Science Fiction & Fantasy Asked on July 8, 2021
Near the end of Chapter 3 of Phantastes the flower fairies get hold of a cat and proceed to forcefully and violently “remove” electrical sparks from the the feline:
…by this time the party which had gone towards the house, rushed out again, shouting and screaming with laughter. Half of them were on the cat’s back, and half held on by her fur and tail or ran beside her; till, more coming to their help, the furious cat was held fast and they proceeded to pick the sparks out of her with thorns and pins, which they handled like harpoons. (P. 41, of the Johannsen edition)
In Chapter 17, Anodos is accosted by a group of fairies and this is what he narrates
I attempted to run away, but they all rushed upon me, and laying hold of every part that afforded a grasp, held me tight, crowding around me like bees, they shouted an insect-swarm of exasperating speeches up into my face…
The Galvanic torrent of this battery of malevolence stung to life within me a spark of nobleness…(p. 213, of the Johannsen edition)
These two episodes of ‘Phantastes’ are obviously related and in each of them a creature is forced violently to release sparks by their fairy captors and tormentors. What is the possible reasons for MacDonald to include both these analogous violent electrical events within Phantastes?
A young George MacDonald studied science during his university career, at The University of Aberdeen, including the new and exciting scientific developments - and coinage of new terms like Cathode and Anode - related to Electricity, especially those of Michael Faraday (see Hal Broome’s “The Scientific Basis of MacDonald’s Dream Frame” and Soto’s “Mirrors in MacDonald’s Phantastes”).
Thus, MacDonald cleverly makes his cat partake of the nature of the cat(ode)
Cathode, n.
a. The path by which an electric current leaves the electrolyte and passes into the negative pole; the point or surface in contact with the negative pole... 1834 M. Faraday Exper. Res. Electr. (1839) §663 The cathode is that surface at which the current leaves the decomposing body, and is its positive extremity... (OED)
And then MacDonald does the same with Anodos
Anode, n. ... a. strictly, as applied by Faraday: The path by which an electric current leaves the positive pole, and enters the electrolyte, on its way to the negative pole. (OED)
Therefore, the fairies seem to be carrying out violent and unwelcome experiments, amounting to torture, with the bio-electric states of both the cat and Anodos.
Answered by ferjsoto42yahoocom on July 8, 2021
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