Intertextual Journeys & Monomyth Structures in Fowles' The Magus
How mythological allusion constructs the threshold worlds of John Fowles' novel — tracing two interpenetrating liminal spaces, the narrative codes that encode them, the Hero's Journey of the protagonist, and the ethical–existential reading through Bakhtin's philosophy of the act.
The problem of liminal spaces — the transition from the profane to the sacred, a "falling" outside of reality with threshold sensations of ambivalence, irrationality, mysticism and the supernatural — remains consistently relevant across the interdisciplinary paradigm of the humanities, including literary studies.
The concept of the liminal worlds is most extensively developed in philosophy and anthropology — in the works of Beech, Thomassen, Turner and Van Gennep. Liminality is associated with a three-phase transition from an established system to an alternative one: the pre-liminal stage of separation from the world, the middle stage of transition as an intermediate "journey" between worlds, and the post-liminal stage of reintegration with the world, but in a transformed state. In the liminal phase, the individual dwells neither "here" nor "there," in zones of "indeterminacy."
From a literary perspective, this philosophical interpretation corresponds to the three-component structural model of the monomyth by Joseph Campbell (1949), which includes separation, initiation and return as stages of the hero's transcendent journey.
Detachment from the established, familiar world — the beginning of the transcendent journey before crossing the threshold.
The intermediate "journey" between worlds, where the subject dwells neither here nor there, in zones of indeterminacy.
Return to the world — but in a transformed state, the journey's resolution and the realization of change.
The choice to analyze Fowles' novel The Magus is justified by the fact that the blurring of boundaries between worlds is a structurally defining principle of the work, supported by intertextual play with liminal spaces. The article's focus on the novel's intertextual connections with ancient Greek mythology rests on three premises: allusions to ancient sources are among the most frequent in Fowles' text; the myth creates ambivalence and spatial-temporal uncertainty in the narrator's perception of the world, blurring the boundaries between the "real," the mythological and the mythical; and in ancient culture, liminal spaces and liminal creatures — inevitably drawn toward each other — were themselves a recurring literary motif.
The article is built within four interlocking theoretical frameworks, each contributing a distinct vocabulary for reading the threshold worlds of The Magus.
Genealogically rooted in the anthropological theory of liminality (Turner, Van Gennep) and intersecting with Foucault's concept of heterotopia — "other spaces" that operate by their own logic of temporality and experience, becoming zones of uncertainty where social roles and spatio-temporal coordinates blur into disorientation, transformation and transition.
Human existence conceptualized as Being-as-event — a concrete, once-occurrent reality produced through an answerable act. The categories of responsibility, the non-alibi in Being, participative thinking and being-as-event become the ethical–existential lens on the protagonist's liminal experience.
The five narrative-semiotic codes that underpin the construction of liminal spaces across subtextual, connotative and cultural-symbolic levels of meaning-making.
Intertextual means incorporate the spatio-temporal dimension of myth and mystical reality into the semiotic space of the text, functioning as a mechanism for actualizing liminal spaces.
Despite sustained scholarly interest in the poetics of liminality — explored in Blake (Frye, Font, Sophonpanich), in Victorian and contemporary fiction (Damico, Dreiding), in nineteenth-century threshold poetics (Wry), and among Ukrainian scholars (Bortnyk, Visych & Bugera, Semeryn) — John Fowles' The Magus has received little systematic attention from this perspective. Existing studies address liminality only fragmentarily, through the analysis of Conchis as a boundary identity, or through the novel's intersemiotic and intermedial codes.
The present study addresses this gap by distinguishing mytho-liminal and mystico-liminal spaces within the novel's chronotope; by analyzing them through their intertextual mechanisms and narrative coding; and by proposing an original interpretative framework that relates the protagonist's liminal experience and initiation to Bakhtin's philosophy of the act.
The aim is to identify the distinctive features of mythological allusions as activators of liminal spaces and of the protagonist's liminal states in The Magus, taking into account the role of mythological references in the narrative coding of the text.
Identify and substantiate the specificity of mytho-liminal and mystic-liminal spaces, and trace their interaction within the protagonist's psychonarrative through intertextual devices.
Analyze the correlation between the techniques of constructing liminality and the narrative encoding of the text.
Determine the correspondence between the protagonist's stages of initiation and the phases of the Hero's Journey in Campbell's Monomyth.
Tracing allusions and reminiscences as the meaning-making mechanism of the liminal chronotope.
The structural method of narrative coding applied to the five codes that construct liminal space.
Focused on the role of mythological intertextuality in actualizing the motifs of the hermeneutic code.
Describing the textual phenomena through which liminality is realized in the narrator's discourse.
Based on Campbell's invariant archetypal monomyth, correlating it with the pre-liminal, liminal and post-liminal stages.
Bakhtin's chronotope — the "intrinsic connectedness of temporal and spatial relationships" — used to categorize space-time relations in liminal spaces.
Intertextual devices construct two interpenetrating liminal spaces in the novel. Entering and overcoming them is associated with the protagonist's initiation, which correlates with the stages of Campbell's Monomyth.
In the protagonist's mind the myth merges with reality through allusions to mythological plots and characters — the mythological topos of the Labyrinth with the locus of its Center and the Minotaur. It is filled with mythological elements, creating the threshold state of the narrator.
The space of the metagame, in which physical topoi and loci are endowed with mystical properties through allusions. It is the site of the protagonist's initiation, where the boundaries between the supernatural and the natural, past and present, truth and lies, life and death are erased.
Fig. 1 — Mythical-liminal and mystical-liminal spaces in The Magus
The mytho-liminal space is encoded through allusions in the protagonist's narrative, underlying a "blurred" spatio-temporal modality where the present in his consciousness merges with the mythological past.
Nicholas experiences a sensation "of having entered a myth," remembering the feeling of being Odysseus or Theseus. The blurred chronotope — a detachment from time and space conveying the liminality of his state — becomes a recurrent characteristic of his entire psychonarrative, as he experiences a "disengagement between existence and nothingness."
I was a townsman; and I was rootless. I rejected my own age yet could not sink back into an older.Fowles, The Magus, 2004, p. 47
In his authorial verse, the protagonist compares himself to "Icarus eternally damned, the dupe of time," projecting the state of the mythological Icarus — "cast out" of his own time — onto his threshold state. Time that transcends chronological time is referred to in the novel as Time with a capital T: real and physical, yet merged with mythological time where past and future blend into a sacred, cyclical, suspended present.
It was like physically, moment by moment, to have been young and ancient, a Ulysses on his way to meet Circe, a Theseus on his journey to Crete, an Oedipus still searching for his destiny… an intensely mysterious present and concrete feeling.Fowles, The Magus, 2004, pp. 151–152
These allusions foreshadow Nicholas' own initiation, like that of the ancient heroes. The projection of fused present and mythological time into the space of liminality explains the emergence of loci such as the "trap" and the "maze." In the hermeneutic code, allusions to Odysseus, Theseus and Oedipus encode the common motif of trials — the quest and transformation of ancient heroes — defining for Nicholas' spiritual odyssey.
Let it all come, even the black minotaur, so long as it comes; so long as I may reach the center.Fowles, The Magus, 2004, p. 306
The mythological topos of the Labyrinth becomes a place of spiritual initiation. Its Center is the place of concentration of a chaotic, uncontrollable element that Nicholas must confront — embodied in the image of the inner Minotaur, resonating with Nietzsche's "cave-Minotaur of conscience." The self-identification of the protagonist with Theseus, and his inner self with the Minotaur, projects the image of the Labyrinth onto the second liminal space — the mystical metagame — within which this initiation occurs.
In the hermeneutic code, the mystic-liminal space is encoded through allusions to Tartarus, which refers to the physical topos of Burani Island where Nicholas undergoes physical trials and "spiritual vivisection" at the hands of the metagame participants.
Tartarus (Burani Island) was ruled by a king, Hades.Fowles, The Magus, 2004, p. 543
For Nicholas, Hades is embodied in Conchis — a mystical, "god-like" figure directing the intricate "Godgame," creating a liminal parallel reality in which Nicholas cannot distinguish mysticism from reality. The allusive identification of the island topos with the mythological topos endows the island with the characteristics of mystical liminal space: it retains the reality of an image existing in the physical world while being imbued with mystical attributes through allusion. The topos of Burani-Tartarus is embedded within the broader topos of Greece.
None of the books I had read explained this sinister-fascinating, this Circe-like quality of Greece.Fowles, The Magus, 2004, p. 40
Greece is marked as a liminal topos through the allusion Circe-like, which solidifies the ambivalent connotations of sinister-fascinating, drawing on the cunning, cruel goddess of magic — underpinning paratextual connections to the novel's title, The Magus. The "sinister vs admirable" opposition recurs throughout: Conchis evokes both mystical fear and admiration; Lily-Julie embodies both beauty and danger.
In the liminal space of the island, mythological characters "come to life," coexisting with real ones: a laurel-crowned naked man (Apollo), a naked woman in ancient sandals (nymph), a satyr pursuing the nymph, and a goddess in gladiatorial gear (Artemis) who kills the satyr. The inexplicability and otherworldliness of the plot, which intertwines with ordinary life on Burani and defies rational explanation, creates liminal sensations of psychological disorientation. Much like the satyr, the protagonist metaphorically "dies" at the end of the novel in the "detoxification" scene involving Lily-Julie, who had played Artemis.
The space of the metagame is simulated by the antagonist Conchis, allusively marked as an omniscient Zeus, with a haunting, brooding omnipresence, a deity-Conchis and Hades, under whose power the protagonist finds himself — inducing liminal sensations of anxiety and fear: "A bat's wing of fear flickered through my mind."
The islanders pronounce the name with a hard "ch" — the ch of "loch" — creating homonyms between Conchis' name and the plural of "conch," symbolizing in Greek mythology the trumpet of the Tritons that awaken and govern the sea. Conchis invisibly controls the elemental events of his metatheatre to awaken Nicholas' conscience.
Something was expected of me, some Orphean performance that would gain me access to the underworld… I had apparently found the entrance to Tartarus. But that brought me no nearer Eurydice.Fowles, The Magus, 2004, p. 568
The paintings in the house — the Bonnards, with their "eternal outpouring of a golden happiness" — become peculiar loci, spatial images pointing to harmonious worlds Nicholas aspires to from the confined spaces of liminality, like windows on a world he had tried to reach all his life.
Given the article's focus on mythological allusion, the cultural code (CC) is dominant, shaping every other type of narrative coding. It runs throughout both tables below as the foundation on which the semantic, hermeneutic, symbolic and actional codes are built.
| Intertextual device — allusion / reminiscence | Narrative codes (CC-based) |
|---|---|
| the feeling of being Odysseus or Theseus | Semantic connotations of ambivalence, ambiguity |
| Icarus eternally damned, the dupe of time | Semantic connotations of hopelessness & alienation |
| Now I was Theseus in the maze; and the Minotaur | Hermeneutic the motif of the protagonist's initiation |
| I thought, I am Theseus in the maze; let it all come, even the black minotaur… so long as I may reach the center | Hermeneutic initiation Symbolic "freedom vs imprisonment" |
| it was like physically… a Ulysses on his way to meet Circe, a Theseus on his journey to Crete, an Oedipus still searching for his destiny… an intensely mysterious present and concrete feeling | Semantic ambivalence Actional predicts the trials Hermeneutic quest & transformation |
| Intertextual device — allusion / reminiscence | Narrative codes (CC-based) |
|---|---|
| Tartarus (Burani Island in Greece) was ruled by a king, Hades | Semantic emotional tension & anxiety Symbolic "reality vs otherworldliness," "life vs death" |
| sinister-fascinating, this Circe-like quality of Greece | Semantic ambivalence, alienation & magic Symbolic "sinister vs admirable" |
| Apollo, nymph, satyr, Artemis & related mythological stories, coming to life on a real island | Symbolic "reality vs myth," "real vs supernatural / mystical" |
| an omniscient Zeus, with a haunting, brooding omnipresence; a deity-Conchis; Hades — allusive nominations of the antagonist | Semantic anxiety & ambivalence Symbolic "reality vs otherworldliness" Hermeneutic initiation |
| homonyms between Conchis' name and the plural of "conch," symbolizing the trumpet of the Tritons | Hermeneutic the motif of initiation & rebirth |
| Something was expected of me, some Orphean performance that would gain me access to the underworld… But that brought me no nearer Eurydice | Symbolic "reality vs otherworldliness" Hermeneutic trials & initiation Actional foreshadows the search for self |
| boys called Socrates and Aristotle… the old woman who did my room out as Aphrodite | Semantic ambivalence & liminality |
Number of times each narrative code is activated by the intertextual devices catalogued in Tables 1 & 2, split by liminal space
Derived by counting the code attributions in the article's own Tables 1 & 2 (5 devices in the mytho-liminal space; 7 in the mystical-liminal space). The Cultural Code (CC) underpins all 12 devices and is therefore foundational across both tables.
The protagonist's transformation correlates with the stages of the Hero's Journey from Campbell's model of the Monomyth. The structure of the novel reproduces itself as a triptych of three parts.
Liminality lives in the gap between opposing poles. The symbolic code reveals the system of value oppositions in the pre-liminal and post-liminal worlds of the protagonist.
The entire metagame in The Magus is constructed by Conchis as a deliberate ethical experiment designed to awaken in Nicholas a sense of answerability — conceptualized by Bakhtin as the principle of the non-alibi in Being.
For my entire life as a whole can be considered as a single complex act or deed that I perform.Bakhtin, Toward a Philosophy of the Act, 1993, p. 3
It is no coincidence that Conchis repeatedly insists: "You are still becoming. Not being… you must accept yourself. It is not any more what you will become." Nicholas' existential anxiety stems, in Bakhtin's terms, from his disconnection from the "ontological roots of actual being," the disunity between "being and ought." He is deprived of participative-effective experiencing, and cannot "bestow sense" on himself or understand his "unique place in Being."
"It is only my non-alibi in being that transforms an empty possibility into an actual answerable act or deed." The acknowledgment of one's unique, irreplaceable participation in existence.
The unity of two-sided answerability — both for the content of an action (special answerability) and for one's very Being (moral answerability), united within a single act.
Moral meaning arises not from self-sufficient norms detached from the subject, but through understanding one's obligation toward an object within a unique event of being.
Human existence as a concrete, once-occurrent reality produced through an answerable act — the move from hypothetical modes of existence to actuality, taken from within.
The island is an attempt to compensate for the existential void not "from within oneself," but externally — "I needed a new mystery." Nicholas' radical lack of belonging ("I have no place in it") corresponds to Heidegger's notion of thrownness, and his persistent boredom to Heidegger's "muffling fog." Unable to gain access to Being-as-event through an internally grounded act, Nicholas allows myth to enter his consciousness — and so a mytho-liminal space emerges, where the genuinely expected act is replaced by mythological substitutes.
The mystical-liminal metagame, orchestrated by Conchis, is designed to compel Nicholas to perform a decisive "leap" into the world of the act. This culminates in the trial scene, where he reaches a singular, unrepeatable act by consciously renouncing revenge — not a passive gesture, but an answerable affirmation of the self in Being.
Answerable inclusion in the acknowledged once-occurrent uniqueness of Being-as-event is precisely what constitutes the truth.Bakhtin, Toward a Philosophy of the Act, 1993, p. 39
Liminal spaces in The Magus are coded through intertextual means that blur chronotopic boundaries and facilitate the merging of the real, the mythological and the mystical, permeating the entire spatial continuum of the novel.
Associated with the narrator's threshold state, characterized by a blurred chronotope and the destruction of stable temporal–spatial coordinates through the mythologization of "real" events and characters. Its metaphor is the topos of the Labyrinth, with the Minotaur as the symbolic center of uncontrollable instincts that must be confronted to exit liminality.
The metagame — the organizing framework of the novel — incorporates real topoi and loci (Greece, the island, the house, paintings) as portals to another dimension. Its principal mechanism is the objectification of ancient characters and plots, generating sustained psychological disorientation and existential uncertainty.
The hermeneutic code encodes downfall, symbolic death, the labyrinthine quest and transfiguration; the semantic code, connotations of ambivalence, anxiety, boredom and metaphysical lack; the symbolic code, oppositions of death/rebirth, reality/myth, vengeance/forgiveness, freedom/confinement; the actional code anticipates the protagonist's actions.
Through Bakhtin's philosophy of the act, the protagonist's liminality becomes a process of acquiring answerability (non-alibi in being). The climactic refusal of vengeance marks his passage from potentiality to actuality, transforming liminal experience into an ethically meaningful act that establishes him as the subject of his own being.
Extending the analysis of mytho- and mystic-liminal spaces to other works by John Fowles and to contemporary postmodern literature, with a focus on the ethical functions of liminality and intertextuality in narrative representations of threshold experience.