Stardust

Chapter 1 serves as a prologue for the rest of the novel, showing how Tristran came to be. The second chapter serves to set up the mechanics of the world and the protagonist’s personal stakes. The opening line—“There was once a young man who wished to gain his Heart’s Desire” (1)—immediately sets up the fairy tale quality to the novel, the narrator’s unique voice, and the major theme at the core of the story: Love, Infatuation, and Desire.

Desire is present in several ways throughout these opening chapters; one of the earliest, perhaps surprisingly, comes when the narrator references historical figures meant to ground the story in a time and place: “Had you mentioned Faerie to any of them, they would have smiled at you disdainfully, except, perhaps, for Mr. Dickens, at the time a young man, and beardless. He would have looked at you wistfully” (5). This communicates the desire for magic and mystery in the banality of the everyday, the same desire that brings people to the market at Wall from all around the world. 

Other displays of desire are shown in the fight between two men over Bridget—Tommy and the foreigner’s desire for the woman, and the woman’s desire for drama and validation. Dunstan is presented contrastingly as someone practical and not prone to public outbursts. This juxtaposition sets up the intensity of his experience with Una later on and his path to Physical and Spiritual Transformation.

While Dunstan is a grounded, homegrown young man, he does desire new experiences in the world beyond: “[H]e daydreamed in his father’s meadow, of leaving the village of Wall and all its unpredictable charm, and going to London, or Edinburgh, or Dublin, or some great town where nothing was dependent on which way the wind was blowing” (6). The tragic irony, of course, is that Dunstan continues to live out his life in Wall married to his childhood sweetheart (it's worth noting that Daisy’s maiden name, Hempstock, is the surname of the family in Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane. Gaiman has confirmed they are distant relatives). In spite of this, the top-hatted man believes he has succeeded in his promise to fulfill Dunstan’s heart’s desire. This suggests that what he really yearned for was an experience that was fulfilling and alive.

Dunstan’s experience with both the top-hat man and the small man later known as Charmed also displays a key fairy tale tenet: hospitality. In classic folklore, hospitality, generosity, and respect for strangers is often rewarded, while avarice and selfishness is punished. Tristran later displays this same trait when he meets Charmed and is rewarded for it. When Dunstan meets Una, several pieces of foreshadowing are laid, including her chain, which is the same as the one Tristran later uses on Yvaine; the prophecy that will secure Una’s release; and the glass snowdrop that will become a recurring motif throughout the novel. To secure their meeting, Una tells Dunstan to “hoot like a little owl” (23). This moment is revisited when Madame Semele and her passengers escape the witch-queen toward the end of the novel: “[T]he pretty bird chuckled and twittered and trilled, and, once, it even hooted like a little owl” (224). Another moment of foreshadowing occurs when the village crier walks through the market hawking various bits of news, including, “The Master of Stormhold Suffers a Mysterious Malady!” (27). This “malady” will build until, 18 years later, it sets the events of the story into action.

With all of these pieces in place, the narrative jumps forward in time. There is a brief interlude of Tristran’s childhood in which he’s kept away from the next market and forms a bond with a kitten; however, he loses the kitten once it comes of age, paralleling his own adventure when he comes of age in his own time. Not long after, Tristran turns his attention toward Victoria instead, and she becomes the focal point of his life. Victoria is the daughter of Bridget, and parallels are drawn between them that highlight the similarities between the two generations, just as parallels are drawn between Tristran and Dunstan.

Tristran’s outing with Victoria expands both their characters; Victoria is never unkind or selfish in the way that beautiful stock characters in literature are often made to be, but she is young and takes the adoration of others for granted. Tristran is single-minded and determined to fulfil his promise; this is a classic literary device for launching a quest or adventure into action. Chapter 2 closes on a subtle literary allusion: “Tristran Thorn passed beyond the fields we know” (59). This phrase originally appeared as a repeated motif in the classic fantasy novel The King of Elfland's Daughter, by Lord Dunsany, as a description of the location of Elfland.