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35 pages 1 hour read

Abby Hanlon

Dory Fantasmagory

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2014

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Chapters 1-2Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 1 Summary: “Such A Baby”

Dory introduces her family. She is the youngest and everyone calls her “Rascal.” Her oldest sibling is Violet, and her middle sibling is Luke. Dory complains about how they never want to play with her. Dory describes her life during summer break. She peppers her siblings with questions, runs around in her nightgown, and avoids thinking about school. Her siblings accuse her of acting like a baby because she “talks to herself.” Dory insists that she is talking to her imaginary friend, Mary. Dory and Mary adventure around the house, stealing cookies, playing in the laundry basket, and looking for monsters. Dory points out that the house is full of monsters hiding in unexpected places like inside the toilet, in a broken drawer, and inside of the ketchup bottle. Dory’s constant monster warnings annoy her siblings.

Violet and Luke hatch a plan to scare Dory and encourage her to stop acting like a baby. Violet tells Dory the story of Mrs. Gobble Gracker, a 507-year-old robber who steals baby girls. They warn Dory to stop acting like a baby so Mrs. Gobble Gracker won’t get her. The plan backfires; instead of being scared, Dory follows them around asking questions about Mrs. Gobble Gracker.

Chapter 2 Summary: “Did You Hear the Doorbell Ring”

Dory starts imagining Mrs. Gobble Gracker in the house. After hiding with Mary under the bed, Dory decides to go to battle against Mrs. Gobble Gracker. She puts on her cape and sneaks into Luke’s room, looking for his darts. When Luke walks in, Dory hides in the closet. Dory thinks she has dodged Mrs. Gobble Gracker but Luke discovers her, causing Dory to throw a temper tantrum out of frustration. Once she is finished crying, she feels better and borrows Luke’s dart, which she claims will make Mrs. Gobble Gracker sleep for 100 years. Dory follows Mrs. Gobble Gracker downstairs.

Just as she’s about to throw the dart, she hears Luke and Violet playing house and gets distracted. She volunteers to play the baby in their game, but Luke and Violet choose Cherry, the baby doll instead. Because of this distraction, Dory doesn’t remember what she was doing before and instead snuggles in her bed. Before she can fall asleep, however, Mary shows her the dart and she remembers Mrs. Gobble Gracker. All the hallway monsters are even afraid of Mrs. Gobble Gracker, so Dory must be brave. She throws the dart right at Mrs. Gobble Gracker’s butt, causing her to collapse and go to sleep. Dory tells her siblings about her victory, but they push her away. When their mom asks where Dory came up with Mrs. Gobble Gracker, Violet and Luke pretend to have no idea. Dory feels betrayed.

Chapters 1-2 Analysis

The first two chapters of Dory Fantasmagory introduce the reader to Dory, the protagonist, and her imaginative way of seeing the world. Dory begins the story by describing her reality. She’s the youngest, her siblings never want to play with her, and everyone calls her “Rascal” because of her perceived unruliness. Dory, separated from her siblings by age and interests, feels isolated in her home environment. She has learned to cope with this by blending reality with fantasy. For example, Dory complains about how her siblings accuse her of talking to herself when she is actually talking to her imaginary friend, Mary. This moment is emblematic of Dory’s worldview, always hovering between fantasy and reality, thematically introducing the theme of The Incorporation of Imagination Into Narration. Because of the way the story is delivered, the reader can understand how seriously Dory takes her imaginary games. The narration presents these fantasies as if they are real and follows Dory’s construction of detailed narratives involving imaginary characters. Within this framework, these opening chapters also introduce the antagonist of the story, the 507-year-old, child-stealing monster, Mrs. Gobble Gracker. Though Dory’s siblings made her up entirely, Dory takes the story seriously and begins adding new elements, revealing her creativity. Dory’s ability to imagine and create her own version of reality is a core element of her character and her storytelling in Dory Fantasmagory, and this character trait creates a complex point of view and reader experience.

The story’s point of view is continuously hybridized throughout the narrative. The reader is aware of two realities—actual reality and Dory’s perspective—and this is clear both in the text and in the illustrations. Though the text is entirely from Dory’s point of view, the illustrations sometimes reveal a detail or element of foreshadowing that Dory does not seem to notice or understand. For example, the illustrations on pages 16 and 17 show Luke and Violet scheming to come up with a story to scare Dory into behaving. In the text on the following pages, Dory hears the story of Mrs. Gobble Gracker without apparent awareness of her siblings’ ulterior motives. This dramatic irony infuses the story with suspense; the reader knows more than Dory does about the situation because Dory misses these social and context clues, as she is so lost in her own mind. This suspense-building relationship between the text and the illustration continues throughout the novel. On page 30, the reader can see Mrs. Gobble Gracker hiding behind the curtain, planning to scare Dory when she least expects it. Unlike the conversation between Luke and Violet which happened in reality, this scene exists in Dory’s imagined world yet contains information Dory seems not to know. There is a looseness to the logic of the illustrations and narration that creates a playful, dreamlike quality to the story—a “phantasmagory,” or “phantasmagoria.” Hanlon helps the reader out by starting the novel with an epigraph defining “fantasmagory,” as the word is spelled in the title, as “a dream-like state where real life and imagination are blurred together.” The blurred lines between Dory’s imagination and her real life, and between the perspective of the illustration and the text, contribute to this feeling of “fantasmagory” that mimics Dory’s childlike, fantastical view of the world in an authentic and familiar way. While many of the details in Dory’s fantasies are wacky and far removed from her life, there is often an underlying motive or purpose to her imaginary game. For example, Dory often turns to her imaginary friend, Mary, when her siblings have rejected her. She looks for Mrs. Gobble Gracker when she is looking for a way to re-engage with her siblings after a period of isolation.

Dory is a unique type of unreliable narrator. She describes imaginary things very seriously and in a matter-of-fact way, yet she also openly admits that she knows they are made up. However, Dory does not come across as a liar nor is her mental state in question, as is sometimes the case with unreliable narrators. She merely behaves like an ordinary six-year-old who loves to play pretend. Dory’s unreliability contributes to her characterization and the authenticity of her childlike voice. Despite Dory presenting things that are untrue, the reader likely has no trouble parsing what is real and what is imaginary. Dory is entirely honest about the real things that happen in her life, merely supplementing and embellishing reality with her imaginative games.

These chapters also give readers a clear picture of Dory’s character and the inner conflicts that affect her. Dory expresses her clear desire to play with her older siblings and bemoans being left out. She even mimics their behavior, attempting to exclude Mary the way Violet excludes her. Dory looks for ways to impress her siblings or participate in their games, offering to be the baby in their game of house. However, Dory is only six years old and cannot regulate her behavior. She follows her siblings around even when they ask her not to and takes any hint of a game they propose too far. Sometimes, her emotions spill out into a temper tantrum, complete with screaming, kicking, and crying. None of these behaviors endear her to her siblings, yet Dory can’t seem to modulate her behavior. This dynamic points to the way the book explores the theme of Defining Maturity and the ideas different characters hold about maturity. Dory’s siblings consider her lack of self-control to be a sign of her immaturity. Their games are perceived as more sophisticated and controlled, more tethered to the normal rules of the world, and Dory’s lack of self-control does not fit within their framework.

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