Underground

Many writers have seen through the flaws of the human World and in response have created alternative versions of it in their literary works. Sometimes these versions are better, sometimes they are worse, and sometimes they are just different. Richard Wright’s The Man Who Lived Underground and Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere both describe two underground worlds that mirror the “real” World above. They are quite similar in their settings, characters and in the ways they explore and reject the value system of the World above the ground. However, they differ in their essence, as Gaiman’s story is pure fantasy, filled with magical and legendary people, creatures, and places, while Wright’s one is based to a large extend in reality, and so cannot completely separate itself from it. This paper tries to explore more profoundly the similarities and differences between these two underground worlds through a close examination of descriptions, images, symbols and characters and aims at coming to a conclusion about their true relation to the “real” World.

The first most obvious similarity between the two underground worlds of Wright and Gaiman is their outer appearance. Darkness, bad smell, shadows, dirt, water and mud, together with manholes and underground sellers as their main entrances, are just some of the common characteristics that they share. Of course, Neverwhere is a fantasy novel, so the out of the ordinary, the magical, dominates the setting. Strange people and creatures; magical and legendary societies and courts; tube stations that exist in two completely different dimensions at the same time, or do not exist at all in “real” London; underground bridges and passageways that have no equivalent above; angels and beasts; floating markets that are there, or are not, depending on where one enters them from; all these constitute Gaiman’s Underworld and cannot be found in the sewers in Wright’s story.

However, there is a feeling of the magical in Fred Daniels’s underground world too. Time ceases to exist down there for him the same way it does for Gaiman’s main character, Richard. Also, ordinary events, such as the slow burning of a match or the transformation of sounds, seem strange and unearthly (Fabre 103). The lack of light and the uselessness of sight as a tool for exploring the environment also enhance the feeling of abnormality. On the whole, as Michel Fabre argues: “Strangeness, bewilderment, the supernatural- most of the elements of the fantastic are combined in this narrative. It would only require striking out several descriptions that are too explicit for us to imagine ourselves on another planet” (103). However, as Fabre proceeds to explain, the author does not let us go off entirely into an imaginary world, but always introduces some realistic notation that brings us back down to the familiar, to reality (103). According to him (Fabre), Wright’s purpose in doing so is to “lead us to question the familiar, something