The Green World ABOUT OTHER WORLDS IN LITERATURE

Welcome to the Green World

What is the Green World?

Back in Module 2, you learned about the Monomyth Cycle in the video “What Makes a Hero?” and the supplemental website.

In this week’s reading, our hero, David, “crosses the threshold” into what the TED video calls the “special world.”

This world could be compared to: Dorothy’s Oz The Pevensie siblings’ Narnia Shakespeare’s Forest in A Midsummer Night’s Dream or the island in

The Tempest

We Start in London

The Threshold is

crossed

Our “Green World”

This technique of “crossing the threshold” is normally part of a “FRAME NARRATIVE” – when a story starts someplace, goes elsewhere, and then returns to the starting point…yep, David will end back in London (kind of…).

But when we cross the threshold, there are things we need to know about the Green World…particularly how it functions as compared to our starting place.

Let’s take a quick look at the starting place first….

London, 1939London is the urban center where our story starts. It is part of a land full of rules, laws, and organized religion and government. Behavior in an urban center is controlled and measured, particularly in a time of war. There is an expected behavior for children and adults – those who don’t follow the rules have problems.

The urban center is a place of constraint, morals, and laws, run by men… but also a place where a problem occurs that cannot be solved in the “real world”

In Comparison…The Green WorldIn contrast, THE GREEN WORLD:o Is a pastoral haven – a refugeo Lives by its own rules – not

organized laws and regulationso Is full of adventureo Allows characters to test

boundaries and discover new ways to be IN the world.

o Is rooted in ancient pagan rituals with summer’s victory over winter

o Addresses death and revivalo Is full of MAGIC

Literary Critic, Northrop FryeNorthrop Frye, a famous literary critic and Harvard Professor of Literature, explained the “green world” this way: The Green World is “an unbounded natural setting such as a forest, meadow, or glade…frequently affected by magic and mysterious…events (think A Midsummer Night’s Dream). The green world is indeed an ‘open’ space where the limits of law and rationality are transcended, but this does not mean anything goes. Rather, the opposition is between a human-centered, inner, psychological logic and magical, natural one.”

“The Green World cannot fully be known or controlled.”

Here’s an ExampleTHE WIZARD OF OZ

Starts in Kansas: Gray and dismal Toto’s threatened by

Ms. Gulch because he’s broken a “RULE” by biting her leg.

Punishment is going to be given out – Toto is to be put to sleep.

Running away to avoid punishment is Dorothy’s response to this problem.

The Green World of Oz

Colorful, full of new life (springtime with flowers, fruit, grains, and blossoming trees)

Full of MAGIC (The Witches, the Wizard, Flying Monkeys)

Full of Adventure – the yellow brick road

Wanting to go HOME

The Purpose of the Green WorldDorothy and Toto are able to get back to the REAL world once their adventure is over and they, okay, Dorothy learns what she was sent to learn.

Our Green World in The Book of Lost Things

We start with a meeting with a Woodman, then wolves…. We are going on an adventure with David, our hero.

So the question becomes why is David in the Green World and what, if any, is the

transformation we can expect?