Neil Gaiman’s Stardust: Themes of Freedom and Confinement

I would venture to say that fee people have mastered the fantasy genre in the way Neil Gaiman has. Gaiman was born November 10th, 2019 in Portchester, Hampshire, England, making him 59 years old as of the writing of this essay. Gaiman went to Whitgift School in Croydon and worked as a freelance journalist for a spell. His first author credit was a biography about the music group Duran Duran in 1984. Around the same time, Gaiman worked with Dave McKean on a graphic novel called Violent Cases, which released in 1987. This partnership led to the pair being recognized as rising stars in the comic and graphic novel world.

Neil went on to write several fantasy works such as M is for Magic (2007), The Wolves in the Walls (2003), Coraline (2002), Stardust (1999), and American Gods (2001). It should also be noted that Gaiman has written and directed two movies, A Short Film About John Bolton (2002) and Statuesque (2009), the latter starring his wife Amanda Palmer. Gaiman is listed in the Dictionary of Literary Biography as one of the top ten living post-modern writers. His graphic novel Sandman received the 1991 World Fantasy Award for Best Short Story. His novel American Gods was the first selection for the One Book, One Twitter book club after winning the Twitter category in the inaugural Author Blog Awards.

The work we will be examining is Stardust (1999), and more specifically, the novel’s theme of freedom and confinement. The novel has many elements relating to the concept of wanting to be free of a burden in some form. Many characters want to be free of something that has been confining them to some extent. In some cases, that character ends up free at the end, showing that it is possible to break the chains that bind you to unhappiness, sometimes literally breaking a chain.

The first example of this theme being used is Lady Una’s story of how she became a slave.

'The chain? It binds me to the stall. I am the personal slave of the witch-woman who owns the stall. She caught me many years ago […] luring me on and on in the form of a pretty frog always but a moment out of my reach, until I had left my father's lands, unwittingly, whereupon she resumed her true shape and popped me into a sack'.

She detailed how she was lured into the witch’s service as a child and never had a proper childhood because of it. Fortunately for her, she did eventually escape the witch’s service after sixty years and is able to return home to Stormhold.

The next example is when Tristran captured the star, binding her with a chain like the one that was used by the witch from the first example to keep Lady Una prisoner:

“And with that he unwound one end of the silver chain and slipped it around the girl's slim wrist. He felt the loop of the chain tighten around his own. She stared up at him, bitterly'

Tristran, not yet seeing the star as a person, chained up the star like Lady Una was chained up. Because he viewed the star as an object, and not a person, he felt that it was okay to take it for his own. Over the course of the novel, the star did break her chains, and Tristran started to view the star as Yvaine, and not just an object for him to possess.

Another example involving these chains is when Yvaine met Lady Una before she was released:

'He once caught me with a chain much like yours. Then he freed me, and I ran from him. But he found me and bound me with an obligation, with binds my kind much more securely than any chain ever could'

This took place after Yvaine was released from the chain binding her to Tristran. Because Lady Una was bound by a similar chain, Yvaine was able to relate to her situation, but added that the life-debt that bound her to Tristran now was much more capable of keeping her in line than the physical chain ever was.

The last example took place after Tristran had returned to the town of Wall and spoke with Victoria about retrieving the star for her. After talking about the events that had transpired in Faerie, Victoria promised to fulfil her promise and marry Tristran. The exact wording of her promise to Tristran was that she would give him anything he desires, so Tristran says “Then I desire that you should marry Mr. Monday'. Victoria, after hearing this, breathed a sigh of relief. She had been living her life while Tristran was gone assuming she had sent him to his death beyond the wall. Subsequently, his return meant that she had to fulfil her promise to Tristran, despite her feelings for Mr. Monday that had developed in Tristran’s absence. This sigh of relief shows us that she was no longer confined to the promise that she had made him all that time ago, and that she could live her life free of guilt.

Stardust is a novel full of complicated characters. Many of them were bound by come sort of vow or commitment that weighed heavy on them in some way or another. Whether you are looking at Lady Una’s slavery at the hands of the witch, Yvaine’s binding by Tristran, or Victoria’s vow to fulfil Tristran’s desires, the themes of freedom and confinement are ever present. What’s more is that we often see these chains dissolved at some point in the novel, showing that it is possible for one to break that chains that bind them, be them metaphorical or physical.

Works Cited

• Gaiman, Neil. 'Neil Gaiman.' n.d. Neil Gaiman | About Neil | Biography. 07 december 2019.
• Gaiman, Neil. Stardust. HarperTeen, 2010.
• 'Neil Gaiman.' 06 november 2019. Encyclopædia Britannica. 07 december 2019.