Both narrations, which appropriately contain the word “world” in the title, point to the
triumph of the parallel dimensions created by imagination over reality from two opposite points
of view: while “A World of Difference" follows the continuous, desperate attempts of the
protagonist to escape the dreary confines of his existence by moving into the ficti on he is
representing as a professional actor, the atmosphere of “A World of his Own,” as well as the
attitude of his protagonist are much more subdued. From the office to the movie set to the
house of the protagonist, where is dragged by his angry wife, to the movie set again and finally
back to the fictitious office and on a plane to an exotic destination as the script that bares his
name is nonchalantly discarded, “A World of Difference" can be seen as a race of the
protagonist through a variety of backgrounds in order to defeat reality. The writer of “A World of
his Own,” on the contrary, does not move from his cozy living room, and the fireplace where he
discards his creations symbolizes both comfort and peace. Whereas the protagonist of “A
World of Difference” has to fight throughout the narration to eventually make his delusion real,
that of “A World of His Own” has already the power of turning his smallest thoughts into reality.
The structural composition of both episode exemplifies the mechanism of the fantastic
effect for they both dose the possible and the impossible all along their respective narrative
syntagms - the false office where the protagonist of “A World of Difference" believes he works
is highly realistic, so is the film set, and the final shots which shows the set being taken down
indeed qualifies as hyper-realistic. Similarly, the living room in which the protagonist of “A
World of His Own” indulges himself into the whims of his imagination is very typical of a
middle-upper class suburban house, whose only particularity is to not have any - it is through
the representation of a very possible reality that the fantastic succeeds in presenting the
impossible.
Beyond their exemplary value as to the mechanism of the fantastic effect, these two
narrations also point towards a possible definition of our very object of study, which is narrative
parallel dimensions. As pointed out elsewhere (Ferreras Savoye 2013), the most traditionalist
literary critics agree with the most cutting edge post-structuralist theorists when it comes to the
un-definition of literature - from essay to philosophy, from theatre to correspondence, from
theological speculations to political discourses, the literary canon has included a wide variety
of writings, the literary nature of which can be in some cases highly debatable. This apparent
lack of discrimination, however, is more the result of generic incoherence than of openness, for
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