Week 8: Contemporary Fantasy

Contemporary literature molds fantastic myths and concepts to modern settings, works such as the Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman serve as a strong example.
The story starts with the narrator visiting his childhood home after a funeral, he continues on and comes to another home that he recalls to be that of a girl named Lettie Hempstock who believed she had "an ocean" in her backyard, he wonders if the Hempstocks still inhabit the home and proceeds to enter. The oldest hempstock greets him and ushers him to the back, toward Lettie's "ocean". It is there he begins to recall his time as a childhood. He begins describing what is, for the most part, a mundane existence. This begins to shift when, his parents who are low on money, begin renting out his room to travelers. One particular traveler was an opal miner who soon after commits suicide in their minivan down the road and it is because of this that mystical things are set into motion that the narrator and the Hempstocks must combat.
Gaiman reinvents myth in a way that conforms in our modern society, while the Hempstock's power, Ursula Monkton and the other mystic beings originate from another msytical land or "the old country" they are addressing modern issues such as money, greed, and adultery. Ursula Monkton being a prime example. A being is awakened by the opal miner's suicide who killed himself because he gambled away his own money as well as his friend's. She begins making money show up in unseemly ways, reinforcing paranoia and distrust amongst her victims. When Lettie and the narrator try to bind her, the narrator ends up with a worm caught in his foot when he disobeys Lettie's instructions for a moment. That night he dislodges the worm and tosses it down the drain but a piece is left in his foot. The next day, a nanny named Ursula Monkton appears who is actually the being who lodged itself in his foot as a worm. Here we see a literal example of conforming to a contemporary era, the being comes back as a beautiful young woman, a form easy for people to accept as opposed to a demonic being. Ursula Monkton doesn't combat the narrator through supernatural means, she manipulates the narrator's family with her words and actions, turning his family against to the point that his father almost drowns him in a bathtub and later catches him having relations with Ursula.
The character of Ursula addresses contemporary issues despite being an ancient being, she attacks modern people with what is important to most of them which is money, she manipulates and undermines with words, portraying a seemingly innocent woman despite her constant abuse toward the narrator and these are scenarios that are still relevant today.