I need help analzying this quote.
The fantastic. . . lasts only as long as a certain hesitation. . . [in deciding]
whether or not what they [the reader and the protagonist] perceive derives
from “reality” as it exists in the common opinion. . . If he [the reader]
decides that the laws of reality remain intact and permit an explanation of
the phenomena described, we say that the works belong to another genre;
the uncanny. If, on the contrary, he decides that new laws of nature must be
entertained to account for the phenomena, we enter the genre of the
marvelous (41).
Indeed we distinguish, within the literary Gothic, two tendencies: that of the
supernatural explained (the “uncanny”). . . and that of the supernatural
accepted (the “marvelous”)
-- Tzvetan Todorov, The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary
Genre
I do not really understand what they are saying. Can you clear this up for me? Thank you!
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