ABSTRACT
MacDonald's adult fantasies use fairytale motifs, legendary dynamics, and folk beliefs to challenge orthodox Christian metaphysics. While MacDonald's resistance to conventional doctrines may make him appear to be freethinking, it does not mean that he is irreligious or not didactic. The aspects of MacDonald's Fairyland that most closely resonate with traditional fairy tales are Anodos's performances of the expected roles and behaviors of fairy tale heroes. Evaluation of Anodos makes explicit the gap between the idealistic creator or reader of a mrchen who merely sojourns in Fairyland as a dreamer or thinker and a fairy-tale protagonist. When Anodos first has his major moment of hesitation as to the reality of Fairyland, witnessing a child reading a fairy tale restored his belief. MacDonald offers the fairy-tale pattern, beliefs, and motifs in Phantastes as a vision of transformation that first promises to unite the world of spiritual imagination with reality, yet Anodos's ultimate alienation from so-called fairyland belies any such ideal synthesis.
