51 pages • 1 hour read
Michael Ende, Transl. Ralph ManheimThe Neverending Story
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1979A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Dangers of Wish Fulfillment
When Bastian enters Fantastica, he is altered both physically and psychologically. Brought about by his wishes, these changes initially provide Bastian with increased confidence, but they eventually take a toll on his memory, on the creatures of Fantastica, and on his ability to care for others. The novel therefore suggests that it is dangerous when all wishes come true and posits that Bastian’s true mission is to find himself again and to develop the ability to love others rather than only himself.
In Fantastica, the first personal change that Bastian experiences is that of his physical appearance. Gazing into the eyes of the Empress, Bastian sees a boy who is “slender and wonderfully handsome” (175) and looks nothing like the plump and pale child he had been. The fulfillment of this wish leads to other wishes and subsequent changes in the boy. In the Desert of Colors, for example, Bastian’s “wish to be strong had come true” (183). Following that, Bastian wishes to have real adventures that call for courage. While at first there appears to be nothing harmful in wishing for such attributes, the possession of which is often celebrated in human society, even the very first wish begins to inflict an invisible harm upon Bastian, for each wish causes him to forget another piece of his past life and identity. The granting of a new and more aesthetically pleasing outer appearance, for instance “made him forget, little by little, that he had ever been fat and bowlegged” (177), and the process of forgetting who he was in exchange for becoming someone else only becomes more and more grievous as the story progresses, causing seemingly irreparable harm to both himself and to the fantastical world around him.
Led by AURYN, which specifically tells him to follow the course of his wishes, Bastian begins to wish for new creatures and new happenings without pausing to think. Even though the lion Grograman advises Bastian to follow the truest desires of his heart, the boy makes his wishes impulsively and often with dire consequences. By manifesting a dragon for Hero Hynreck to fight and transforming the artistic Acharis into the mindless and destructive Shlamoofs, Bastian creates havoc in Fantastica. At one point, Bastian even ponders the morality of fulfilling these wishes, recognizing that by making the dragon, he “had created an unpredictable menace” that might “kill or maim any number of innocents” (240).
Despite these initial misgivings, Bastian’s hunger for wishing and imposing his will on the world is only fueled by the evil advice of Xayide, emphasizing the dangers of surrendering one’s will to another and allowing unscrupulous influences to taint one’s actions in life. Coupled with his own dissatisfaction with how his adventures are unfolding, Bastian starts to desire less innocuous attributes. Upon entering Xayide’s realm, for instance, Bastian feels that Atreyu and Falkor consistently belittle him and longs to be seen instead as threatening rather than innocent; this wish to be “dangerous and feared” (267) leads to his attempt to place himself on the throne of Fantastica itself. In the end, his misguided ambitions result in disaster, for he stabs and grievously injures his friend Atreyu at the height of the civil war that erupts, betraying all that was good and right about his character in the first half of the novel and causing his shift from hero to villain, at least as such roles would be envisioned within traditional story-telling.
Yet Michael Ende’s novel demonstrates more sophistication than the simple assignation of the labels of “good” and “evil,” for Bastian’s descent into corruption leads not to his destruction, but instead to a new focus on redemption and growth. To this end, Bastian’s final wishes are spent in the search to receive and to give love, thus regaining his original identity and finding the ultimate fulfillment. Bastian thus learns to focus his wishes not on the material and physical world and the power to be gained by controlling others, but instead on what can truly lead him home: the power of love. Thus, the novel highlights the need for all humans to moderate and control their desires by discovering what really matters in life.
Childhood and Coming of Age
A coming-of-age story traditionally focuses on the development of a child or teenager into an adult. Usually, such stories involve a search for identity that is formed as the character struggles to gain maturity and understand his or her place within the complex dynamics of the adult world. Throughout The Neverending Story, Bastian’s journey embodies the dominant attributes of the standard coming-of-age narrative, for the boy initially escapes his real-world problems by entering Fantastica but learns through his experiences how to become a more courageous and loving individual. Despite following the basic form of the coming-of-age tale, however, Ende’s novel, categorically refuses to elevate and celebrate the process of leaving childhood behind to embrace adulthood; on the contrary, Bastian ultimately maintains his childlike wonder, his passion for books, and his creativity even as he learns the all-important lesson of loving others. Thus, Ende suggests that many aspects of childhood, and primarily imaginative abilities, should be maintained as children age and mature.
While Ende’s philosophical conclusions set his novel apart from many other coming-of-age stories, the character of Bastian must still run a veritable gauntlet of challenges and undergo a series of changes that grant him a greater and greater sense of agency within the story as a whole. Initially deemed a failure by Mr. Coreander, Bastian is labeled “a weakling” and a “scaredy-cat” (8). His only passion is to lose himself in books, which allows him to forget the school bullies, his grieving father, and his lack of athletic ability. Additionally, Bastian feels that he is worth much less than others and is likewise embarrassed by his physical appearance. When he meets the Childlike Empress, Bastian tells her that the reason he waited so long to say her name out loud was because he “was ashamed to let [her] see” him (175).
These weaknesses, however, evaporate once Bastian enters Fantastica, for the boy uses his wishes to alter his personality, his appearance, and even his own psychological patterns. Yet while these changes allow those in Fantastica to perceive Bastian as a hero, each wish steals one of the boy’s memories, and thus, in his quest to recreate himself, he ultimately loses track of who he really is. Bastian also experiences a number of trials that call for good judgment and the ability to wisely moderate his wishes, but throughout most of his time in Fantastica, Bastian fails to consider the consequences of his wishes and never heeds the advice Atreyu, Falkor, and Grograman, all of whom warn him about the spiritual price of wishing bits and pieces of himself away. Thus, Bastian initially fails the tests put before him, as many coming-of-age heroes often stumble and fall many times before they prevail.
In the final chapters of the novel, Bastian experiences a symbolic rebirth as he learns to accept his true self while also growing substantially as an individual. After his failed attempt to become Emperor of Fantastica, Bastian realizes he needs to find a way back to the human world. Uncertain of how to complete this journey, Bastian travels through the Sea of Mist with the communal creatures, the Yskalnari. While the community helps Bastian, his observations of their lack of individuality allow him to start forming wishes that focus outward rather than inward. Instead of wanting “to be the greatest, strongest, or cleverest,” Bastian “long[s] to be loved just as he [is], good or bad, handsome or ugly, clever or stupid, with all of his faults – or possibly because of them” (334). After experiencing motherly love from Dame Eyola, Bastian’s longings focus on the outward world as he desires “to be capable of loving” (348).
These final wishes, while stripping Bastian of the last vestiges of his memories, allow for his final regeneration, and entering into the Water of Life thus functions as a metaphor for rebirth. Indeed, the moment before Bastian enters the water, he is bereft of not only all his memories but also of the gifts of Fantastica, and like an unborn baby, he has no knowledge of “which world he belong[s] to or whether he really exist[s]” (368). Once in the waters, Bastian becomes “newborn” (368), filled with joy, and able to accept both the good and the bad within himself. Thus, Bastian ultimately gains maturity due to his newfound ability to love others and himself.
The novel, however, differs from traditional coming-of-age narratives as Bastian’s recent maturity does not exclude a prime characteristic usually viewed as childlike—the imagination. Unlike a traditional Bildungsroman, in which the protagonist learns to accept the ways in which the world operates and learns to work within its constraints, Bastian sets out to remake and reshape his own world. Just as he recreated Fantastica, Bastian will now recreate his own reality by showing other humans “the way to Fantastica” (377), but this time, he will proceed with love and moderation.
Grief in Reality and Fantasy
Many of Bastian’s problems in the human world stem from his and his father’s experiences of grief. Reflecting on how his mother’s illness and death have impacted his father, Bastian notes that his father no longer talks to him or tells him stories. Instead, “there was an invisible wall around his father” (32) that maintained not only the father’s sadness but also Bastian’s loneliness. Faced with seemingly insurmountable problems in the real world, Bastian turns to books and escapes into a fantasy world. However, the world that Bastian enters is also threatened with grief and loss. The Nothing encroaches on Fantastica, portending the end of the kingdom and the death of its leader, the Childlike Empress. By fighting the enemy of Fantastica, Bastian symbolically battles the specter of his mother’s death and the breakdown of relationships that her absence created. In this way, Bastian’s journey to save Fantastica and recreate its world also works to hold death at bay and to deny death’s power over him.
In one of the final segments of his journey, Bastian is finally forced to confront his feelings for his mother when he encounters Dame Eyola the plant-woman who serves as a surrogate mother and bestows all of her affections upon him and nurtures him as his mother would have done. Accordingly, when Bastian first glimpses her, his initial reaction is a recognition of Eyola’s similarity to his own mother and is followed by a swift remembrance of her death:
Bastian was almost overpowered by a desire to run to her with outstretched arms and cry: ‘Mama, Mama!’ But he controlled himself. His mama was dead and was certainly not here in Fantastica (339).
Yet despite his recollection of his mother’s loss, Bastian feels a sense of homecoming in Eyola’s presence, and the remembrance of his mother’s love eventually allows him to want to love another. Likewise, when Bastian works in the picture mine with Yor, he discovers an image that moves him deeply: that of “a man wearing a white smock and holding a plaster cast in one hand” with a “troubled look on his face” (358). The man in the picture represents Bastian’s father, who is “shut up in a transparent but impenetrable block of ice” (358) that symbolizes the prison of unexpressed grief. Bastian’s discovery of this picture, even if he loses all memory of himself, allows the boy to enter the Water of Life and reunite with his father.
The reunion of the boy and his father allows the father to work through his grief, and for the first time, Bastian sees his father cry. While the mother is not mentioned here, the tears that Bastian’s father sheds suggest that he finally can express his sadness. Mourning allows the father to incorporate the acceptance of his wife’s death into his own identity and signals to Bastian that “he had brought [his father] the Water of Life after all” (373). Therefore, through the process of learning to love, to remember what it was like to be loved, and to express grief, both father and son are able to bond despite and because of their shared loss.
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