From Cocoon To Butterfly

A spatial turn arose in the later twentieth century in various disciplines such as geography, history, sociology, study of culture and so on. It emphasizes the importance of place/space in the humanities as an awakening of spatial consciousness. These studies on space provide a new perspective and diverse possibilities for literature criticisms. This paper is an analysis on the initiation theme of Krabat, a classic Fantasy novel by the famous German children’s literature author Otfried PreuBler, from a spatial perspective. The spatial narrative problems will be systematically analyzed with the spatial narratology in literature and Foucault’s Panopticism in sociology and some other theories. In this way the analysis perspectives of this work will be expanded.Krabat is the initiation story of a 14-year-old young man with the same name from the title. He is seduced to an evil mill and becomes an apprentice there to learn black magic. The protagonist has to be so careful and steadfast to figt against the wicked master of the mill and to resist the temptation of various sorts. It’s not just a story filled with exciting fantastic plots, but a marvelous mix with different literature genres. The material of the work comes from a German folktale. The author was very impressed with it in his childhood and therefore applied it in his later work. And it reflects the eternal theme of initiation for young adults.Fantasy is a modern literature genre. In general concentrate fantastic works on supernatural things. The biggest distinguishing feature is the created "secondary world", which is different from the real society, but reflects it. A good Fantasy novel is full of subversions. It devotes in helping readers to pay attention to some social problems instead of pure entertainment. The black mill created by Preuβler is such a metaphor for the real world. It is a laboratory for real humanities. Therefore it’s worth to be explicitly analyzed.From such considerations in the second chapter the emphasis will be put on the three dimensions of literature spatial narratology from Ansgar Nunning and Panopticism from Michal Foucault. In the third chapter I will analyze the form, content and theme of this work, aiming at exploring its features as different genres, respectively as Fantasy, young adult novel, and "Fantasy-Bildungsroman". It is a sorting and deepening of the initiation theme in this work. The fourth chapter is an analysis of the concrete space in the text. Foucault considers space as the basis for the operation of power and the medium for the power implementation. Power can only be operated in space structure. Panopticon is a typical spatial form for the operation of power. In three dimensions of this word, the theme, concrete space structure and narratologic methods are corresponded with the Panopticon structure. The relationships of power change unpredictably in this work. An enclosed circle is formed and broken in the end. The fifth chapter returns to the initiation theme of the novel. Compared to the process from a cocoon to a butterfly, the work will be analyzed from an anthropologic perspective with the process from closure to transformation to breakthrough. It corresponds with the closure and breakthrough features in the narrative space in this work.