Dark Dreams: The Highs and Lows of Escapist Fantasy

December 8^th, 2016

In his essay On Fairy Stories, Tolkien explains that ‘escape’ is one of the essential functions of fantasy; he believes it to be something noble, and dismisses the scorn of critics who view escapist works as somehow juvenile or detrimental. He goes on to say that fantasy permits those who are essentially “imprisoned” an outlet for their suffering – a way to escape “poverty, pain, sorrow, injustice, death” (Tolkein 22). It even allows those disenfranchised by the modern world to enter into a place where they have agency. This concept is no better demonstrated than in the pulp tales of the Swords and Sorcery genre – specifically those of Robert E. Howard. His Conan tales are often labeled as “boyish” or lacking in literary value, but these criticisms ignore the very vital function that Swords and Sorcery serves: the genre effectively provides readers an exit into a world in which they have power, where the mundanity of their lives opens up into incredible adventure. In the novel Wolf in White Van by John Darnielle, the protagonist becomes obsessed with Conan (and by extension, the life of his creator) specifically for this reason. Sean Philips attempts to escape from the real world into one of fantasy, and in doing so, the boundaries between the two quickly become blurred. This essay argues that the novel uses Howard’s work, and the narrator’s obsession with his life, to demonstrate that while escapist fantasy is immensely valuable to the vulnerable – providing a place of shelter and agency – it is not a solution in itself. The text demonstrates that when the two spheres of fantasy and reality begin to merge, the results are inevitably disastrous. In proof of this point, this essay will explain the escapist promise of Swords and Sorcery as it relates to the protagonist’s life; the ways in which the narrator uses Conan to escape both the struggles of adolescence and the reality of his disfiguration; and finally, the ways in which his obsession with Howard and Conan bleed over into everyday life, inflicting pain on Sean’s family and ultimately driving him towards suicide.

To demonstrate the appeal of Howard’s world as it relates to the main character’s struggles, it is first important to establish the exact nature of the Swords and Sorcery genre: what it is on a surface level, and how it services Tolkien’s idea of fantasy as an escape from the pain of the modern world. As John Strugnell explains, the genre is relevant to contemporary society in that its heroes are those who can affect their destinies through individual actions. The genre therefore “dramatizes a world in which individuals are no longer overwhelmed by the forces arranged against them … [They] reflect the need of the child to overcome the threat of the adult world” (Strugnell 172–173). This is the core element at work within Swords and Sorcery; the genre allows readers to escape into a world in which they have agency and power. The male heroes of these tales – warriors like Conan the Cimmerian or Thongor of Lemuria – are all portrayed as being mighty, muscular, and most importantly, independent; they alone dictate the course of their lives. This is precisely why the genre is so often associated with young boys. As a demographic, they are heavily restricted by their parents, often being told where to go, what to do, and when to do it. Swords and Sorcery responds to this lack of control by allowing readers to live vicariously through their heroes, thereby challenging the restrictions of the adult world. This is especially pertinent to Sean, who feels similarly restricted by his youth, and later finds himself entirely dependent on other people due to his disfiguration. His attempted suicide effectively makes childhood “[his] permanent condition,” and thus the childhood power fantasy of Conan maintains a very distinct appeal for him (Darnielle 100).

This fantasy of Conan as a symbol of power and control is used throughout the novel as a way for Sean to escape the struggles of his life. This reveals itself even in the very first fantasy of the novel, as Sean recalls his childhood self standing in his grandparent’s backyard, before quickly reshaping it in his own dark imaginings. He pictures himself as Conan – King Conan – sitting on a “regal seat hewn from ancient rock, immovable, imperious” (6). Unlike Howard’s version, this warrior holds to no code: he is dark, foreboding, and wields ultimate power. Sean says, “I took control of the place, of the scene: I made it mine. Groans echoed in the cave. Brittle bones broke beneath the knees of my crawling subjects. We had moved from San Jose to Montclair a few months back; it had ruined something for me, I was having a hard time making new friends. I had grown receptive to dark dreams” (7). In this specific instance, Sean takes the elements of Swords and Sorcery which are useful to him – the bleak settings, the power clichés, the independent heroes – and takes them to an extreme as a way of servicing his inner desires. By assuming the role of King Conan, he is no longer at the mercy of what his parents tell him to do; he is no longer moving from town to town, unable to make friends. Instead, he is in a position of power. He has “control of the place,” with grovelling subjects at his mercy. His throne is described as being immovable and impervious to represent his desire for stability in life. Every aspect of this fantasy challenges the restrictions and struggles of Sean’s adolescence. As Strugnell explained, the escapist appeal of Swords and Sorcery is that it transports the reader to a place where they, through their heroes, are no longer overwhelmed by the forces of their lives: Sean’s fantasy of himself as Conan effectively fulfills that promise. Darnielle includes this scene so early on in the story to establish how Sean relies on fantasy to give him a sense of agency and stability in life. It also alerts the reader to the fact that the novel will deal heavily with this conflict between fantasy and reality – a conflict that will gain greater substance as Sean’s dark obsession with Conan begins to conflict with his real life. Later in the novel, long after his attempted suicide and disfiguration, Sean’s father calls to tell him that his grandmother has passed away. In an attempt to cope with this loss, and find the strength to comfort his father, Sean once again imagines himself as Conan. He says, “[Conan] was my model: trying to stand strong and brave, sword in hand, black hair flowing. In truth I have very little hair on my head now, and the hair I do have tends to clump in stringy clusters, but if my eyes are closed and my concentration is strong I can form a different picture of myself in my mind” (Darnielle 124– 125). Swords and Sorcery was previously identified as being useful to young boys, as the genre’s heroes offer them a fantasy of control and stability. In Sean’s case, however, he sees Conan as his “model” far into adulthood, as his accident rendered him childlike in many respects. This specific quotation draws attention to his condition by contrasting Conan – someone brave, strong, and beautiful – with Sean – someone physically deformed, with only clumps of molted hair. Where Conan controls his own destiny, Sean’s injury leaves him, like a child, at the mercy of forces beyond his control; he cannot live a normal life, and relies on nurses to care for him. Imagining himself as Conan thus fulfils the same fantasy that it did as a child. It gives him strength, and removes him from the pain of his reality. In this specific instance, Conan’s strength enables Sean to find shelter from the complex emotions that arise from his grandmother’s death. Through both this, and through young Sean’s escapist vision, Darnielle is attempting to convey the immense power that fantasy holds to both comfort and empower individuals.

However, while Conan is evidently a very useful fantasy for Sean, his obsession quickly becomes detrimental when it begins to conflict with the realities of his life and the people in it. Shortly after his attempted suicide, Sean orders a Conan-themed cassette tape titled “In Hyborian Sleep.” Its extreme sounds free him from the painful ringing in his ears – a constant reminder of his disfiguration – and he quickly descends into the same fantasy that began the book. As Sean says, “I held my big head in the sweet spot between the speakers and closed my eyes to dream of barbarian conquest” (89). This fantasy is interrupted, however, when Sean’s mother enters the room: “Whatever this is, it’s too much. You’re alone in your room all the time, and the music’s always on, and you’re still doing that Conan thing you did when you were just a —” … I saw my mother’s eyes fill halfway with tears” (89). Here, Sean’s obsession with Conan has begun to take over his life. In some sense, it is necessary: due to his condition, Sean is extremely vulnerable and cannot function independently. He thus attempts to enter into the exact same fantasy which supported him as a child as a way to escape his pain. However, he has involved himself in this internal world so completely that his external world begins to suffer. His pain is instead transferred to the real, living people in his life. As his mother says, he ignores her, he isolates himself in his room, and he attempts to drown out the real world with music. Sean choses fantasy over reality, and as a result his real life begins to fall apart around him, destroying his relationships with family and friends. Here, Darnielle is attempting to demonstrate that fantasy is only useful insofar as it does not override reality. This idea is no better demonstrated than through Sean’s suicide attempt: it is the climax of the novel, and the culmination of all the dark stirrings which characterize his inner world. Holding the rifle, Sean contemplates what will happen if he does not kill himself. He imagines himself getting his own car, graduating, finding a job, having a child that looks just like him – and he rejects this reality. He says, “Then I went back into my room, locked into a sequence as perfect as a pattern, and I sat down on my great rock throne, invisible to the outside world but palpable beneath me … I positioned the rifle beneath my chin, it feels cold, like an actual thing in the actual present physical world” (206 – 207). If one looks at Conan as a power fantasy – as a method of escape from the rules and realities of everyday life – Sean's attempted suicide becomes an extension of that fantasy. His mention of a “great rock throne” is a clear reference to King Conan’s throne at the very beginning of the novel. To Sean, this throne represents power and personal agency – it is tied intrinsically to a fantasy world which liberates him from the external forces of his life. He specifically imagines a set path stretching out in front of him, one where he has children and lives a normal life, to call attention to these perceived forces which dictate his future. His attempt to escape this destiny through suicide is thus a real-world fulfillment of the escapism and control promised to him by Conan. While this fantasy was useful to him as a child, he has now taken it into the real world, and the result – his disfiguration – is disastrous. This confluence between fantasy and reality is further represented in the actual language of the text, as Sean’s throne is described as something “invisible to the outside world,” something only Sean can perceive. This is contrasted with the rifle, which is described as something distinctly physical, actually existing in the real world. The diction here suggests an undercurrent of surprise. Through the stark cold presence of the rifle, Sean comes to a sudden awareness of how completely he has involved himself in his own mind, and how his suicide is a conflict between these two worlds. Once again, Darnielle is attempting to demonstrate that fantasy is only useful insofar as it does not tread on one’s real life. When these two spheres truly meet, the results are disastrous.

The terrible consequences of Sean’s obsessions are further demonstrated through the fact that his attempted suicide, carried out in clear connection to his fantasy of Conan, also parallels the death of Robert E. Howard, Conan’s creator. As Sean explains, “[Howard] blew his brains out in the driveway of his house in Cross Plains. He was thirty years old and his mother was in a coma. I memorized all these details when I was fourteen, running around everywhere devouring every piece of information about Conan I could find; it had a religious appeal for me” (88). Howard’s life, while real in a sense, is simply an extension of Sean’s fantasy world. He is long dead by the time of the novel, and Sean only learns about him through reading. He therefore exists within the same intangible space that Conan does. Thus, in the same way that Sean imagined himself as Conan, so too does he (perhaps unconsciously) relate his own life to Howard’s. By involving himself so heavily in the dark details of this man’s life, such that his obsession takes on religious connotations, Sean is one again taking his fantasy too far. The negative consequences of his obsession with Howard reveal themselves in his attempted suicide, as Sean, just like Howard, attempts to end his life on his own terms. Both men, still relatively young and strong, shoot themselves to escape their harsh realities: Howard could not imagine a future beyond his mother’s death, while Sean saw a future unfolding in front of him and chose to eliminate it. While it is not made explicit in the text, Sean’s attempted suicide is essentially a fulfilment of his religious obsession with Howard, and, as previously explained, Conan. Once again, the novel clearly demonstrates the dangers of overinvolvement in one’s fantasies and inner worlds.

Overall, it is clear that both Howard and Conan occupy a very sacred place within Sean’s mind; the escapist fantasy offered by them is clearly instrumental in giving him a place of security and control over his life. However, when his imagined world of Swords and Sorcery begins to take precedence over his real one, his life and relationships begin to suffer. The power of Swords and Sorcery is first seen in the fact that it offers readers a sense of agency over their lives. By living vicariously through Conan, Sean is given a sense of control over his life: both as a child without a sense of stability, struggling to make friends, and as a vulnerable, disfigured man struggling to deal with the harsh reality of his grandmother’s death. In both instances, imagining himself as Conan gives Sean strength and helps to channel his complex emotions. However, when Sean strays too far into his fantasy world, he is not given the same sense of shelter. By isolating himself, effectively trading one world for another, Sean’s real life begins to disintegrate. This is taken to its ultimate conclusion when Sean attempts suicide while imaging himself yet again as Conan, sitting on his mighty throne. His suicide is at once both a fulfilment of the escapist promise of Swords and Sorcery, as well as a culmination of Sean’s obsession with Howard’s suicide. The novel is, at its core, a meditation on fantasy as a form of escapism, and the dangers of that fantasy when it bleeds over into the everyday lives of those who indulge in it. It is at once about the worlds these people create to escape from their own, and the places where these two worlds intersect – to disastrous consequences. Ultimately, Sean’s story reveals that while fantasy has an incredible capacity to heal, it cannot truly fix the tortured souls who come to rely on it.

Works Cited

Darnielle, John. Wolf in White Van. Toronto: Harper Collins, 2014. Print.

Strugnell, John. “Hammering the Demons: Sword, Sorcery and Contemporary Society.”

Twentieth-Century Fantasists: Essays on Culture, Society and Belief in Twentieth-Century Mythopoeic Literature. Ed. Kath Filmer. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 1992. 172-182. Print.

Tolkien, J. R. R. “On Fairy-Stories.” Brainstorm Services. N.p., n.d. Web.