| The Wind in the Willows holds its own as a fantasy and has appealed to readers of all ages and has achieved over a hundred editions since its publication in 1908. The Wind in the Willows is a deeply personal statement, resulting from a lifetime of thought and experience. Grahame has directly expressed his feelings in it. The permanent charm of The Wind in the Willows owes much to its nostalgic evocation of a pastoral good life and safe and comfortable homes and to the strong protest of the industrial progress. This thesis intends to make a thorough and systematic study of Grahame's The Wind in the Willows through an introduction to the fantastic world and the animals in the fantastic world based on the theory of Secondary World to explore Grahame's nostalgia and escape in fantasy.This paper consists of six parts.Part One, Introduction, gives a brief introduction to Kenneth Grahame and his work The Wind in the Willows as well as the literature review of this work.Part Two, Chapter One, introduces the fantastic world from two aspects:fantasy and secondary world theory.Part Three, Chapter Two, focuses on the fantastic world created by Grahame in fiction-Riverbank. This chapter will elaborate the pleasure and comfort of the Riverbank in contrast to the danger and insecurity away from the Riverbank to show that the Riverbank is an idealized rural England.Part Four, Chapter Three, makes a complete analysis of the fantastic characters in the fantastic world. Four major animal protagonists will be introduced:the innocent, curious Mole; the artist Rat; the unrepressed, boisterous Toad and the ideal, archetypal father-figure Badger. They represent aspects of Grahame's own personality.Part Five, Chapter Four analyzes the author's nostalgic escape in fantasy. Grahame shows his nostalgia for a rural, idyllic England and for childhood by creating a fantastic world. At the same time, the desire to escape is fully expressed. The Wind in the Willows provides an excellent, beautifully-written rural escape both from the pressures of an industrial society and also from some domestic realities as well.Part Six, Conclusion, summarizes that The Wind in the Willows is in many ways an elegy for the old idyllic English rural life. It concludes the totality of its author's life-his fears, disappointments, pleasures and passions. |
