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Essay about the use of fantasy A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius' by Dave Eggers. ENGLISH LIT AND LANG...

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How does Eggers blend fantasy and reality in the memoir ‘A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius’? The themes of fantasy and reality are prominent throughout the whole of the memoir, often being blended together to form the autobiography. The reader is introduced very quickly to the idea that Dave Eggers’ has blended reality and fantasy together, meaning they do not know what is real or false. The ‘preface’ and ‘rules and suggestions’ of the autobiography introduce the conflict between these two themes and show that Eggers uses fantasy to enforce control over the reader in order to present himself in a specific way. Eggers uses the blended themes of fantasy and reality not only to control the readers thoughts but as a way of him escaping his own reality, as he wants to escape his traumatic experiences, such as the death of his parents. He uses fantasy frequently when referring to his mother’s death and creates scenarios due to his paranoia which shows his inability to deal with trauma. Eggers also uses the idea of fantasy and reality as a cathartic process to self-evaluate himself and to subsequently escape judgements he fears such as the idea of him being a bad parent and being irresponsible which can be inflicted by both the reader and those surrounding him which links to the idea of him controlling people as well as representing Eggers’ anxieties. Additionally, Eggers’ use of fantasy and reality together shows his self-awareness as a writer, which also represents his use of post-modernity, his self-awareness is shown through his control over his writing and how he displays his life. One of the key areas where readers are shown the idea of fantasy and reality being blended is through the presentation of his mother’s illness. Dave uses the extended metaphor of a city ‘Like a tiny city with one big gleaming eye’ to present his mother’s aggressive stomach cancer which presents his inability to cope with reality and trauma, he has to create a fantasy to distance himself from the issue. Eggers also uses a number of expletive expressions such as ‘Turn.Out.The.Fucking.Light’ when referring to the city within his mother’s stomach which shows his use of fantasy to express his emotions towards his dying mother, he is extremely angry and shows this through his aggressive imagery of a busy and disruptive city. This demonstrates that Dave uses fantasy as a coping mechanism to escape the graphic nature of his mother’s illness. Eggers is further shown as being unaccepting of his mother’s illness and stressed about his new role as a parent through his use of the script form, which highlights his prominent anxieties and fears. Dave creates a pastiche of the autobiographical style by creating a script to address these emotions. He cannot accept the reality of his parents death and his anxieties lead to him imagining scenarios to explain their deaths ‘Plane crash. Train crash. Terrorists. Wolves…’ in order to present himself in a way to provoke certain reactions from ‘mother’ showing his anxiety of how he is viewed by others as well as demonstrating his reliance on fantasy. Eggers further includes musical notes within his script ‘what a good brother you are!’ in order to convince himself that he is doing well in new parenting role he has gained as a result of his mother’s death as well as still being a brother to Toph, showing the difficulties surrounding Dave’s upbringing. Eggers uses fantasy to create scenarios and dialogue which are wholly different to reality, which are influenced upon by his extreme paranoia, his need to escape reality and his need for expression. Eggers frequently invents dialogue but he also uses this to explore the theme of writing, allowing the reader to question to craft and accuracy of memoirs, which also shows his use of the cathartic process, he uses the memoir to criticise himself and his experiences. Additionally, Eggers fictionalises characters and situations to allow for this selfexpression and evaluation which challenges the traditional purpose of auto-biographies. The use of the character John is key as he symbolises Eggers’ wasted youth, ‘Find someone else to be symbolic of, you know, youth wasted or whatever’, which enables him to express his regret that he didn’t have a typical upbringing. Dave did not live as a typical youth due to

the loss of his parents and the carer role he gained for his brother as a result of the loss of his parents, he wants readers to understand his experiences because of this abnormal experience and this is why he uses John. Eggers uses John as a way of showing his consciousness of having wasted youth and a lack of achievement as well as using him to symbolise his fears and anxieties he faces in the present day, typically his anxiety of not being a good parent. The character of John also breaks out of the narrative frame to draw attention to Egger’s use of narrative methods which shows that he is self-conscious about being self-referential as well as demonstrating that Dave relies on fantasy to explain situations. One of the most significant situations where Dave has created a situation is the babysitter scenario, where Eggers believes his younger brother Toph has been murdered ‘He will try to molest Toph… he will do something with wax and rope. The possibilities snap through my head like paedophilia flashcards…’. This use of fantasy shows Eggers extreme paranoia as a result of him being the only person to look after Toph as well as representing Eggers’ anxiety surrounding death and being a good father to Toph which is a result of his parents dying, all he has ever known is death and he wants to protect Toph from this. Eggers’ also has a stream of consciousness surrounding the death of his brother which also adds to the idea that Dave is completely engulfed in his paranoia. Eggers convinces himself that his fanatical situations will become reality, ‘Toph will be killed’, the modality of ‘will’ shows his certainty surrounding his imagined scenarios which shows how dangerously influenced Eggers is by his imagination. Overall, Eggers mixes the themes of fantasy and reality throughout the memoir in multiple ways. The contrasting themes of fantasy and reality are prominent throughout with Dave typically using fantasy and created situations as a form of escapism or as a way of evaluating his situations. Dave frequently uses fantasy to cope with his parents death, particularly the graphic nature of his mother’s death as he cannot deal with the reality of the situation. Additionally, Eggers uses fantasy to evaluate his anxieties and paranoia in his new role as a parent for Toph and frequently associates fantasy with his paranoia about death and the fear that he will not be able to protect Toph from this. Eggers has also created characters such as John in order to evaluate his experiences in his life and to self-criticise himself. Eggers demonstrates an extreme reliance on fantasy to escape his traumatic experiences from his upbringing and as a way to cope and evaluate his current situations as well as criticise his wrongdoings....