The Fantastic in Fiction

In Millhauser’s short story “In the Reign of Harad IV” the point of view shifts from third person objective to third person limited omniscient seemingly for a main purpose of exposition and foreshadowing. By beginning the story in an objective point of view, the narrator is able to foreshadow the Master’s final goal in the first paragraph. This would be impossible to do with a limited omniscient point of view due to the Master not being able to understand how those who did not share his experiences perceived his work. Thus, the foreshadowing he would be able to offer would be of a different nature that could inform him but would not necessarily warn a reader. The foreshadowing that comes shortly after this first foreshadowing is offered by the Master; the Master realized that the “stirring restlessness” he felt was due to an urge to construct ever smaller creations (124). He could not even recognize when the foreshadowing of the restless feeling appeared to him.

The narrator, both objective and limited, is immediately trusted until the new apprentices attempt to view his new construction and praise him despite having “seen nothing” (131). This hollow praise calls into question the previous wonders the narrator described. The visit also enforces the Master’s isolation from the world as he sinks deeper and deeper into the world of the invisible.

The fantastic in this story is exaggeration. The Master creates smaller and smaller figures, moving from the visible world of miniatures and later crossing into “the dark kingdom of the invisible” (129). This desire to constantly outdo oneself, even to the point where the oneupmanship is impossible to perceive, as well as the “stirring restlessness” relates to the human experience of ambition (124).