ABSTRACT
“Myth created by literature has now become the very space of definition of human behavior” (Edwards 1989, p. 102), and “myths determine our . . . culture,” representing “constants which transcend history and time” and “reassert basic human needs and desires in the face of adverse social conditions” (p. 104). In Edwards’s discussion of Le Vol du Vampire, she notes Tournier’s assertion that a literary work acts like a vampire, suck- ing the blood from the reader’s imagination in order for a process of identification to be enabled between the text and the reader. The identi- fication is a recognition of the “primordial longing” (p. 105) in readers for the myths of the past. White (1971) extends the reach of Tournier’s text to illuminate current mores and times: “Writers . . . are inviting their readers to interpret new experiences in the light of traditional sources of archetypal patterns” (p. 23).
