ABSTRACT
Most fictions present an individual concept of reality and, in that narrow sense, a new reality. This chapter examines conscious comparison of our own vision of reality with that which we confront in the stories. The mimetic techniques for augmenting reality can be mixed with fantastic. Brunner's Stand on Zanzibar combines social cross section with an imaginary future world. Gardner's Grendel combines the fantasy of a monster and the reintroduction of repressed materials. Adding suppressed or repressed material, and contrasting views, are the chief techniques available to mimetic literature of vision. Fantasy contributes two further techniques: one is the magic device, the other, the addition of a mythological or metaphoric dimension to the mimetic level of the plot. The more exposure we have to a fantasy tradition, the more easily it can work upon us.
