The Neverending Story Essay -- Literary Analysis, Michael Ende

Michael Ende’s The Neverending Story is a timeless tale of adventure, imagination, and self-discovery. The story revolves around Bastian Balthazar Bux, an innocent but awkward, socially outcast, and greatly misunderstood pre-teen boy of a widowered father who finds himself metaphorically and literally lost within the pages of a magical book entitled The Neverending Story. Inside the book, Bastian discovers a terrible affliction has befallen the enchanting land of Fantastica, a mystic world full of rock creatures, purple buffaloes, and wind giants (to name a few). The malevolent force he finds is slowly and sporadically consuming Fantastica and all of its inhabitants. It is called the Nothing, and it threatens to destroy the world of Fantastica forever unless someone is able to find the one who will give the Childlike Empress a new name. The Childlike Empress, also known as the Golden-Eyed Commander of Wishes, is an aloof, seemingly omnipotent, and mysterious girl that rules Fantastica. She is the fabric which holds Fantastica together, and in essence she is Fantastica. Her desire for a new name (which she claims wills save the world) leads a brave young warrior on an arduous journey to find someone who can give her a new moniker. That warrior’s name is Atreyu. Atreyu is a strong and persevering hunter turned adventurer whose quest begins upon receipt of a message from the Childlike Empress to locate the giver of her new name. Though he does not fully understand his mission or final destination, Atreyu resolves himself to fulfill the request of the Childlike Empress. Bastian also resolves himself to see Atreyu’s story to the end, but he eventually realizes that Atreyu is not the only one on a mission from the empress an... ...an is tested by the empress to give her a new name. The examples continue to follow both parts of the novel and both heroes, though all are in disorder according to Propp’s sequence. Regardless, at least twenty-four of Propp’s thirty-one functions are present in Ende’s novel. CONCLUSION The myth motifs discussed are but a few of the many to be found in Ende’s novel, though I would argue that the mythological parallels came second to his writing an engaging story. Rather than a cookie-cutter myth comparison, The Neverending Story is a fantastic journey through imagination. Only when examined and pulled apart do the intricate mythological relationships reveal themselves. I still wonder if the foundations of myth lurk in the subconscious minds of story tellers like Michael Ende, or are the relationships found in his and others’ stories entirely coincidental?