A Study On E.M. Forster's Fantastic Fictions

E.M.Foster is one of the greatest English novelists of the 20 th century.His six long novels are widely acclaimed and repeatedly turned into movies.Although his short novels are not as well-known as those long novels,Forster himself is very fond of these short stories.There has a big difference between his short stories and long novels.In his short stories,he places his deep thinking on social issues into a literary space with broad vision,rich imagination,and unique imagery.There also has a large number of supernatural factors in this series of short stories and these short stories are called fantastic fiction.E.M.Foster has published three collected short stories in his lifetime.The study of this article is based on E.M.Foster 's first two collected short stories.In the first chapter,the Fantastic Fictions are defined by the distinction between fantasy and imagination that Wordsworth,Coleridge,E.M.Foster and Todorov Tzvetan explains.Foster and Todorov Tzvetan also have made specific demands on readers' reading styles,and then clarify two elements of fantastic fictions: supernatural factors and people's hesitation between the real world and the fantasy world.The second part uses the perspective of Todorov Tzvetan to further explain the fantastic fictions.At the same time,the paper introduces the unique position of Foster's short story novels in the history of British novels,and then analyzes the uniqueness and modernity of the short fantastic fictions.In the second chapter,E.M.Foster reconstructs the fairy tales such as the heaven world,pan god and the siren.And he creates a new mythological system and a utopian world which was created in the mythological level.At the same time,he expresses his reflection and criticism on the mechanical rationality and bourgeois' values that prevailed in modern industrial society.The third chapter begins with the characters of the British bourgeois in the short fantastic fictions,and then analyzes the alienation between modern human being and the modern society.The third part focuses on the Foster's thinking how to resolve the spiritual crisis of modern human being in modern industrial society,how to break the separation between people and the society.It is to return to nature,and achieve the real connection between man and nature,and complete the healthy growth of man.