosmo, a student at the University of Prague is
described as “a poet without words” (MacDonald, Phantastes 86). Despite “prid[ing] himself
upon the independence that poverty gives” (85), Cosmo has a penchant for knowledge, as
demonstrated in his desire to learn more about the mirror. When the lady in the mirror appears,
Cosmo’s obsession immediately changes his surroundings, as the reclusive scholar who wanted
no one to know where he lives rearranges the room to the lady’s preferences. As his “secret
treasure” (93), Cosmo can only see the lady in the mirror through a glass darkly (85), a biblical
allusion that MacDonald inserts into Anodos’ narration of the story. Cosmo’s love “withered into
passion” (94) as he becomes consumed with possessing his ideal. Cosmo must make the ultimate
sacrifice by breaking the mirror to set her free; to truly love her he must let her go and to be free
to live a life according to the ideal he must relinquish it.
As Kirsten Jeffrey Johnson states, “If all elements of the story are entirely foreign, it
cannot have a mythopoeic effect upon the reader. The reader must be able to enter the story, to be
‘inside’ it, before there is a possibility of returning to the Primary World somehow transformed”
(“George MacDonald and Mythopoesis” 27). Anodos is aware of the parallel, remarking, “Of
course, while I read it, I was Cosmo, and his history was mine” (MacDonald, Phantastes 84),
signalling the transformative effect of fantasy. Since “True myth offers a glimpse of a
transcendent, permanent world” (Hein 17), Anodos learns that his ideal is higher than the beauty
of the Marble Lady.

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But other-worldliness, while strange and foreign at times, is not chaos, nor pure
confusion. As Anodos acclimates to Fairy Land, he comes to the realization that “[I]t is no use
trying to account for things in Fairy Land; and one who travels there soon learns to forget the
very idea of doing so, and takes everything as it comes; like a child, who, being in a chronic
condition of wonder, is surprised at nothing” (MacDonald, Phantastes 24). However, otherworldliness is not happiness either, rather functioning in a state of joy that is dependent on
sorrow. Anodos experiences the power of imagination MacDonald covets, in that “The beauty
may be plainer in it than the truth, but without the truth the beauty could not be, and the fairytale
would give no delight” (“Fantastic Imagination”).
Anodos notices the similarities in appearance between himself and the “resplendent
knight” (MacDonald, Phantastes 160), even seeing his reflection in the knight’s shining armour.
This is who Anodos will become without moral education that develops spiritual maturity. Like
Cosmo ignoring his unease with the shop owner, Anodos follows the knight instead of overtaking
him to pass. Notably, Anodos is convicted that “the knight and [his shadow] were one” (161).
When he meets the little maiden again, who is now a beautiful woman, she thanks him for
breaking her globe because she does not need it anymore. Anodos is ashamed: “She was uplifted,
by sorrow and well-doing, into a region I could hardly hope ever to enter” (165). Just as Cosmo
frees Princess von Hohenweiss, Anodos does not need the Marble Lady to feel content and this
submission to other-worldliness is key to his resurrection and fulfillment of purpose back in his
Primary World.
Hence, MacDonald’s “fairytales are not like so many intended to convey morals but to
awaken humanity to the cosmic adventure that is all around them, to reveal the miraculous real in
their midst” (Gabelman 38). Without other-worldliness, Anodos would be forever stagnant,

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bound by the state of disenchantment rationalism produces. Therefore, having humbled himself
after his second encounter with the singing maiden and subsequently turning away from the
tower and stripping himself of his armour, Anodos must “return, for a time, to this life, this earth,
but [he is] aware that the end will be light, not darkness” (Lochhead 67). Anodos’ sacrifices are
not easy to make, as he forsakes everything he has ever known when he enters Fairy Land. He
must die—both literally to return to his Primary World and figuratively to himself—to come into
his manhood.
One might argue that MacDonald does not rely on subversive feminine imagery in his
other world, with Sir Percivale echoing the chivalric code of Arthurian romance that Anodos
must follow in order to mature. Yes, it is indeed true that Anodos’ moral education is not merely
female iconography because not only is Anodos saved by Sir Percivale, but he even serves as Sir
Percivale’s squire despite discovering that ‘his’ Marble Lady is in love with the knight. And yet,
even though the female seductress exists in Phantastes as the Maid of the Alder-tree, the singing
maiden spurns spiritual maturity in Anodos. As Roderick McGillis argues, “[T]he type of male
MacDonald constructs in his fairy tales is one in need not only of the instruction of women, but
also of something we might think of as a feminine side, a nurturing side” (97). The nurturing of
Anodos’ imagination and childlike wonder causes him to abandon his masculine rationalist point
of view.
When MacDonald gave a sermon called “The Higher Faith” on John 20.29,4 he had not
yet written Phantastes, but his protagonist can be seen in Thomas, Jesus’ doubting disciple. As

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MacDonald cites “JOHN xx.29” as the epigraph to his sermon. The version is as follows: Jesus saith unto him,
Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.

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fully God and man, Christ did not hesitate to make the ultimate sacrifice, and MacDonald does
not want the believer to “wait for the other world” as it is “the foolishness of a worldly and lazy
spirit” to do so (“Higher Faith”). Like Thomas, who did not believe in Christ’s resurrection until
he saw the holes in his saviour’s hands, Anodos does not know the truth until he no longer
understands the world around him at all. Anodos rejoices in the loss of his shadow, and so
transformed is he that he refers to the experience after his death in Fairy Land as “blessedness”
(Phantastes 184). As Anodos rises to the higher faith of that other world, he returns to earth as a
new man, “blessed [because] a wonder is not a fable, … who [is] content to ask, ‘Is it like
Him?’” (“Higher Faith”). Through the loss of the self in the ideal, fantasy shines dawn-like hope,
illuminating the sacred beauties of this world that will not even compare to the glories of the
next.

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Works Cited
Gabelman, Daniel. “Nocturnal Anarchist, Mystic, and Fairytale King: G.K. Chesterton’s Portrait
of George MacDonald.” VII: Journal of the Marion E. Wade Center, vol. 28, 2011, pp.
27–46. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/45297242. Accessed 9 Nov. 2024.
Hein, Rolland. “Doors Out and Doors In: The Genius of Myth.” Truths Breathed through Silver:
The Inklings’ Moral and Mythopoeic Legacy, edited by Jonathan B. Himes et al.,
Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008, pp. 17–26. EBSCOhost,
search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mlf&AN=2008580807&site=edslive&scope=site.
Johnson, Kirsten Jeffrey. “George MacDonald Biographical Introduction.” The George
MacDonald Society, 2021, georgemacdonald.com/resources/biographical_introduction.html. Accessed 20 Nov. 2024.
———. “George MacDonald and Mythopoesis: ‘One of the Greatest Arts.’” The Inklings and
Culture: A Harvest of New Scholarship from the Inklings Institute of Canada, edited by
Monika B. Hilder et al., Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2020, pp. 20–34. EBSCOhost,
search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mlf&AN=202327704090&site=edslive&scope=site.
———. Rooted in all its Story, More is Meant than Meets the Ear: A Study of the Relational and
Revelational Nature of George MacDonald’s Mythopoeic Art. 2011. University of St
Andrews, PhD dissertation. St Andrews Research Repository, https://researchrepository.st-andrews.ac.uk/handle/10023/1887.

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Lochhead, Marion. “George MacDonald and the World of Faery.” VII: Journal of the Marion E.
Wade Center, vol. 3, 1982, pp. 63–71. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/45296092.
Accessed 30 Oct. 2024.
MacDonald, George. Phantastes. 1858. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000. ISBN
9780802860606
———. “The Fantastic Imagination.” A Dish of Orts. Sampson Low, Marston & Co., 1893.
eBook edition (Project Gutenberg). https://www.gutenberg.org/files/9393/9393-h/9393h.htm.
———. “The Higher Faith.” Unspoken Sermons, Series I, II, and III, Alexander Strahan,
London, 1867. eBook edition (Project Gutenberg).
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/9057/pg9057-images.html.
McGillis, Roderick. “‘A Fairytale Is Just a Fairytale’: George MacDonald and the Queering of
Fairy.” Marvels & Tales, vol. 17, no. 1, 2003, pp. 86–99. JSTOR,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/41389901. Accessed 30 Oct. 2024.
Phillips, Michael. “An Introduction to the World of George MacDonald.” The Works of George
MacDonald, www.worksofmacdonald.com/about/introduction. Accessed 10 Nov. 2024.
Pionke, Albert D. “The Art of Manliness: Ekphrasis And/As Masculinity in George Macdonald’s
Phantastes.” Studies in the Novel, vol. 43, no. 1, Spring 2011, pp. 21–37. EBSCOhost,
https://doi-org.twu.idm.oclc.org/10.1353/sdn.2011.0019.

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Prickett, Stephen (1983) “The Two Worlds of George MacDonald,” North Wind: A Journal of
George MacDonald Studies: Vol. 2, Article 2.
https://digitalcommons.snc.edu/northwind/vol2/iss1/2.
Pridmore, John. “George MacDonald’s Transfiguring Fantasy.” VII: Journal of the Marion E.
Wade Center, vol. 20, 2003, pp. 48–65. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/45296987.
Accessed 30 Oct. 2024.